Global Changemakers

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.