Karima Kadaoui

In a sort of a similar way that our eyes evoke the sunshine and our ears evoke the melodies of life, when we learn to see our reality with different eyes and to hear with the deep listening of our soul, we evoke our humanity. As a Tamkeen Community Facilitator and practice based researcher, I have the privilege to witness how the belief in human potential and unconditional love create the conditions for societal metamorphosis. Tamkeen was co-founded after almost 2 years of introspection, co-reflection with a phenomenological perspective, and lived experience research of its founding members. The outcome of this process was the emergence of new questions that guided us to the co-creation, with our team members and partners, of the Tamkeen Approach. A new paradigm of existence (being and becoming), thought and action rooted in human potential trust opened its window of possibilities. The word Tamkeen تمكين is often used to translate empowerment. However, this verbal noun does not bear in its root the meaning of ‘power’ which de facto sets a dualistic dynamic (having vs not having power, giving vs taking power, gaining vs losing power). In Tamkeen we hear and cohere the semantically available words, hence workable and operatory, of Imkan (potential), Momkin (possible) and Imkania (possibility). The Tamkeen approach allows the expression of the human potential, that potential being our humanity, which defines us and connects us to the whole beyond our conscious grasp. When expressed it transcends us. From and with the potential essence, all future possibilities can be co-created, manifesting in flourishing human beings, communities, societies and thriving life as a whole. We “could have” called the evolution of the Tamkeen Process “orchestrated serendipity”, the orchestration’s nature being our belief in human potential. Its shape being the strength of our intent (nia), our love (hob) and our patience (sabr). These are the oligo-elements of the soil in which trust was able to grow: our trust in the process and in ourselves as a community as well as the trust of our partners in us, the Tamkeen Process and in their potential. We say “could have” as we now know that what can seem at times, to us and to our partners, as being of an extraordinary coincidence or even magical, to the point of rendering us speechless, is in fact emergence with its subtle interplay with dissolvence: the wondrous complex workings of life where things “arise mutually”.