Saturday, November 11, 2006

Making A Difference

Kian Ming wrote on Jeffrey Sachs being announced at the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair in Poverty Studies in our blog, Education in Malaysia.

Jeffrey Sachs, one of the most influential development economist in the world wrote "The End of Poverty".

Nik Nazmi highlighted the Jeffrey Sachs quoting Robert Kennedy at the end of his book. It's a great (and inspiring) quote, and it certainly deserves a mention here.
Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills - against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written a history of this generation…

It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Yes, we certainly can make a difference.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This quote certainly is timely in light of all the Omens you blogged about earlier. I have been working overseas for 3 years now but will be moving back to Msia in 2-3 months time. As much as I look forward to that, I sometimes can't help feeling a sense of hopelessness reading about our country.

Anyway I salute people like you for trying to make a difference in your own way.