Pakistan Changemakers Hub (PCH), the initial form and operation of which was closed down in June 2011 after a year of connecting Changemakers, was re-launched in September 2011 as The Changemakers Hub (TCH).

What has changed? With this change, TCH is shifting focus to education and direct action taken by inspired individuals (referred to as ‘Changemakers’ for our purpose, henceforth) wherever they are, however they are, and with whatever resources they have. The action is taken by such individuals in their personal lives in the scope over which they govern in whatever capacity — as friends, brothers or sisters, chief executives, road sweepers, mothers, public services officers, business people, children, teachers.

This is a radical shift away from the initial plan we had, which was focused on individuals who were making organizational- or institutional-level change for their communities. Back then, we divided the public into two tiers: Changemakers were ‘innovators and community leaders contributing towards grassroots social change through their chosen field’; Change Agents were the rest of the public which we hoped to inspire and engage in some way.

This was in April 2010. 16 months later, this idea has become too clunky, too irrelevant.

We are giving this up in the favor of accelerating Change by doing several things:

• Redefining, in our vocabulary, a Changemaker as any citizen who aspires for inside-out Change. We believe that individuals of any social status, physical ability and such have the power to create change in their own capacity. (Read this article, including the ‘portfolio of concerns’ section, to understand the background thought.)
• Shifting the focus from planned, organizational, institutional ‘Change’ to a more authentic, humane, on-going Change that occurs at every level of human life — from the inner core to the family life, to social and political life. In current times, humanity cannot thrive until value is created from the smallest to the largest variable of human life. Now every transaction — not just the big, newsy projects — matters to our approach. (Get familiar with the four life zones we identify for practical purposes. For the quickest read, headings are sufficient.)
• The inner qualities of the Changemakers and work on cultivating those qualities comes before any change or contribution to the world. This is seen as an on-going, moment-to-moment process rather than a stock process.
• Making free education available to aspiring Changemakers.
• Becoming technology-neutral. We’re mixing online education with real-life meet-ups.
• Doing what we’ll need to do, when, and how.

TCH, then, is an idea and an inspiration for individuals in Pakistan and beyond who are concerned with matters of inside-out transformation as conscious residents of Planet Earth.

(TCH is not a formal organization — yet anyway. ‘Changemakers’ is an idea we don’t lay claim to — we don’t own it, just like no one owns ‘citizen’. TCH may initiate projects that have formal, organized structures and systems; each project defines that clearly. There’s no formal membership for now. And no, we can’t tell you how to save the world. :-})

Welcome to the all new The Changemakers Hub!