What you need to do is push yourself beyond your limit – Juhi meets Steve Chalke

Being a Londoner differentiates us from others in many ways. We have been raised to appreciate the diversity that surrounds us and in turn learn about other faiths and cultures. London is a highly multicultural city and often it is the case that to succeed in any field you need to have an intercultural understanding.

My recent experience shadowing Reverend Steve Chalke highlighted this to a significant extent. Mr Chalke is not only a Christian leader and a UN special advisor but a well-known social activist and founder of the Oasis Trust. The Oasis Trust was initially founded through his work in a local church youth group in 1985 and now has several hostels, schools and hospitals all over the nation. His awe-inspiring speech at my ParliaMentors Gradation left me wanting to know more about Oasis, leadership and the role of faith in the charity sector.

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I shadowed Steve for day, here’s what I learnt:

How does the role of faith play a part in the work you do with Oasis?

Christianity was essentially the foundation of Oasis, but faith is not forced. Christianity evokes non-differentiation and that is why Oasis is able to work. Our behaviour and policy all come from Christian ethics, but we do not exclude others because of our faith. I always tell people ‘believe in the Oasis ethos, not necessarily its theology.’

You work with the UN to advice countries about human trafficking. How effective is your work with them?

The aim of campaigning for anything is always learning how to engage people worldwide. UN is a charity based organisation and therefore it is very competitive. It’s a difficult job and there is slow progress because there is too much national politics. A friend of mine once told me a story back when the USSR was in Afghanistan. UN trucks were sent to Afghanistan with clothes and toys, however when they being unloaded several containers were found full of guns and weapons. This is the level of corruption that can creep in.

So why would anyone still want to work through the UN?

I have asked many people that same question, but what alternative do we have. If there is no UN, they will simply need to build another organisation and that won’t be much help. The League of Nations didn’t work, so they made the UN. The UN is our best hope, what it needs is internal reform. Powerful countries are always able to sweep the important subjects of the table in the name of national issues and it is often the issues surrounding human trafficking and women that are ignored. What we need is a ‘United States of the Earth.’

So what would you say is the key to being successful?

Being driven by a vision essentially. If you have a vision you are always frustrated in attempting to achieve it, and it is this frustration that drives you to do things whether it’s make that one extra phone call or send that email. The frustration will never let you give up, what you need to do is push yourself beyond your limit.

What next for Oasis?

Well we have quite a few new projects planned for the future. One being ‘Harvest for Hope’ in which we have been able to collaborate with Islamic relief and Christian aid and have gained the support of over 130 businesses. This project is going to deal with the refugee crisis.

We are also planning a peace project for 2018, which will mark 100 years for the end of World War One. We’re hoping to create something on a national scale and create teaching resources on ‘peace making.’ We want to use the negative terms that are being currently used today and take it in a positive direction. We want to ‘radicalise’ children towards ‘waging’ peace.

I was lucky enough to also attend a meeting regarding the progress of Stop the Traffik, who are currently advertising an internship opportunity which they have kindly requested I plug into this blog. If you’re interested see the link below.

http://www.stopthetraffik.org/jobs

It is evident through my time with Mr Chalke that he was right to suggest that the leaders of tomorrow need to be ‘global citizens and thinkers,’ rather than nationalists.

Juhi Verma