Second installment of MIPing at Davos

Third installment of MIPing at Davos

(You can also download Sarah’s MIPing at Davos in its entirety as a PDF document here.)

And then let’s end it with some SHOCK TREATMENT shall we? ‘Being Responsible for the Future’- The Closing Session of the WEF 2010, with the 6 Global Changemakers, Professor Schwab and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was when we were literally put on the spot and told to swim from the deep end. At this point we were real Adrenaline as we found our way through a brilliantly unrehearsed session. We reflected upon what the Archbishop stated and commented on it, whilst adding our own converging points on values, the display was a broad spectrum of intellect and beliefs.



Being part of this journey has undoubtedly helped me redefine how I look at the World; Our World. That is that people are human in their inner core, whether he/she is a Fortune500 CEO or a Professor from MIT. Shelling this inner core is what Davos succeeds in doing, by creating a tie-less atmosphere where people are open to the thought processes of Rethinking, Redesigning and Rebuilding. Thus this openness of thought didn’t restrict the 6 of us from the six of us from being honest, and occasionally bringing the Forum back to reality, by teleporting them beyond the four walls of the Conference Center at Davos into a world where the poverty stricken streets of parts of Asia stand side by side with the dearth in HIV drugs in Africa. These are the big issues that need a sustainable solution at such a Forum, not merely an agreement of the status quo.
Thus, as we have graduated from this chapter in our lives and have flown back home to the realities that awaited us, we will carry with us the essence of hope and determination that makes us reminiscent each degree of challenge, each moment of despair and each standing of failure that we encountered down our skiing slope. It was not an easy ride.



And so as all good things come to an end, Davos too concluded on a similar note where the networks we created and the bonds we made will live on, and will be passed on to the agents after us. Thus there is no saying goodbye from here on, but more like “When do we start on our new CAP - ‘The Davos 6 Family Reunion’?” (We need some help from Gabby on that one!)



And now for the two words that say it all; Thank You
Thank you for taking the Global Changemakers to the literal representation of the World at Davos and for the micro-planning that has beaten Yunus’s micro-financing by far. I owe this sincere gratitude to the amazing Directors of Global Changemakers; Francesca Martonffy and Paola Hjelt and the incredible GCM Team comprising of Katherine Hermans, Matt Kimmich and Gabriela Jager for the tremendous effort and sleepless nights set aside for us in making this a reality. And of course to ‘the Man behind the scenes’ who indeed made us stars at Davos - John Martin, for the invaluable training and guidance that enabled us to courageously face whatever challenge we encountered at the Forum, ranging from TV interviews to convincing a CEO 10 seconds. A special ‘Thank You’ to the Country Director for the British Council in Switzerland - Caroline Morrissey for being there for us, and to the respective British Council Offices that took care of our logistics. Merci to the most impeccable and approachable WEF staff for all the support rendered in enabling a smooth flow. And last but not least, to the Network of the most dynamic Movers & Shakers of the world - THE GLOBAL CHANGEMAKERS for being our backbone of strength all the way. Thank You from the bottom of our hearts.
        
We were who we were because of you.

This Ending is the new Beginning. Viva La Vida!

Change In Focus

Change In Focus is a Human Rights project being conducted in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second largest city and home of the minority Ndebele Tribe. The city has witnessed a lot of Human Rights Violations, varying from physical abuse of women to academic abuse whereby education is becoming a privilege for the elite few, despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that clearly declares primary education as a universal right. My CAP is compiling an audio report on Human Rights in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe with a special bias on young people. It wants to inform and educate the young person in Bulawayo about his/her Human Rights in order to ensure that we create a generation of knowledgeable young people…....................

Welcome to My World

Human Rights, way to go! This was because of the many Human Rights violations I came across every now and then. Since I am someone who works for a community radio station I am always in contact with the common man and hear their trials and joys. Human rights have always been of great significance in the community but freedom of speech as a right has always been outstanding. The reason why I stress the right for freedom of speech is mainly because my job involves engaging people in discussions. However, this is very difficult in my community. The community has viewed freedom of speech as a non-existent right and so they fear to even discuss their rights. This has lead to them not knowing what their rights are and what they are not. Because of a lack of knowledge they never realize when their rights are being violated. This has been an ongoing process and the violators have embraced the loophole and have continued to violate. 

 The facilitator of the Change In Focus CAP.

Overall Aim of CAP

The aim of the CAP is to educate people about their Human Rights, the survey reached out to 250 plus young people and got them talking about the issue. The CAP also reads out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so as to inform the young people about universal rights.

Robson Murambiwa completing the survey form of Change In Focus

Challenges

The major challenges I came across were the exact challenges I face day in, day out in my line of work: the challenge of people being very willing to talk, but the minute they know you want to record them, they no longer want to talk. Human Rights is a very sensitive issue because it liberates the mind and the violators never want to see the victims of human rights violations being freed from this state of mind. That is exactly what makes it sensitive, when you talk of human rights, you are immediately labelled as one who sympathies’ with the imperialists, and so the community stays away.

Artists

Working on an audio report was certainly not possible to produce without music. So the project contracted three Zimbabwean artists to come up with songs for the project. The artists were very energetic and came up with all the songs required of them on time. I worked with one established artist and two minor artists.

 Artist Emmanuel Nkomo working on one of the tracks used on the Audio Report

Cover  Design
The CAP ensured that the Cover Design is an abstract picture because it does not and will not take a position.

Yet to be confirmed: Change In Focus Cover Design

Munyah

www.facebook.com/youthactionnet

www.twitter.com/youthactionnet

Second installment of MIPing at Davos

I honestly missed my spicy curry and the tantalizing tastes of Asian Cuisine, but as the five courses took their due course in the spread at the many Lunch and Dinner sessions we attended as Discussion Leaders at the WEF, one Dinner just blew me away. This was the Dinner on ‘Attracting the Best & the Brightest to the Public Service’. Apart from steering a conversation along the path of achieving the goals set out for the discussion together with the other Discussion Leaders at the Dinner that included the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, MP Scott Brison and a few others, it was a pleasant surprise to have been in the same table leading the discussion with President Calderon (President of Mexico). And YES that picture is of the two placards at the table!



President Calderon’s discussion at our table on fearless persistence, where one must match one’s ideas with actions in Public Office was indeed inspiring, and then he hit a home run for the Davos6 when he said to me, ‘To be young and not to be revolutionary is a biological contradiction.’ On reporting back on our table’s discussion, as I harped on the imperative need to give Youth incentives to join the Public Service, the collective solution we came up with is one that we as Changemakers can relate to, i.e. to find your passion and fight for it, regardless of the absence of monetary incentives or temporary gain. And then….while I was giving my speech, the President interrupts me friendlily and says ‘Sarah, stop stealing all the points from my speech! You are saying everything I was going to say’. A serious LOL moment that I will cherish forever, and so in his Keynote Address as he mentioned what I said several times, in restating his view, he made a final remark that really reached that night’s headlines at the Forum, ‘If you don’t like Politicians, Be One!’  He too had begun as a community volunteer down the streets of Mexico, and thus believed in the power of youth for social change. This night was the pinnacle of my Davos; meeting a truly unique individual whose outlook to life can be compared to that of an audacious warrior.
 
Early mornings didn’t keep us from enjoying the late nights of super exhausting fun at the Young Global Leaders NightCap where Joao - our B-BOY really broke the dance floor, and where Nishin and I danced to the Bangra beats at Bollywood Night. These amazing jamming sessions did not only bring us closer together as a Team, but it made us an entity of dynamism which took us through to our intense IdeasLab that awaited us.



Gandhi was so right when he said that Truth never damaged a Cause that was Just. And so as Tshepiso gave the world her Caretaker Approach, as Nishin redefined Development with a greener smile, as Carmina Stitched Tomorrow today, as Joao Transformed the places around him, as Mousa lit the School of Light, and as I Kicked the Butt, the World sat up and took notice. We were not perfect, nor were we imperfect; we were just original at heart and besides the fact that the camera was steaming us for YouTube, we focused on what we had learnt, the support we had gathered on the way and the sheer numbers we were impacting. The Spiderman movie really came to life that day; ‘With great Power comes great Responsibility.’ This was the Global Changemakers IdeasLab.

—Sarah Jameel

The fourth and final installment of Sarah’s WEF memories will follow on Saturday, 13 March. See you then!

“BANALAKAGA” was the wakeup call that our 24/7 mummy-on-board, Francesca Martonffy (Director GCMs) gave us each day on our way to the Conference Center, and the other stress busting moves and grooves that the D6 followed. This prepared us for the really awesome ‘4am sleeps and 6am wakeups’ that made us real Davosians that lived by the motto; Play hard & Party hard!

We went GAGA over the fact that Paolo Coelho was the first person we met as we stepped into the Conference Center, but as the days went on in supersonic speed we acclimatized to the fact that saying Hello to Fareed Zakariya on the corridor having coffee with Muhammed Yunus was the Form of the Forum, and thus we learned to strive in this amazing atmosphere. It is this sense of maturity and insight that I believe is the core to what Davos brings to the world; a setting where people are not judged on what company they own, or what religious faith they uphold, but by the essence of humanity that live by and this is what transcends down to principles and values that are imperative in Improving the State of the World.



When a country mourns over a loss in a catastrophe, the world at Davos sits up and listens. At the special Plenary on the ‘Crisis in Haiti’ where the WEF and the Clinton Global Initiative pledged to collaborate on recovery efforts in Haiti, one individual stood out of the crowd to me as a panelist; President Bill Clinton. It was an honor to meet the President after this session and briefly introduce ourselves whilst query on the role of youth, like us lending a hand to rebuild a New Haiti, as he put it. But the surprise came when his Personal Assistant repeatedly said to the President ‘Mr. President, you have a meeting with the President of Columbia now, you have to go’, but he just stood there conversing with the youngest minds at the forum and on his commitment to youth. WOOOHOO!!! Global Changemakers, we kept two Presidents waiting at the same time.

Conformity has never been written on our foreheads, but dissipating this with the originality of fresh ideas, whilst challenging those in power to not merely think out of the box, but to think like there was no box was the name of the game of the Davos6 2010. So when Bill Gates, PM Morgan Tsvangirai, Helen Clark and a few other big names in the business were challenged on their business by three Changemakers in a row, it made the crowd in the Session on MDGs ask the Q, ‘What were those 3 bullets whizzing in the air?’ And the answer was simple; We were catalyst of positive change and agents of action that had laid its ground in over 98 countries across the globe affecting 50,000 communities. Most importantly we were ourselves, from the way we saw a problem to our strategized plan of action the 6 of us thought, walked, ate and integrated differently. This is what made us alike; a mosaic of change.



Davos is about making the right connections by sometimes saying the right thing at the right time, and although our MIPing adventures got us stacks of business cards and reduced our own piles, I had quite a different twist to my MIPing. I think I owe this to the fact that my MIPing at the Forum was sometimes a hybrid laid-back version that got tired after 12 hours of being on my feet non-stop. But when the microphone reached my hand, the words from MIPing got explained. When I was called in as a Keynote Speaker for the Nestlé Breakfast Discussion on ‘Childhood and Youth in the 21st Century’, with only a few minutes of preparation, amidst filling myself with cereal beside the COO of Facebook, when I took to the podium it all fell into perspective. It was this feeling of speaking out for a group who needed to be heard at this Forum that kept me going to conclude with the words that later resulted in congratulatory handshakes and the voluntary compliments of business cards on the part of famous strangers:

‘Our future will not be made for us, but by Us.’

—Sarah Jameel

Next installment: Thursday, 11 March. See you soon!

• Last Friday Gaby spent much of the day fighting the British Council computer system, all in the service of the Changemakers: trying to finalise the CAPs/GAPs/RAPs guidelines and putting them online proved quite a struggle. Here’s a photo of Gaby after hours of fighting the system:
  
  
• Talking of computers: we’re getting new machines - and they were sorely needed. (On a good day it’d take my computer 30-45 minutes to start up properly, download updates from India (!) and install them. If I’m lucky, it’ll now take half as long. ) Which means that, yes, we’re one step closer to the Rise of the Machines
  
  
• At the suggestion of one of our most active Changemakers (hint: he’s from the UK and his name begins with an ‘S’...) we’ll be collecting questions from the community, to be answered in future installments of Team Tuesday. Obviously we can’t answer every single question, so we’ll make a selection. Post your questions in the comments thread at the bottom of this entry!
• Katherine is currently in London, at the Bee Bee Cee. Nope, she isn’t trying to get a job as a news anchor (as she says, “the coffee’s too bad to work here”), she’s learning from the Beeb pros the latest strategies on writing for the web, blogging and Twitter.
• We went through some of the remaining footage from WEF 2010 and came up with the following little film. Warning: the video contains scenes of carousing, Queen Rania worship and people making fun of… well, just about everyone. Enjoy!

• And last but not least, a message to all Changemakers from our unsinkable Fran Martonffy: “You have but one wild and precious life.” Definitely a motto to live by!

The perfect day is going to bed with a Dream and waking up with a Purpose. This was my definition of the most exhilarating and intense 5x24hours of my life: Davos 2010. Sometimes expectations far exceed interpretations, and thus journeying through the Alps in minus temperatures with five of the most amazingly different individuals and a Team that never sleeps, I encountered many mountains that were ably surpassed in the drive up to Davos. From the mimicking efforts of some players as nasty journalists in the little town of Ardez where the Davos 6 prepared for this skiing adventure, to sitting up till one am nibbling Swiss Chocolate whilst scripting our famous Ideaslab Presentations, we were brought down to ground level where practice was indeed catalyzed to original perfection by John Martin. Thus taking with us the training gear of hybridized pitches and introductions of ourselves and activism, we arrived at Davos with the cumulative message of the 60 Global Changemakers we were representing and the battalion of the collective 600 that stood behind us.





Sometimes you need to touch a hot dish once in a while to feel the heat and the reflex action you generate to take your hand away. Thus on the day before the Forum began the Davos 6 took a walk down a road that imprinted in them their cause to stand out as agents of Change in the days to come. This was the emotionally grueling experience of being a refugee at the hands of reality at the UNHCR’s Refugee Run. It was this hot dish that then helped us acclimatize realistically to the luxurious world at the Forum.



And so the hectic schedule for the 6 youngest participants of the WEF began…

As we began to put our skies on to maneuver the greatest slope of our lives, we arrived at the first base station - a private meeting with Professor Schwab! I think we could have generated a marginal profit if we had networked with some of the Green CEOs to export those butterflies from the stomachs as we walked into the office of undoubtedly one of the most subtle and influential people in the World. But as we succumbed to the treatment of Sparkling Water and sat down in conversation with this human, all invisible barriers shattered and within minutes we moved from discussing our activism, to Joao racing Professor Schwab at 50m freestyle. This was our first taste of the expression we patented at Davos; MIPing which stands for Meeting Important People.

—Sarah Jameel

1. Community Action Projects (CAPs)
   40 grants a year of £1000-£1500 in two periods of applications.
2. Regional and Global Action Projects (RAPs and GAPs)
   4 grants of £3000 per Global Changemakers event.
3. Girl effect CAPs (GECAPs)
   12 grants of up to 2000 USD for girl effect CAPs in the Middle East and Africa.
4. The Rachel Petkac CAP
   One grant of £5000 for projects that raise awareness on a particular issue that has a developed world-developing world link and involve at least 2 Changemakers, one from the developed and one from the developing world.

All our the application forms for these projects are now to be completed online. You can find the links to the respective forms on the new set of Guidelines here. We have also included a PDF with the questions of the application and the report form. It is advisable you print those to be prepared to fill in the forms as the system will not allow you to go back or save the information you have.
 
Also, we have now a report form, and we are sure that will make easier the reporting from your projects from now on and we have included a set of surveys that will help you measure the impact your projects are having!
 
One thing that all of you should notice is that from now on we will also work on bigger projects on the summits. On top of the 40 CAPs grants which are projects to be implemented in communities, we want to have projects working at a Regional and a Global level. Therefore, in the coming summits we will have work groups to develop these projects and the best 4 from each summit will get a grant of £3000 to implement the initiative!
 
Since we didn’t have this great opportunity before we have decided to make it up for our existing global changemakers. To that end we will exceptionally allow you to apply for GAPs or RAPs grants from 1 -15 September (along with the Autumn-Winter period of applications for regular CAPs).
 
Questions? I will be on facebook today until 14.30 GMT to answer those!

Gaby

To get to the new guidelines, click here.

To get to the new application form, click here.

To get to the new report form, click here.

Entries are open now for Fair Play - Anti-Corruption Youth Voices, the global competition for original songs by young musicians on the theme of anti-corruption and good governance organized in partnership between Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI) and the World Bank Institute.

The competition is an initiative of the Global Anti-Corruption Youth Network, a worldwide network of civil society organizations with the specific agenda of fighting corruption. Winners of Fair Play - Anti-Corruption Youth Voices will be invited to perform at the group’s international summit Spring 2010 in Brussels, Belgium.

Find out more about Fair Play here (PDF) and here (DOC).

• Gaby, our very own CAP Woman, has been working hard on a new set of CAPs Guidelines. What are the major changes? I’ll only say two words: GAPs and RAPs. Let the guessing begin - until Friday, that is, when All Will Be Revealed.
• We’re still waiting for the ink to dry on the contract, but we’ve got the first Global Changemakers alumnus working on the team, a certain Australian that may be familiar to regular readers. (Cue lots of unfunny “G’day, mate!” jokes…)
• Also, in the coming six weeks we’ve got a number of events coming up, including a CAPs/peer facilitator event in Harare and WEF Latin America in Cartagena. (The attendees have been selected, I’m afraid, but fear not - a number of major youth summits are planned for this year.)
• Oh, and last but not least: ever wonder what the Global Changemakers team gets up to when temperatures warm up and Easter isn’t all that far away? Behold the full horror below. (All similarities with the person managing this website are coincidental and not intended in any way at all.)

Closer…

Even closer…

Om nom nom…! Farewell, chocolate bunny, we hardly knew ye.