WYA MEMBER’S EXPERIENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL YOUNG LEADERS SUMMIT

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The World Youth Alliance was a key partner in hosting the international young leader’s summit in mid November that was held in Nairobi Kenya. The summit was hosted by the Global peace foundation attracted many young people from across the world. A member of World Youth Alliance, Duncan Mikae was among the delegates and shares his experience below.

THE just concluded International Young Leaders Summit was quite an experience to me,Meeting other Young leaders from across the planet has always motivated me but above all I was so much inspired by several speakers who come from diverse economic and political backgrounds.

While youths are assumed to be leaders of tomorrow by the society,this conference said otherwise,from it I realized that many youths out there are now ready to take up the challenge and most of them are now up and ready for the task.

As President Mwai Kibaki and PM Raila Odinga put it,this conference has brought into our realization that we are all one under God and we all belong together.

I was particularly impressed by the contribution of several youth leaders from outside the continent, towards developing their countries and the world at large,from this conference also i came into full realization that young people cannot afford to sleep now,we have to be more aggressive than ever before because all the indicators right now show that the old guard isn’t ready to comply with our needs.

I will not forget the powerful presentations that will go ahead to shape most of us who participated in this conference, I wish to single out that the story by US. Senator Emanuel Jones on how he ascended to where he is, is not only motivating but also inspiring, it takes very few people the determination to start up humbly and endure all the challenges in the path of success. As a young entrepreneur and aspiring Community Leader I will take Senator Jones’ encouragement with me to wherever I will go.

In a nutshell this conference enabled me get to understand more about problems that face the youth and how they affect the general development of society, however it is my wish that this conference would have had a more action oriented climax, this would have helped the facilitators and ‘we’ the participants measure the progress of the deliberations and commitments made by both parties. I suggest that in future when we are invited to attend such conferences, the facilitators organize a way that could enable a number of us if not all of us to come out with a project or assignment that can be evaluated over time, a good example for this is; If we are going to talk about empowerment and entrepreneurship , there should be measures to ensure that a number of the participants are enabled to access credit facilities for whatever project that they would wish to execute, this of cause should be subject to a certain maximum amount and other practical examples relating to the theme and topics of the deliberations. If we incorporate such and other strategies, then we will be able to know whether these conferences are really helping the intended group or they are just a waste of time and resources that would have otherwise helped reduce the major problems affecting youth.

BY: Duncan Ogaro Mikae

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