Clients, Citizens, Hummingbirds...?

Deciding our name






The technical working name for Hummingbird’s Youth Capacity Building Programme is “From Clients to Citizens”, which we were quite sure the youth involved would have their own ideas about. So one of the first group activities was to discover what project name they could come up with that would help them identify with the project.
Thus a name-storming competition was created, with lots of ideas and discussions to help us reach a satisfactory conclusion, with a name that everyone would eventually feel comfortable with.

Suggested names soon filled the wall space we had available.Certainly no lack of creativity with our youth group:
Names like; Smiles of Tomorrow – Hope for Tomorrow – Changing Attitudes – Planet Youth – Sowing Tomorrow – Citizens Beija-Flor – Revolution Beija-Flor – Generation Solidarity – Changing Communities – Rhythms of a Dream – Youth Hope – Global Challenge...........
Faced with more than 70 suggestions to choose from, each participant was then given the opportunity to defend his or her suggestion, trying to convince the others why their idea should be the chosen one.

Come on guys, give me a break!
Name by name, we all received a dose of better understanding as to why we should (or should not) vote for each proposal. Some suggestions were unanimously supported whilst others were doomed into obscurity by the enthusiastic and argumentative group.
After the defence put their case forward, so to the voting; each participant had the right to vote in support of a maximum of five names.

Voting was energetic...
It was obvious that some names were totally discarded by the group, not having received a single vote, whilst others received significant support. On finishing the first round of voting and identifying those without a vote, the list was diminished to names with more than five votes, whereupon a second defence and discussion round took place, eventually diminishing the number of competitors to five acceptable names, each receiving a last chance to defend their proposal.

Defend yourself...!
It was now free for everyone to defend what was being suggested and to state their opinion in the final round, which was between two names; ASAS do Beija-Flor (WINGS of Hummingbird) and Gritos Humanos (Humane Outcries).
Gregory raised strong arguments in support of the ASAS do Beija-Flor proposal, stating that it was very much in line with the philosophy behind the Hummingbird Project, where the name Hummingbird and the lifestyle practiced by this amazing little, colourful bird, already held a significant position in the process of recuperating street children from being clients to citizens. He also emphasized the fact that the proposed nuclei to be implanted in the surrounding underprivileged communities were already being popularly called Hummingbird “Eggs” by our supporting Foundation in Norway and its sponsors, who had obviously identified our objectives to replicate the model we have created at our main Hummingbird Arts & Cultural Activity Centre.
So now it would seem obvious and natural that the youth in our capacity building programme represent the wings of the Hummingbird, flying out to embrace new communities, to share and multiply their knowledge and their desire to implement positive social changes.
Gregory’s poetic vision managed to overthrow the competing and rather harsher Gritos Humanos, which also had many similarities to our existing social communication programme, Gritos Urbanos (Urban Outcries), resulting in a grand majority vote for ASAS do Beija-Flor or WINGS of Hummingbird.