In the next few days, I will be setting off to Geneva as I have been given the incredible opportunity to be part of the 2014 Annual Curators Meeting of the Global Shapers Community [to be held from 21st to 25th August; editor’s note]. Whilst it is an exciting endeavour to represent the Global Shapers Port Louis Hub that I am part of, I cannot help but wonder what impact it can have on the youth in Mauritius.
As a recap, the Global Shapers Community is a network of hubs created by the World Economic Forum, and developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievements and their drive to make a contribution to their communities. As part of this Community, the Port Louis Hub has been active since 2012 and strives to implement innovative social projects in the local community.
The Geneva Meeting brings together all Curators from hubs across the Global Shapers Community to energize and strengthen our Community. The programme focuses on the vision, values and culture of the Community, aiming to ensure the success and sustainability of each Hub and of the greater network. There are currently 356 Hubs in the world and each one of them will be attending this yearly gathering! Being the curator of the Port Louis Hub, I will have the great opportunity to attend this meeting too.
The ACM will be my first major event as Curator and I could not be more excited yet apprehensive of this experience. I look forward to hearing other curators’ views on a variety of topics, for e.g., how do you create synergy within a team of people, who are so bright, so motivated and so unique in their own ways? But most importantly I also want to see how we can bring a renewed sense of belongingness to our Mauritian Community.
Shapers across the world have a common goal: To improve the state of the world. By interacting with representatives of 356 active hubs across the globe, we will get a better insight into the full-cycle of setting up and running projects that are successful in different communities. As such, I hope that we will be able to draw inspiration from this and increase the belief, in Mauritius, that the youth can come up and run sustainable projects
A sense of belongingness to a community is a tough thing to achieve if one only focuses on the negative pictures and it is my belief that the Mauritian Youth needs to be a little bit more hopeful! We see a countless number of issues, let it be on the social aspect, the political field or even on a cultural basis. A lot of the younger generation that I have spoken to, have all said the same thing: ‘Ah there’s no hope to change anything in our society’; ‘this is how things are’, ‘I do not know what we can do to change anything or to have an impact’.
We certainly should not be folding our arms in despair and saying that we cannot change anything and this is the future we have to agree with.
As such, I hope that we, alongside our interaction with the Global Shapers Community, will be able to inspire the Mauritian Youth to have more faith in their abilities to make a difference. After all, if we want to change the world, we should start by changing our cities and ourselves first.
Setting concrete and sustainable projects to better the society is certainly another intricate matter in itself but we certainly need to start somewhere: To have a will to make a difference, the inspiration to trigger a change and a steadfast determination to make it happen!
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