The Africa Pre-World Conference
The 2013 Africa Pre-World Conference took place in Nairobi, Kenya, May 2 to 5, under the able leadership of Tim Jackins, Diane Shisk, and a team of other leaders from Africa and the United States.
Tim reminded us why we gather every four years in preparation for the World Conference: We get to see a wide collection of Co-Counselors, people who have made decisions like ours, and be able to learn from and build relationships with them. We get a better picture of present-day reality. We also get to look at RC theory and the RC Community—including the Guidelines, which, if we read and understand them, can help us build stronger Communities.
Tim talked about what a great theory we have in RC—how it helps us get our minds back, and “keep on keeping on.” And he reminded us that RC ideas are more powerful when we apply them with a Co-Counselor and a Community.
He taught us that for RC to be effective, we need to discharge on any defeats. The oppressive society keeps people defeated. This breeds discouragement. We need to remember that discouragement is about the past, not the present, and discharge it.
We focused on the current four goals of the RC Community. Tim emphasized the goal on caring for the environment, which stirred my passion to work on it with others in Nigeria, armed with the fact that we co-exist with plants, animals, and humans. We talked about how pollution of all kinds is born of human distresses, including helplessness, which we can overcome with discharge.
He reminded us to follow our own thinking.
In doing some work on relationships, he emphasized that “once distress gets in the way, relationships will be difficult.” We must not act on distress recordings but rather dischargethem.
He taught us that any drug that numbs our pain makes us less intelligent and should be avoided—that we should discharge instead.
Thank you to all who made the conference possible.