What is it to be a Hummingbird? Watch the video to find out!
Let us be frank — our world is not going the way we want it to go. The social problems are growing, our mothership “Earth” is struggling, we are all becoming a bit more self-centered, our education systems are a mockery for the majority, the government pays the banks with our money… we could go on and on. We have reasons to complain, many reasons, and as nobody seems to be doing anything other than the few and the chosen, we invite you to become one of them. We do not need to convince people, we believe we are many already, we just need to connect and get vocal. We should all stop complaining and do something for somebody who hasn’t been as lucky as us. After millions of years of evolution, we can do something about this growing gap between rich and poor, between the haves and have nots. What matters is not how many good ideas and intentions you have, but what you do with them. At the Hummingbird Collective we are convinced that there are many people and organizations that care for their fellow human beings. We are better served by connecting ideas and activities that can have a positive impact on all of us. We want to connect, fuse, recombine. We want to complete each other, and form new collaborations. Good actions are constrained by their context, by the parts and skills that surround them. We offer a way of opening this context in a more protected way. Our boundaries will grow as we explore these boundaries — new actions and ideas will pop up and distribute or grow into something bigger and better. With the enormous amount of people wanting to help, assist, advise and teach, we are convinced that we are now better prepared than ever to make this world a better place. In our network, good ideas and actions will have the natural propensity to go into circulation. The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table. Building blocks, spare parts that can be reassembled. We are hundreds already, and we need you to grow and become part of this social change — stop complaining and start doing something about it! IT IS TRUE, WE ARE 99%, PROBABLY EVEN MORE THAN THAT!
Our work is based on 5 principles:
Participation: Participation has to be real, too many times “the population” is used for pictures and to justify budgets, we offer real dialogue and interactive moments. Participation on all levels, for everybody, all the time. Our experience shows that the process is slower but more sustainable.
Pertinence: Not only the local culture has to be taken into value, also the learning level and velocity of the people, cultural relevance is basic, knowing how to work with mothers, teachers, youngsters, community members and children and when to use which strategy is one of our strengths.
Promotion: In every project we want to obtain significant changes, not the big goal with the integral approach, but the small significant changes that we can make sustainable and that have a meaningful impact in the lives of whom we work for and with.
Permanence: All our programmes and projects are part of a long term vision in which sustainability is our top priority, it is not because we have “finished” one project that we no longer maintain contact with the community. We work and live with them.
Balance: There has to be a balance between giving and receiving, we learn and become better human beings by sharing knowledge and investing time and energy, we strongly believe that the key to a better quality of life is obtaining a balance between giving and receiving