Building Relationships

Haiti.Today.Tomorrow.

A basic tenant of the Principles of Solidarity is the emphasis of relationships as well as resources.  As stated in the CRS Partnership Manual, "A true partnership implies the building and nurturing of a relationship over a period of time that transcends one act of working together (such as a project), or of sending a series of checks. If the partnership is based solely on resources, then the partner with few material resources is excluded from full and mutual participation. When the relationship itself is highly valued, it allows for mutual participation." There is an assumption, though, that initiating/maintaining nurturing relationships is an easy matter.  When in fact, we know it takes effort to initiate/maintain nurturing relationships. One basic tenant of having a nurturing relationships is being an effective conversationalist. Do you consider yourself an effective conversationalist? We offer you NPR Celeste Headlee's TED Talk as one way to evaluate yourself as a conversationalist. Click here to play