After the planning stage, the community starts to implement the project. The deliverable, in this case, is the project itself and it requires efforts to keep the dream alive, as well as keep people engaged and motivated.
There is not one, secret way to execute a project well. As many times as you and your community try, that is how many times you will all learn with it. Listening to others’ experiences and advice can also be a good strategy to be more prepared for the challenges that you would possibly face in this stage.
In your e-portfolio,
a) Thinking about your previous experience if you need to give advice on the best practices to execute a project, what it would be?
In Lebanon, Koun has started a project to support migrant workers and refugees to practice yoga. In this video, Koun gives some general advice on how to execute an initiative.
And any advice you want to give to people starting their own initiatives?
[04:10s]
S: They need to be real. You have to be real and you have to put your part into it otherwise it won’t work. There’s also something I always say that I discovered, it is that for someone to be successful, two things must be present. First, a lot of action, that is a person works rationally and strategically to make things work all the while maintaining a surrender to the process.
[04:48s]
When things are hindered and clumsy, it’s impossible to take a breath and have faith that this thing is for the better and to root for other ways.
[05:00s]
So the combination between being so active and surrendering does magic because I was a control freak with no sense of surrender. So when I acquired a sense of surrender and allowed things to flow, things started working one after the other. So surrendering to the flow without being active won’t work. You can’t say, ‘the universe will fix it for me,’ but focusing on the action without this surrender or trust in the process is very tiring. So this combination for me is so magical and it makes things flow like it should.
During the execution, you may also want to document, to build relationships, and to make sure everyone and everything is lined up. In this video, Shams Network gives some advice that can be useful for this specific stage of the project.
Yes, lots of advice. First of all, documentation. Document everything. Try to document everything around you and be organized from the start because you’ll save yourself from a lot of work later. Also, one of the lessons that I learned and want to advise others on is (uhhh) what is compromise? We do not compromise on the matter, on the quality of the person that has been allowed to give this service. Whether he be a teacher, a nanny, a bus driver himself, do not compromise ever because it greatly effects the children, even if you aren’t aware that it directly effects the children specifically. However, in general, the people that are specialized in their fields need to be the best, not a friend, or a best friend, or a relative, etc… (Ummm) Also, I can advise the people that are starting now to rely on, to build relationships, to build networks and to rely on networking with other people as much as possible. Personally I will not waste a chance even if I had to work triple the amount, I wouldn’t waste a chance of a partnership or the chance of even implementing an activity together, anything, any opportunity because by starting, every experience, no matter how small, you need at the beginning stages of kind of organization, charity, social enterprise, whatever it is. And I’d also advise that from the start, you yourself as a founder and your team are all on the same page In terms of the mission and vision ensuing your goal. If a lot of people start off excited and just want to help then it’ll result in institutionalisation of the organization and it’ll end because everything will be new.
