Translator: Denise RQ Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
So picture the following girl.
She's from a poor family
in a really remote village in a rural Behar, India.
She has seven siblings and lives in a very conservative village
where Muslim girls like her rarely work.
Conclusion? She is a victim in need of saving.
But what if I tell you a story about the same girl,
a girl named Suhani, but in a different way?
Actually, as I was writing this, it was 6:45pm on a Sunday
and I was interrupted by the sound of Suhani's infectious laugh
as she was training local women how to sew in the room next door.
I want to take a second to describe Suhani to you.
So close your eyes - and please don't sleep -
and when I tell you to open your eyes again, please open them.
And picture an 18 year-old girl with a big, toothy, white smile
and permanent laugh lines on her face.
Not only Suhani worked on her own vision
of changing the status of women in society by teaching and training them
but also she has invited other local girls to join in and do the same.
In spite of local cultural norms, Suhani has gradated from high school
and plans to pursue a college degree as well.
And, most importantly, from my perspective,
she never lets me leave her house
without a lot of laughter and a belly full of chai.
Open your eyes. This is Suhani.
Suhani is a catalyst. Suhani is a change maker.
Suhani is a village visionary.
The stories we tell have profound effects on what we expect from people
and therefore, on how we interact with them.
If we only tell the first story of Suhani,
then we assume she is deficient and in need of help.
We will probably give her handouts
without seeking to involve her in the process.
However, if we tell the second story,
and if we view Suhani as a change maker or a social entrepreneur,
then we will further support her efforts to create change in the village.
We may pair her with a business person
who can help her figure out where to sell the products made by the women she trains.
Or we may help her get funding for an idea she has
to improve education in the village.
The possibilities are limitless.
These effects are not merely limited to stories,
but are also backed by science.
Psychologist Robert Rosenthal arbitrarily labeled
some rats as 'bright', and others as 'dull',
and then asked experimenters to run them through a maze.
The rats labeled as bright solved the maze much quicker
than the rats labeled as dull.
Why?
Because these labels changed
how these experimenters touched and treated the rats,
which, in turn, affected their ability to complete the task.
As you may imagine,
there are similar research for humans as well;
that what we expect from people changes how we interact with them.
For example, we may stand closer and provide better eye contact
to people we expect more from and vice versa.
Imagine how that would feel.
People expect that little of you, so they stand further away,
and they don't look you in the eye.
More importantly, they talk to you in a way
that denies your ability to belong to the group and participate.
A generic, and impersonal "Hey, you" is substituted for your name.
And when speaking to you,
people may stop half way and give up on you.
"Oh, never mind. You wouldn't get it anyway."
Imagine how that would feel.
That's essentially what the narrative we tell of rural India
has done to its villages by only telling the first story of Suhani,
one of lack of money, lack of education, lack of health.
A story of lack.
This has created a collective consciousness
in which our worst side assumes
that India's villagers are that way because they are lazy,
and our best side assumes they are too poor to do anything for themselves,
so we seek to give handouts.
Our response to lack.
Well, in reality, both assumptions are wrong.
Yes, there's a room for improvement in our villages,
but improvement needs to come from within.
And the only way that it will happen is by telling the second story of Suhani,
focus on what's working in communities and continue to build on them.
You can't build on lack or problems,
you can only build on strengths and assets.
The work I do in rural India with my organization 'Project Potential'
is completely based on this subtle, but incredibly important premise
that if we focus on what's right with people
rather than on what's wrong with them then the possibilities are endless.
We identify, train, and support village visionaries,
young people like yourselves
who have a bold vision for their communities.
We give them the permission to dream and dream big.
You are allowed to work for a better tomorrow.
And we are here with you.
And it's OK to fail along the way.
The thing about Suhani
is that she was there all along, like a diamond in the rough,
just waiting to be discovered, cut, and polished.
But no one thought to look for her in rural Behar.
So her greatness lay undiscovered, her potential untapped,
both by herself and by others.
So an important part of our selection process
is asking people what they think.
What's your vision for your village? And why?
How do you plan to accomplish it and what support do you need from us?
These candidates are never asked these questions.
So whether they are selected or not, the process of discovery begins
when we treat them like experts and ask for their opinions.
From the beginning,
Suhani's vision was to inspire and train women to become independent.
The support she needed from us?
A community where she could share her ideas and get feedback.
But as we all know,
true visionaries don't just write and talk about their visions.
They are also able to realize them
by learning, growing, and working in the field.
So after just getting a little bit of training
on how to mobilize local people and resources to create change,
Suhani went out, and did just that.
In just her first week,
she found and trained two local girls who then went out
and started a learning center for out-of-school children.
Meanwhile, Suhani identified families in the village
who had sewing machines, and convinced them to lend them to her
so that she could teach local women how to sew.
But like a diamond in the rough, it's not enough to just discover it.
You also have to cut and polish it
which is why we focus so much on training and supporting our visionaries as well.
More than an organization, Project Potential is a mind set.
What are the default questions you ask people when you first meet them?
Do you ask about their weaknesses, which diminish them?
Or do you ask about their strengths which can be built on?
Do search for all the problems in a community
or do you instead look for bright spots and success stories
which can be leveraged for change?
Do you limit expertise to the Ivy League degree holder
or do you realize that knowledge comes in many forms?
That there's a difference between literacy and education.
In many ways,
our training is as much about unlearning as it is about learning.
Yes, challenges exist. But so do solutions.
So how do we find and scale up solutions
rather than getting bogged down by problems?
So finally, onto support;
think about how you live, and who you spend the most time with.
We're the average of five people that we spend the most time with,
so it's critical that we surround our visionaries with five people
who will help them reach their full potential.
So in that vain,
we have our visionaries live together in a group of six with a mentor
so that their environment is not one of complaining, blame, and problems
but rather, is one of potential, possibilities, and solutions.
So how is this cutting and polishing affected Suhani?
Recently, someone asked Suhani,
"What's your vision? And what do you want your legacy to be?"
Suhani responded, "I want to serve so many people
that they start to put 'the' before my name, like 'the' Suhani."
When we asked her how she plans to do that, she said,
"You know Malala? Like her, only bigger."
It sounds funny, but why not?
Suhani has the same 24 hours a day that Malala does.
So why can't she be just as courageous? Why can't she create just as much change?
But if we viewed Suhani as a victim in the first place,
then she never would have found the audacity to want to become
a Nobel Peace Prize winner or even a village visionary.
She would have been stuck at home without an outlet for her potential,
without a platform for her to inspire, teach and support her community.
See the difference?
When we assume
only people with certain qualifications and degrees are capable,
then we end up handicapping our society and world.
It's time for us to begin identifying, celebrating, and building
on the strengths that people already have,
rather than just focusing on what they don't have.
We need to focus on potential in place of problems.
Create shared objectives instead of obstacles,
and empower dreams instead of furthering dependency.
And why not? Why not?
The Suhani armed with a lot of laughter a big vision, and an even bigger smile
is proving one community at a time that all the potential we need
to radically transform rural India is already there.
We just need to, like a diamond in the rough,
discover, cut, and polish it.
Thank you.
(Applause)