Today much of the world is still divided into classes, into more and less, into abundance and scarcity— based on intentional design or unintentional circumstances. In some places on this earth, it is a given, an established fact of scarcity. After all, where there is no water, there is no life.

The way we have organized our economy, it is in principle possible to provide every person on earth with water and food. So, there does not have to be scarcity; and yet there is a lot of scarcity and inequality. We find this in all aspects of life, economics, food, housing and so on.  The chances of living a fulfilled life in this world depend on finances, and where you are born.

As staff and faculty members of Intention, Centre for Leadership and Coaching, we attended the ACTO conference 2020 last June.  In the seminar session presented by the ICF Foundation, we became aware that we, as a training institute, also focus our work on a target group that earns a reasonable amount of money. We realized that we exclude people in our target group. In our mission of “making a difference for as many people as possible” our intention was to act on it.

That became an internal conflict for us. This internal conflict was about the fact that we thought we were standing up for diversity, inclusion and belonging; but in our enrollment for students, we only had a focus on students who have an abundance of money. Students with no money to pay for the training were excluded.  We didn’t have any attention for them.  And that was our conflict.

During the seminar we became aware of this conflict we had. After the seminar, staff and faculty members had a great discussion about it. We are inspired by the ICF Foundation and have thought carefully about being connected to our mission. We want to be closer to our mission and to walk our talk. For that reason, we will offer more opportunities and more equality in our world.

Our mission is to make this world a better place for all the people. We do this by training people to become a coach or a leader who can then pay it forward.  We stand for equality; everyone deserves a chance. Therefore, once a year we will be offering two scholarships for people who dream to become a coach or a leader.  We will also start having some members of our cohorts provide free training and coaching for a day. In these ways we will Pay It Forward.                                                                                                                        

Johan van Bavel  MCC, coach trainer and “addicted to the love for coaching”. Past president ICF Chapter The Netherlands. Board member ACTO. Director ACTP coach training program Co-Creatie; “Global oriented Dutch guy living in the south of The Netherlands”.

Video about program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7mh9yICDoQ

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