Come Together. Stay Together. Work Together

Now you may be asking to yourself “ Kamilah where did you get that saying from?” Well to answer your question, this saying comes from this year’s Kingdom Task Force on Children’s Rights Conference where the various members of the Kingdom of the Netherlands come together and discuss the various tasks that we achieved and what is for the future of the various islands and The Netherlands.
 
For those who do not know, the Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries: The Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten. The Netherlands has three municipals in the Caribbean which are Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius. Now that you've received a brief history/geography lesson, we are going to focus on the theme of this conference and how can it applies to your daily lives and the importance of child rights in your communities.
 
Come Together. Stay Together. Work Together is translated from the theme Samen komen, Samen blijven, samen werken. This theme was initiated by the famous African proverb. “it takes a village to raise a child.” 

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It takes a village to raise a child ~ African Proverb 

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Why should we, as a people, Come Together? It is simple, you do more when you work together. Many people are quick to scream and complain that so many things are going wrong in our various communities, yet aren’t willing to sit down as different task holders and initiate conversation. Like I mentioned in my speech at the Victorious Living Foundation’s Leader Worth Following Awards, dialogue is important. It doesn’t matter which field you are working with, you need to sit down with your fellow colleagues and have a dialogue and what you guys can do as a collective to make that positive change in the community.
Team sports are great examples of the importance of coming together. Look at the Eastern Conference Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics. During the first two games, it was evident that majority of the work was being done by the Cavs superstar, Lebron James. Everyone saw the fatigued that plagued him at the end of the games, something that ended up working in the favour of the opposing team. During the break between games two and three they came together as a team, practiced and dialogue on how they can play better as a collective unit.
 
I am going to keep on with the narrative of the Cavaliers  and use other basketball terminologies as we look at the second statement, Stay Together. Stay Together means that we are willing to share the same space, whether the space is mentally or physically to make the dialogue something effective and positive for the community. During this time you will be able to learn about the people you are working with, their skills and weaknesses and how they can be allocating in whichever project you are working on. This also creates a special bond that makes the ended results better due to the time that was spent together working and brainstorming. The Cavaliers had each other’s back throughout the last two games, allowing their teammates to be comfortable to makes shots, giving them opportunity to be their best self on the court. That bond is also strong off the court or outside of the project, especially when your team member is criticized  for something that doesn’t make sense by the pessimistic people that are around our community. They will question your integrity, if you are truly genuine about your work, but you should be able to shut down all those negative assumptions when your team as already set that common goal.
 
Always remember, never do anything just for the camera.
 
Work Together is quite straight forward. As we go back to the Cavaliers, during game three and four, they worked together. Working together as one to be productive is important in today’s society. No man can run things by himself, help is always needed, sometimes you just have to dig deeper for it.
 
As we recap the importance of samen komen, samen blijven en samen werken in our daily lives, remember the African proverb once more “It takes a village to raise a child.”

That child can be the actual children in your community, that child can be the goal you want for your country, that child can be the goal you want for your brand or your business, that child can be the professional team you're on or the athletes, dancers, artists, debaters, whoever, you are pushing to succeed.
 
Just remember you have come together, stay together and work together to get the job done.