Kepler: Keeping up with Ethics and Values

Given the chance to choose between and health and wealth, or social responsibility and power which would you choose? Will you prefer to have wealth over health? Is having a sense of social responsibility better than having power?

20 students from Kepler Kiziba refugee campus had the opportunity to rank certain values according to what they believed was more important. Led by Landry Sugira, a participant of the 2018 collaborative, and moduled after a session led by facilitators from Ashesi University, this exercise gave the students the opportunity to prioritize values in ethical action and to learn to speak up and be heard when faced with a decision to do something that goes against their values.

The students were given value ranking sheets consisting of 21 values to rank themselves accordingly and were instructed to choose the top five values out of the list that mattered to them most and would influence their decision making at the workplace, in social settings, and in their daily activities. Some values listed in the ranking sheet were: wealth, skill, power, pleasure, physical appearance, morality, and family.

Interestingly, the five top most important values selected were health, wisdom, knowledge, education, and wealth. These students were due to start jobs and internships at various companies in Rwanda and the exercise helped them to better understand how to communicate and stand up for their values in the workplace.