Global Changemakers

First installment of MIPing at Davos

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!