Global Changemakers

Summit has ended, but the memories and experiences stay and work continues through individual CAPs (Community Action Projects) all around the world by Changemakers staying in touch through various networks both online and offline. Delegates who are going to World Economic Forum in Davos have been chosen and some of the Changemakers are already representing us in United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change conference. I wonder what the future will bring for us, but for now take a glimpse at the video from the summit itself.

On the fourth day all the participants finally had a day in London city centre. Few of the Changemakers had the privilege to go to Number 10 and meet with British PM Gordon Brown personally. They were chosen before the summit (they literally picked names out of a hat  because of the security reasons) so I didn’t really had a shot of actually meeting Mr. Brown but the fact itself that some Changemakers talked to him is impressive in my opinion.

Many participants are thinking about starting their own organizations, NGOs or charities and that is why each one of us attended an established organization in London. I chose Oxfam which currently focuses on climate change and community development issues. Oxfam has this interesting campaign called “Wave” that wants to get people pumped about the coming climate change summit in Copenhagen. We actually had a hand in their campaign and filmed a little promotional clip doing an international wave - we set up a little domino line of paper booklets. Other Changemakers visited other amazing and inspiring organizations like 10:10, Kids Company, Save the Children, Global Generation, Crisis and so on. Each one of those deserve a separate blog post altogether.

In the evening the Changemakers had a reception with members of British government like members of parliament. They were really impressed by our activism and strong track record. It’s always important to have that recognition at the highest levels.

During the week the Changemakers were creating small sketches on various topics such as addiction, mental disability, gender equality, cultural differences and so on. It’s great to see that people from as diverse countries like Iraq, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia etc. can get together and make something fun and creative. Art is truly universal.

Summit has come to its inevitable end and all the participants had either individually or in groups present their CAP (Community Action Project) ideas. I was blown away by some of them because a lot of them were really ambitious. For example, creating a global youth network “Arts Without Borders” ala “Doctors Without Borders”. Normally you’d say that person is a bit dreamy in thinking that they could make something like that reality if they’re 16 or around that age but the Changemakers have proven it to be wrong in the past and I’m sure gonna do it again in the future. I am confident that by next year a lot of these CAP ideas will become reality and start changing the life of people around the globe.

Day Three of the Global Youth Summit here in London was focused around skills development. We had workshops about fundraising, media and press, time management, presentational skills, team building, social media and so on. Fundraising workshop really stood out because we were lectured by a people who had been working with World Economic Forum for a long time and raised millions in funding. One observation would be that we in Europe are quite privileged with programmes like Youth in Action and others in terms of funding availability for young people. A lot of other countries have to depend on private donors because any other organized schemes lack in comparison to Youth in Action. This is where British Council steps in and provides the basic funding for Changemakers in countries where funding is not so readily available.

Among all the things we learn it is also important that we build friendships, trust and ultimately a global network that we could later use in our activism. We kind of serve as role model for each other, for example, today I again met an inspirational fellow Changemaker Michael Zhan, an American/Chinese who is studying Economics and International Politics at Yale University in the US. He is working to breach the gap between American and Chinese students by sending Americans into rural areas of China and doing educational work with them.

In the past Global Changemakers have been proven to be very successful - the total Changemakers family is now represented in more than 90 countries and individuals’ projects are reaching out to more than 30’000 people worldwide. Hopefully this summit can increase those numbers.

In the last day the Changemakers had to discuss the pressing issues in their respective regions later on to find the possible solutions. This early in the week the whole thing is in the “brainstorming” phase, but it looks promising that some of the proposed solutions can later on develop into Communicty Action Projects or so called CAPs. On that basically we worked the whole day - fleshing out a vision, then moving on to basic planning. British Council is really coming forward to participants by giving small grants, doing publicity, providing contacts for participants’ CAP ideas.

Today we had a presentation by Simon Moss, an Australian who organized a rockconcert “Make Poverty History” that was meant to get the message to members of the G20 summit that was happening at the same time that “more financial aid should be given to poorer nations”. Miraculously the organizing team got U2 and Pearl Jam performing for free. Simon lectured the Changemakers on those ever important phases of making a project happen - a vision, planning, promotion, doing, reviewing. Each part is integral to a successful project.

Have you heard about The Elevator Pitch? The idea is that you have only 27 seconds to present yourself to someone in an effective, concise way, say you meat Bill Gates or Warren Buffet in the elevator and you want to pitch your idea to him - what do you say? So the Changemakers had to develop their pitch and present it to the rest of the group.

In the evening the organizations had invited an performance group Pan Intercultural Arts that put up a show about knife crime among the teenagers in London. The show was vaguely scripted, mostly improvised and managed to get a lot feedback from the participants although it focused around a local theme. It kind of proved that art, at least this show, is truly universal.

The Changemakers again stayed up late, but not to party. No, no, what’s surprising is that we passionately discussed the global problems till like 2 in the morning. For example, we extensively discussed the China’s One Child Policy. You have to remember, that we’re just 16-19 year olds here, and it’s just amazing to see that many people share your views and are concerned about the same things.

The Global Changemakers have finally settled in their venue at London. Despite the severe jet lag that many participants is having the evening was bubbling with all the participants sporadically connecting, interacting and sharing their experiences and activism with others. We’re blessed in that sense that we have almost absolutely no language barrier since everybody here speaks such a good English with over 40+ countries represented.

It’s great to hear inspiring stories from youngsters from all over the world. For example, Sam from Australia who is involved with organization called Emergency Architects which do non-for-profit post-disaster reconstruction programs. Just recently he’d been to Solomon Islands that were devastated by April 2007 earthquake and tsunami. But perhaps more inspiring it is to hear from Thireindar from Myanmar (formaly Burma) who is working in the field of micro finance by proving small loans to those in need. As you might know, Myanmar still has tight military-led government so the she and another lady from Burma have come to London secretly since the title “Changemaker” can be very suggestive to their government.

One of the guest speaker today was Paul Hidler who is campaign director of online campaigning site Avaaz.org who you might now from the video “Stop the Clash of Civilizations” (below) which won Youtube 2007 award in political category. He explained the basic principles of online campaigning and lectured everybody on how to use it in their own projects to raise awareness about different causes. Avaaz.org is a true success, they managed 1.4 million people to sign a petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tibet, calling “restraint and respect for human rights” and the opening of “meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama.”

But the true highlight of the day has been performance by award-wining English comedian Francesca Martinez who has a physical disability (but prefers to describe herself as “wobbly”). She reached much resonance with the participants by telling how stand-up comedy truly made her accept herself for what she is. She herself says: “By measuring myself against the society I lost every time and that is why I came out with my own set of values. That is really liberating.” It is fascinating how can a struggle with disability relate to racism issues - many participants truly connected with this.

It is beautiful that there is no sign of intolerance here - people truly create bonds and there is no problem of Bahranian playing guitar in duet with British/Russian guy who lives in Argentina with a Global Choir backing them up.

The Global Youth Summit is just a day away and I am packing my things for a flight to London tomorrow morning. The summit hasn’t even started yet but group of people that is going to be there is already proving that they can take matters into their own hands.

The idea behind Global Changemakers is to create a large global network of future young activists and social entrepreneurs aged between 16 and 25 and develop them into Changemakers that make practical and visible differences in their communities, countries and regions. So it is no surprise that the chosen Changemakers started communicating between each other already before the summit. One of the organizers sent out an e-mail that happened to have a list of e-mail addresses for all the Changemakers and that was enough to spur people to start exchanging e-mails about their activism and experiences, set up Facebook groups and start interaction via online chats like Skype and so on.

Each Changemaker is different, from their own country with his or her own personal story - I can’t wait to meet them in real life and share their stories with you here. But for now I am watching this video to get a glimpse at some of the past Changemakers.