Hey All,
Firstly, let me express how privileged I feel
to be here at the Catch the Vision Conference in Istanbul, not only to experience the
amazing city, and culture that comes with it; and not only the amazing and
inspirational people (participants and facilitators) here from all over the
world who are united by the extraordinary and unique work that impacts so many
lives in the YMCA, and the worldwide movement… but also and equally as
importantly, the wonderful and educational content of the conference that has
already overwhelmed and inspired me the past few days!
The most intriguing part for me so far has
been the study of Youth Empowerment , with the never-ending positives and
influences that has made me realise there is still so much to learn and use in
my work at my local YMCA.
Not only have I learned so much through
sharing best practices with participants worldwide, but I have also learnt through
exploring initiatives such as the Change Agent programme, and the Space,
Transformation and Impact diagram in aid to wake the ‘Sleeping Giant’ which is
the worldwide YMCA movement, and anticipate the extraordinary ways of doing
this and making the world’s general knowledge of the YMCA more than just a
song.
I would like to briefly comment on the
inspirational work done in Africa, which makes you appreciate all the negatives
in Young People’s lives, and how these can be changed even in the most extreme
of cases. With the extreme cases in Africa, it is marvellous to see that
through the S2C programme, (Subject to Citizen) young people’s natural but
unfortunate and old-fashioned views can not only be influenced but vastly improved.
Seeing the severe and detrimental effect
on African women and men, it is again inspiring to see people like Gil Harper
and the S2C Programme transforming lives hugely, and actually giving human life
a value. As well as this the empowering of young people to successfully carry
on this work, not only is improving Africa, but also is leading on to improve the
whole world by inspiring the Change Agents initiative.
After having talks and presentations from
the likes of YMCA World Alliance CEO Johan Vilhelm Eltvik, and the YMCA Turkey Board
Chair who had once worked with Martin Luther King, it makes you realise how big
our voice can be, and how important constant new ideas are part of the improvement
of not only the world movement, but also on a local level.
It has been an overwhelming and
inspirational experience so far, absorbing practices from the wisest of people
in the YMCA, and has left me itching to start using these in my work at home,
but also to be a part of this on a global level.
So with so much to say and so little time, I
will finish here for now, however watch this space to see a more cultural
outlook of the conference and how it is possible to have three attempts of
walking to Asia;)
For more info on anything I have learned so
far, please contact me, as I would be most happy to share these experiences
with you in more detail.
#IHaveWalkedToAsia… Well off the boat
anyway…
No comments:
Post a Comment