HaoBing: Development of People as the Core
Development of People as the Core
–An Interview to Ms Hao Bing, Chief Director of Brooks Education Institute (BEI)
- For an NPO, people are the priority with their development as the core. The question poses a great challenge as to how to develop people and get them back to serve the society.
- Every newly-born upstart holds a dream that it yearns to express. And it has already sailed off. So you can see its shape
“He who knows the male yet cleaves to what is female. Becomes like a ravine, receiving all things under heaven.”– Lao Tzu
Ravine is naturally associated with the river running through it; in ancient Chinese, though, ravine is rhetorically extended to brooks, where the water is clear and slow. In the doctrine of Taoism, water, together with ravine, is an icon of peace, forgivingness and eternity. And that is why the word “brooks” is selected as the name of the organization.
“Like a mother, we breed life with love; like water, we benefit the world without scrambling with it,” writes Ms Hao in the preface of BEI’s 2007 yearbook, which is, with no doubt, the best interpretation to the philosophy of Ms Hao, and BEI, an organization born amid the rampage of SARS.
She was chatting with two students around the food chain and ecological balance the first time I met her. Her remarks, so wise and witty, captured me with no alert. So much so that the moment I was supposed to raise my questions, I was still absorbed in her assertion: “The mankind is breeding the most scaring enemies like cockroaches with growing fertility and immunity to pesticide.”
Development of People as the Core
BEI is dedicated to three fields—rural education, nature education and citizen education—along with eight programs named as Rural Education Textbooks, Rural Libraries, Mankind and Grassland, and Global Forum, to list a few. Given so broad a range of fields and so deep a line of programs to handle, a sufficient number of volunteers have to be guaranteed. Equally important is the development of these volunteers.
“Strictly speaking, BEI is not a volunteer organization. It’s composed of a roughly stable structure of all-time and part-time staff, with duties to be pulled off by these people. However, we attach great importance to the development of the team as well as the individuals in it,” said Ms Hao, “For an NPO, people are the priority with their development as the core. The question poses a great challenge as to how to develop people and get them back to serve the society. BEI is trying to build on a culture of development in the hope of assuring development of all people and the programs they serve.”
Small Upstart Organizations as Infants
As a mature NPO, BEI is expected to set an example to those small upstart organizations troubled in feeble growth. As to this viewpoint, however, Ms Hao showed some disagreement. “Every newly-born upstart holds a dream that it yearns to express. And it has already sailed off. So you can see its shape,” she argued, “but it’s just like an infant who needs breeding and caring. It’s like us, with its own cycle of life. So don’t lay too much load on it. Don’t constrict it to a normalized framework by the standard of a mature organization, picking at its lack of professionalism in operation or finance, whatever…. Instead, a caring protection should be given to it at different stages of development to release unnecessary shackles.”
BEI as an Incubator for NPOs
When talking about the development of the team, Ms Hao slipped off surprising news that BEI is encouraging its staff to set up new organizations based on their own development and program resources. As to the reason she explained: “There’s nothing to worry about. I believe BEI is only a meaningless mark while the meaning lies in its people. Without these people, BEI has no room to stand. These people, wherever they are working, be it BEI or any other organization, carry on and out the ideas shaped in BEI, which, in turn, directs us to better fulfill the rest of the programs. What’s more, in a society still hungry for NGOs, more such organizations are called for. ”
Finally, when asked to predict the future of BEI, Ms Hao responded briefly: “Let it be!”
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