Nov 6, 2020
We rely too much on politicians
On the 20th August 2018, a 15-year-old girl sat down in front of the Swedish parliament. She was striking from school to emphasise the importance of climate change to the Swedish politicians and people prior to the parliamentary elections.
That was Greta Thunberg. She became world famous due to this action and have since then traveled sustainably around Europe and the US to participate in demonstrations and address parliaments. Her school strike for climate became what most people know as Fridays for Future.
It is inspirational how Greta Thunberg went from striking in Stockholm in 2018 to mobilising (mainly young) people around the globe to call for political action on climate change.
However, relying on these politicians will not cut it. Politicians can promise you everything you desire, but being able to actually put it in place often proves to be very difficult. It is important to support parties and politicians you believe can lead the change in your country — and it is important to vote so we can maintain some sort of decency and preservation of human rights.
But we must act. Not just march in the streets, but act through supporting social ventures or starting them ourselves. We have to think about where we spend our money, and the impact we make through our wallet. We have to think about how our skills can make a change for the better in the world. Everyone, everywhere have valuable skills that they can use to make change.
Everyone, everywhere has causes they care deeply about. Once they are identified, you must think about how you can use yourskills — or acquire new ones — that can best support these causes. The last steps are finding out how much time you can give to support these causes and then either start or join existing ventures who would need these skills.
This is the philosophy we share at We Make Change. That we must not only talk, but act. That’s why we enable Social Enterprises and NGOs to grow their impact by receiving support from people who care about their causes, who have valuable skills to contribute and who have time to make it happen.
We can’t rely too much on politicians, but we can rely on ourselves to make the change we want to see.
