It's all about our habits

The communities in which we live influence us both positively and negatively. Often this can impose dominance on us in case our strength to push the hurdles is not well grounded. Influences will never cease to exist. But, do they determine us? Do they shape our destiny? Can we accept to go with the flow of them?


Thus, in its pursuit to get necessary instruments to drive their mission to achievement, Umunyinya offers a space to its members to constantly leverage their knowledge to successfully impact their communities. This is because some people are held hostage by our negative habits or influences; they enslave us due to lack of knowledge and prevent us from being productive. It was in that context that a workshop was organized on July 21, 2018 around #the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and #Design Thinking. It was worth organizing that sharing session in order to have one view of the organization mission and which contribution every member is supposed to bring in.

The facilitators helped the participants explore the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which are: Be proactive, Start with the end in mind, Put first things first, Seek to understand, then be understood, Think win-win, Synergize, Sharpen your saw. These habits discovery has enhanced attendants to understand their position regarding the challenges we face in general as a nation, our responsibility and those of our organization and how to overcome them. Our accountability is critical to successfully address challenges we face nationwide and those of our organization. It was a crucial moment to review our organization mission statement to leverage our impact across the communities. By living the 7 habits, we are equipped enough to become profoundly more effective in the things that matter most to us in both our personal and organization life.

Besides discussing our identity, mission statement, and position in Umunyinya organization and challenges we encounter, we explored through design thinking how we can turn those challenges into opportunities. The Design Thinking session was meant to view the principles and how to apply them. The principles include among others Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. The challenge offered was: How might we raise more funds to enable Umunyinya address all the challenges we face.