A Life Changer Book

If you want to learn about how people are making their homes and communities safer and better around the world, read A Path Appears, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  This book explores how agencies and individuals from all walks of life are using studies, outcome-based techniques, and creativity to stand for peace, love, kindness, and equality for all in the face of poverty, ignorance, and oppression. 

 

Using stories about everyday people who are working hard just to make it through each day makes this book relatable to our work and to the lives of many of our clients.  We already know what a fright poverty can be and the havoc it wreaks upon lives across the lifespan.  A Path Appears gives us accounts of all that, and also provides clear and concise examples of individuals and agencies who brought about ongoing positive change.

 

This book is a best-seller, and that alone gives me hope.  Most other people in the world, I like to think, want to do good.  Sometimes in this work, I lose sight of that.  Let’s face it  - our jobs depend upon the other side of that premise – that people do not do good - that they are violent, and abusive, and that children, our most vulnerable population, are at the most risk of being affected.

 

I love this book.  I loved the characters I met in the book.  There’s a guy who left a lucrative job in television to work with retired people and get them involved in working with youth in poverty stricken schools as mentors and tutors.  Yay for him, right?  But the book is also full of stories of everyday people like you and me who not only came up with grandiose ideas of how to address their communities most oppressive concerns, but followed through with actions that made a real difference in the lives of young and old. 

 

It is an inspiring read.  Perhaps we should order it for our library.  It is written with elegance and yet strikes such a powerful chord both intellectually and emotionally.  I hope you read it.  I hope the same thing happens to you that happened to me.  It made my work more meaningful to me.  It made my resolve go deeper.  It made me bolder in my efforts - to get over personal shyness and timidity for example - to address the sobering issues that few others are willing to discuss. 


Written by Eckie F, Education Specialist