EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
We Are All in
This Together
By Frank Peters, Executive Director, PDCA
Normally, this article would be written in third person
where the writer refers to themselves by name or personal
pronoun. Normally, this would be the right thing
to do. But these are far from normal times and this is not a normal
article. So, with your permission, I, Frank Peters, executive director
of PDCA, would like to step out from behind the podium; I would
like to take a seat with you wherever you are, and I would like to
have a heart-to-heart conversation.
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that these past few
months have been hard. There is no other way to say it. Whether
your main concern has been the health of a loved one, the viability
of your business, the wreck to the national economy, the level
of unknown from something unseen, trying to find the supplies
you need to carry on life or the day-to-day droning on about what
might happen, could happen, is happening, but sensing that you
don’t have the whole picture, and feeling somehow less than
complete. We are all in this together. Yes, this has been and will
continue to be hard. But let’s take a step back and realize that
we have faced “hard” before. Regardless of where you live, there
has been some natural disaster, some local unrest, some personal
consideration that has been hard. And we’ve somehow found a way
through. Hard is just hard – it is not impossible.
This COVID-19 thing has wreaked havoc on the world economy
like nothing that we have seen in a very long time. Many reading
this article have faced natural disaster or even war that could rise
to such a level. But nothing in our modern time has affected the
world as a whole like this pandemic. We are all affected by it equally,
and at the same time we all have our personal considerations
to resolve. A recession is a significant decline in economic activity
spread across the market, lasting more than a few months. That
is certainly true here. But this recession is of the anthropogenic
type, something caused by human action or inaction. That makes
it more dramatic, especially considering that the world is now
scrambling to untangle this mess.
Whatever the cause, the economic impact of this crisis is real,
and the results are no less critical than a full economic downturn.
Companies, organizations, governments and individuals are all
feeling the impact. Some areas, interestingly, are hit harder than
others, which highlights the difficulty that we face in dealing with
this crisis.
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