Building Collaborative Good through Bridging Divides

Salt is composed of two poisons: chlorine and sodium. If you ingest either by itself, you can die. Put them together and you have ordinary salt - one of the most useful substances on planet earth. And so it is with us. When we unite and collaborate, we too can transform into a very useful good on planet earth.

Transforming communities and uniting the people within them is not so straightforward. Several of us view social cohesion as the government’s job, not our responsibility – why should we bother?

However, we need to understand that with social cohesion comes peace and stability, and the effects of its absence bleeds into every aspect of our daily lives. If there is instability, investors will think twice before investing into the country, and this will affect the creation of jobs. Talents will take up positions elsewhere, and without diversity, there will be no creativity, no innovation, and our businesses will suffer. It is a domino effect that will affect our quality of life and our ability to build our families. Social cohesion is therefore our means to our ends.

Change starts with dialogue. When there is a safe space for people of differing faiths (or no faith) to share our views not for the purpose of conversion, but rather to find a common ground, we develop a deeper understanding and empathy for one another. Each generation inevitably inherits unspoken prejudices from the generation before – we need to be able to dismantle this and talk about this freely.

This will take trust and it will need to be built. We do not want to stop at dialogue, as it is only a surface change – sowing the seeds. After finding our common ground, we want to take it one step further to collaborate on projects for the social good. While doing this, we can strengthen and deepen the bonds across divides, developing unity. It is only when seeds take root, that it can then grow and multiply.

When we reach across our differences, we can bridge divides and build a culture where everyone collaborates for the common good, creating far greater impact together than we could if separated. We are the building blocks of social cohesion in our societies – it starts with you and I. Remember, we will have to live in this structure that we have built, so let’s enjoy the salt, and pass it around please!