A Wedding Dance… the father of the bride dancing with his family – full of love, warmth and community spirit in Sifnos, Greece. Social change involves all of this, along with righteous anger, protest, clear-minded strategy and collective action.
I recently interviewed a most inspiring woman recently who said “I feel that every single moment is a choreography and we’re all dancing all the time”.
She lives in Mexico and in my view, embodies the true meaning of leadership. She steps into roles wherever she sees need – always finding creative and joyful ways to challenge the system and make a difference in the lives of people struggling with deprivation and pain.
She is a trained physician, midwife, neurosurgeon, and describes herself as an activist, feminist, educator, mother. She’s danced with women mourning victims of femicide, worked with teenagers dealing with intergenerational drug addition, pregnancy, HIV and STDs. She’s run programmes with older people to support their health and find joy through the movement, singing and visual arts. She’s worked on peace-building programmes to end conflict and violence, to name a few things she told me about. She wants to do so much more and will be guided by opportunities that come her way, as long as they align with her values. But she also knows that she must take care of herself so she can sustain her energy in the decades ahead.
I will tell her story in my forthcoming book, The Octopus Way: Leadership, Movement and Social Change, along with other unsung heroes that make a difference every waking moment of their lives