Last week was a week full of incredible news, glamour, and pomp as we attended the Quality Health Care Kenyan Awards. These awards are the first of their kind that are nationwide with the participation of the Kenyan Ministry for Health and award excellence in the health care sector. During the night we won two awards the health innovation project of the year and runners up in the best use of social media for health nationally. These awards came through the incredible work of the NCDs 365 project which is a 5-year health literacy and education project for non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa that has so far reached over 3.5 million people continentally operating in 10 countries and improving health literacy for chronic diseases.
So here are three things I learnt from winning
- Its all worth it. – when I started the NCDs 365 project the number of challenges and the level of discipline that was required from me to be able to push the project forward was huge. And often running such a big multinational project meant serious coordination, resilience and grit. Off course there would be feelings of blame, feelings of sluggishness and feelings of demotivation. But we had to pull through, we had to wake up and show up every day and deliver excellence. And we did and this award really solidified to us that all of it was worth it.
- Positive culture of mutual respect. – winning makes it easier to respect and listen to one another, because after all, if you win together, then the presumption is that everyone is a good player. Winners can maintain high aspirations and act generously toward others. This feeling was something that I learnt especially afterwards when I was meeting and engaging with other winners. Winning made us even more open to new ideas, positive criticism and room for respect.
- Self-determination. – There is a phrase that goes, “Winners have more control over their own destiny. “Why tamper with success?” we often say. I found out that this was very true. When you win your self determination actually increases. I remember when picking the trophy , what was running on my mind was that we have won a big award, now we need to go bigger, we need to go better, we need to aim higher. Clearly winning motivates you to go bigger and better.
What have you learnt from winning?
#ogwenoimpacts
STEPHEN OGWENO 