Are you going to wrong way?

The world is full of problems. We all know this.

And yet it is also full of beauty, kindness and hope. Courageous individuals doing incredible things, achieving breakthroughs in all areas of life and giving back to society in ways which the mainstream media are unwilling to cover or shout about because good news doesn't sell.

As a species, humans tend to be intrigued and fascinated by the bad and the evil, the problems and the pain, because for many of us, it is the closest we get to any of it - and we prefer it that way.

We're close enough to know about the bad stuff, but not close enough to experience it in any way other than watching or reading about it.

Rubber necking on the highway when there is an accident, watching a documentary on the plight of the planet and the incarceration of prisoners, or listening on the radio to the latest stabbing or rape that has just occured, is as close as we want to be.

But just how close are we to the problems the world faces, and how are we contributing to the human rights violations on a daily basis just by going to work?

Do we really know about the devastating impact the company we work for, and the clients we serve have on communities around the world?

For the majority of people in the job market, choosing a career path, or a job, is based purely on salary, location and hours. Next will come the benefits and holiday package, before career progression, and very few job seekers will care for the values and mission statements of the company.

Those who do enquire about the values and mission statements, will no doubt ask the arbitrary questions to show they are interested, but fail to go any deeper to understand how the clients served by the company are using the products or services.

Who are the clients? What are their mission statement and values? How does the company choose it's clients? What are the practical steps the company implements over and above the lip service being provided?

In yesterday's article, I gave an example of government spending because it is relatable to all and at some point or other everyone has moaned about government spending. The truth is, it isn't just the government spending that is continuing to keep countries and communities in poverty, famine and drought.

It is the big corporations many of us work directly for as either an employee or service provider.

At the very start of my entrepreneurial journey aged 21, I refused a $250k dollar quarterly contract based on the lack of values and respect the CEO had for his wife and family. Putting down the phone, I sat back in my chair in a daze.

Here I was at the very start of my first business having just kissed goodbye to a $1million dollar contract, something that could have set me and my business on the road to success in many ways.

But it wasn't worth it. Betraying another woman, meant betraying myself and every other woman out there. It meant prostituting myself for success and ultimately losing my self respect, and no amount of money in the world is worth that.

The same is true for the corporations who choose profit over sustainabilty. Oil companies who rape a country of it's resources whilst stripping the local residents of their dignity, their home, their only sources of income and then leaving them displaced within their own countries... just so the shareholders are happy and the stock prices look good.

Whilst living in Egypt during the Uprising, I wanted to find out more about the oil companies and the Chinese banks who operated within the country. Teaching business English and developing the leadership teams was not only a lot of fun, it was very insightful.

Were oil companies as bad as they were made out to be? And if they were, how could I effect change whilst working with them?

What ideas could I plant within the leadership teams about their ethical practices, or lack of? Which human rights articles could I use within the lesson plans, as well as the strategy development and implementation?

Working with these teams, I wasn't surprised there was a lot of misogyny, ignorance and arrogance deeply embedded within those I was working with.

Lesson by lesson, meeting by meeting, attitudes were changing, as was the awareness and wider impact these individuals were having on the world outside of their pay cheque.

For assessment sessions I would present each team with a 'debate topic" which happened to be an Article from the UDHR and ask them to discuss the aspects of it, how the business was implementing such rights within the organisation and what needed to be done to create change.

The teams of course had no idea they were being assessed during these debating sessions until after the debates took place, because how can you truly assess someone in their natural ability when they know they are being assessed? Their learnings need to flow from them naturally, not be performed momentarily.

As employees and service providers we have a duty to oureslves and each other to say 'No' to a contract which comes from a company which violates human rights around the world, otherwise we are contributing to the violations and injustices which happen as a result of our work - regardless of whether we are directly or indirecty contributing.

Pretending or choosing not to notice, or choosing to not educate ourselves is not an excuse. If we can learn to add captions to our promo videos and twerk on tik tok then we can very easily learn how to implement human rights as a way of life in our business dealings.

Working with the oil companies and Chinese banks may have been a conflict of moral interest for me in many ways, but sometimes researching the industries from the insight out, and effecting change from within is one of the greatest ways we can bring about human rights for everyone.

The individuals within the teams were not bad people, just uneducated in certain ways due to social upbringing and the prestigious international schools they attended.

Through teaching business English and leadership, underpinned by human rights and social justice content, those who attended my workshops changed the way they interacted with others, and changed policies within the organisations.

Whether those changes are still in place now, and whether the strategies created together were implemented throughout the whole company, I will never know other than through distant observations.

Six months was never going to be long enough to deal with the many human rights violations going on within the companies, or the damaging impact of drilling for oil has on the environment, but with what I learnt, I have been able to create impact through my writing, awareness and social activism.

Employees within a company have more power than they think they do to create positive social change, to ensure human rights are recognised within the organisation, and in the countries impacted by the corporations activities; whether it is oil, travel, banking or manufacturing.

Employees are never 'just the receptionist' or 'just the warehouse manager', nor are they 'just the accountant, sales administrator or manager of the department'. They are what makes the company a company, and only when they choose human rights as a way of life for everyone in everything they do, at home, at work and at play, do we truly start to create the much needed change in the world.

Only when we stop blaming the governments for their spending habits, and look at the spending habits and policies the companies we work for and with, do we get to start making a change on a global scale.

And only when we start wanting more than job security for ourselves, and start wanting it for everyone, will the right to housing, food, education, health and security be recognised.

To familiarise yourself with the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself, your family, your business and the future.

And whilst bad news travels fast and sells newspapers, good news creates happier people which creates positive social impact, which in turn creates ripple affects of awareness and abundance; and abundance is our birth right, our inalienable right, and no one ever said they didn't want more abundance in their life.

Did they?

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