[IPS News] A call to arms for community leaders

[NewsBot]

We are currently living through one of the most turbulent times in history.

A once-in-a-century pandemic has a grip on all of us.

Whatever the outcome, come the end of the year, few of us are going to be the same again. We will have to sacrifice our personal freedoms, and some of us much more.

Like you, I'm worried about my family, my friends and neighbours. I'm watching the news, scrolling through social media and consuming articles from scientists, scholars and doctors.

The news coming out of Italy is truly heartbreaking. Doctors and nurses have to make life and death decisions daily as they wage war with the virus. Those of us in the UK and the USA are nervously watching the graphs climb in lockstep of Italy from just a few weeks ago.

It would be easy to succumb to fear and withdraw completely.

But as community leaders, we cannot.

Let us take some inspiration from the brave people of Italy who have suffered much with an overstretched health care system and enforced quarantine yet still sing from their apartments in a display of resolve.

In a time where we have to remain apart, we must come together.

We have to keep showing up and leading.

We must focus on what we still have and not what is being taken away.

Now more than ever, we are needed to keep the world connected. To bring comfort; to support and to love each other.

This year is going to test every one of us.

But whatever comes our way, I know that we are stronger together.

"Their faithful and zealous comradeship would almost between night and morning clear the path of progress and banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men."

Winston Churchill

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