Day 16 of the Positivity Challenge
Today is Day 56 since this outbreak of COVID19 was announced by Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama in April and the John Hopkins University has confirmed that Fiji now leads the number of confirmed cases increasing most rapidly when compared to other countries across the globe, due to numbers of positive cases doubling in 9 days. This evening Government announced another 105 positive cases, an increase of over 100% from the cases announced yesterday.
With this news and the ongoing discussions on social media about people not heeding advice from the Ministry of Health and continuing to place themselves and others at risk of contracting the virus, complaints about Governments inability to maintain the distribution of rations to families in lockdown, the discontent with the timing of Government announcements daily, the loss of jobs, income and uncertainty - it is easy to get caught up in the negativity of all that is going on.
However, if one looks hard enough - in the midst of the darkness, there also appears to be a glimmer of hope and light coming from organisations, social clubs, groups and individuals choosing to go out of their way to provide food supplies, clothes and baby items to those most impacted by the situation. As the negatives increase, so do the positive acts of kindness, which is what we have purposefully decided to focus our attention on for 40 days starting on May 29th, exactly 40 days after the first cases were announced.
Our intention is to be dealers of hope and to focus on the light believing that by doing so, the flicker of light will intensify and start to bring enlightenment to people’s minds, slowly shift perspective and change the way people respond to the situation.
In the book Change Your World, authors John C Maxwell and Rob Hoskins position it this way:
“The negatives in life may attract our attention and open our eyes to the need for change, but only by being positive and by helping to create and offer a better way can we positively change our world. “Creating positive change in communities is similar to developing people. Good leaders focus on people’s strengths and help them to develop those strengths. They don’t focus on their weaknesses. Similarly to help others live a better life, you don’t focus on their problems. “You focus on positive solutions that provide a better way for them to live.”
It is encouraging to see individuals rise up to provide positive solutions for this season in Fiji. Today the administrators of Barter for A Better Fiji page, which has close to 200,000 followers started an initiative to support the Ministry of Health campaign to get more Fiji citizens vaccinated during this time. BFBF are offering free mobile phone recharge vouchers to members on their page who would take the initiative to get vaccinated over the next few days.
The administrators of Families Helping Families Fiji Facebook page have done a number of $1 drives requesting the 5000 followers of their page to send in a minimum of $1 to enable them to provide necessary supplies for families who have requested assistance. It has been encouraging to watch the administrators steward the funds donated by the public and upload details on the page with written statements of expenses available for those who wish to see it.
While these may look small when considered within the context of the burgeoning situation, small changes happening consistently over time eventually add up to huge results.
In the words of Dale Carnegie
“Most of the things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope all.”
This if anything should be an encouragement to us all to keep being dealers of hope and to maintain a positive perspective despite the situation.
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