AIESEC International Blog

“I have booked you for Sunday!” said Joseph Ndahiro my host in Rwanda. He is the MC Vice President in-charge of Information management. Prior to him being in the MC, he went to Kenya for a traineeship on an Education and ICT project late last year when I was the MCP of AIESEC Kenya. He had already made a plan for me for Sunday with an itinerary of visiting certain places of Kigali. What amazed me though was his unending bright smile and enthusiasm about life, and the great concern he has about the state of affairs in humanity at the moment. Earlier that day, we had talked briefly about the political skirmishes that took place in Kenya earlier in the year, he narrated the events of the day after the elections in Kenya and his ordeal of seeing Kenya going down the drain with its political class moving into rallying their communities behind them on the general elections. Joseph, aka Boggie, feared for Kenya at the time. He used to hear some pronouncements by the political elite and ostensibly knew that this was the road towards very hard moments in Kenya.


That’s one of the reasons why part of that itinerary was to take me to the Kigali Memorial center, so that I could see for myself the atrocities and the history of what happened during the dark 100 days that Rwanda went through the genocide. We left home early for town with the most popular Kigali “Motos” which are public Motorcycles and are one of the means of transportation around Kigali. I liked the “Motos” especially because they were very comfortable, fast and convenient considering the nature and number of hills one had to pass through. One thing worth mentioning was the unequivocal state of Kigali streets; they were extremely clean, flowers and beautiful trees besides the roads, well thought through urban planning and architecture which has thus worn Kigali as one of the cleanest and organized cities in Africa. In fact, the Rwandese government was clearing slums in the city and building posh houses in those areas.

We passed by the bank to get some quid and thereafter headed to the Memorial center. Ever since I heard of the story of Rwanda, I was then 11 years old, South Africa was in the midst of their first elections meaning an end to the barbaric and unthinkable minority white rule in South Africa and the world had turned a blind eye to what was happening in Rwanda, I had never quite understood the details of what actually happened, who was involved etc. We alighted from the motos and headed towards the gates. The area was solemn and quiet; the guards searched us and allowed us in. At the reception we were met by a young lady who ushered us in, gave us instructions not to take photos inside and asked us to go through the basement where we would start reading and listening to the whole story of the genocide, then go upstairs where would go to the section of other genocides like the German led genocide of the Herero people in Namibia, the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide amongst others.

I would definitely not try to replay what the story was, as it is widely known. But my main learning from reading and listening to the people who went through the genocide was that people can be inhuman and the worst of devils of humanity can be unearthed and cause the demise of a people. The intricacies of the involvement of foreign governments in the training of the militias, called “Intarahamwe,” the funding by the local dons and international governments made me wonder in agony, the current chest thumping and arrogance of some governments with blood held wealth indeed going in history of the worst crimes against humanity. It unearthed in me detestation of the architects’ of the genocide, and more so, their continued interest in some countries within Africa and their continued denial of their involvement in the genocide which reverberates wrongly in ears of many. However, forgiveness is due as that’s the sure way of keeping ones heart in peace.

We took 4 hrs in the memorial, we then came out of the building, went through the mass graves and Boggie informed me that when construction of Kigali and other places goes on, construction workers often find new human remains, which then necessitates the expansion of the mass graves. That was one of the best four hours spent in my entire visit.

We then went to the visiting day of Boggie’s sister not so far away from the memorium. We had fun over there, and later on in the day had family time with Boggies family, who showered me with presents, - The African Way, after which the next day I left for Abyssinia!

Our Director of Western Europe and North America in her visit to the MC team in Italy!

Today was an incredible day here in Qatar.

As I sat in the closing plenary of the 2nd ever Gulf Conference, I looked around me and saw 75 AIESEC members from Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, and Iran. Within the membership of these countries, about 20 countries of origin were represented -- from Somali and Sudan, to Iraq and Syria, from India and Bangladesh, to Saudi and Jordan.

A little less than a year ago the Gulf Conference was born, by two visionary MCPs in the Bahrain and Qatar who wanted to have a conference in Qatar but couldn't because of cultural and legal restrictions. Thus the first Gulf conference was held in Bahrain in February, with representatives of Bahrain, Qatar and Oman and members had the chance to discuss what kind of AIESEC they would like to see in the Gulf.

Here in the Gulf, student run organizations are completely unheard of here as young people are not expected to be able to take care of themselves and are given no real responsibility. It is unusual that nationals and expatriate people are working together on the same level, discussing the future of a region that impacts both of their futures.

Everyday, LCs face challenging ethical questions: will we be able to attract companies or other Gulf nationals if part of the leadership is Indian, or Sri Lankan? Will everyone feel comfortable being part of a training where both males and females are present? How will a shy new female member work in a team with males as she has never spoken to a male in her life expect her father and her brothers?

This is special conference. There are no AIESEC dances at this conference, definitely no alcohol, there aren't many guys and girls hugging but there is a spirit and desire for development and change that is incredible. You can hear loud and clear the voices of young people who want to develop, to contribute to a sustainable future of AIESEC in the Gulf.

Not only did these members stand up saying they believe in AIESEC, companies, organizations finally stepped forward to say Yes we support AIESEC. Companies like Qatar Petroleum, the Qatar Businessman's Association, Unilever, PwC, Salam International, BNP Paribas participated and talked about how amazed they were by the scale of the conference and the professionalism. Sheikh Faisal, the second most important man in the country of Qatar gave the opening speech talking about the importance of youth and his support for AIESEC, afterwards inviting all the AIESEC members to his musuem, where we spent a wonderful evening seeing ancient pieces of art, fossils, clothing, cars, carpets and much more before being invited to a wonderful dinner. At the end of the night the Sheikh stood up and addressed the students, talking about his experience growing up and how he had to try and fail many times before getting it right. I wish you could all be there to see the looks on the members faces as he talked about what an important experience AIESEC would provide them.

And that's not to mention the media who will help spread the amazing work of AIESEC here.

Now it's time to run with the momentum created by the event to really bring to life Qatar and the rest of the Gulf countries.

A huge huge recognition goes out to Petra Chovancova, the MCP of Qatar who has pushed hard to make this conference happen and not to accept the belief that it's just not possible in Qatar. Also to Monaem, the MENA ER manager who worked intensively with the OC and the VP ERs in the Gulf to raise partners for the event, and Driss who has been working on bringing back members to AIESEC here and training them to understand and love exchange. Also congratulate David from Oman for doing a great job managing the agenda.

From a happy MENA Director

This is a historical milestone for AIESEC and is our highest ever annual performance in the last 15 years. We have experienced high growth rates since the beginning of the year, reflecting the high impact we are creating in the environment.

We at AIESEC International are very excited about this achievement, and take this opportunity to congratulate each and every member of AIESEC who has contributed to the achievement of this milestone.

We are celebrating in Rotterdam, and we encourage you to celebrate in your countries and LCs as well!

While celebrating the success we have achieved so far, we also need to ACT on our goal of 6300 exchanges by December 31st! This means that we need to GROW by 180% in November and December to achieve 1300 exchanges. We have the available and matched pipeline to achieve this goal -

We need to act NOW!
Lets go after our goal of 6300 and ACHIEVE IT!

Apple cake and good company to our Global Partnership Manager, Ewelina! :)

Hey Team,


I am dropping you a line to share some thoughts from the road. Well, in the past couple of weeks since leaving the office, I met quite an impressive amount of fascinating people that we have in our network, and I want to let you know on some of their stories, as they've quite inspired me. Funny thing, we are talking about legends, developing legends, but to my great surpise I found that some of these legends are already working with us, in different MCs or LCs. They're called Milan, Michal, Adam, Marco, Boby, Asia, Tony and some others.

What about them?
They all have some impresive life xp and @ experiences. Michal for instance is polish but working in the bulgarian MC as MC VP Communication. He was competing for the national cycling championship in Poland - he came 2nd place. 2 km before the finish line, before getting in a curve, he fell - his dream had collapsed, his 2 year long training camp with wake ups at 6 am was for nothing. But somehow, in a fraction of a second, he decided he will continue! And so he did, before the finish line some hundres meters, the batch of cyclists in front of him slowed down, he accelerated and came in second. As an LCVP in his LC, he had a very interesting schedule at AIESEC Conferences: wake ups at 6, training on the hills near the venue for 2 hrs, some 40 kms, morning plenary, sessions, lunch was for cycling as well, quick lunch, afternoon sessions than some evening chit chat, no eating after 6 pm, and the next day from the begining. He quit this as he chose AIESEC and finishing his studies.

Milan is Partnerships Manager in the MC of Serbia. He practiced pretty much all the possible sports in the world - team as well as individual type of soprts: chess for 4 years, volley ball for 3 years, handball for his highschool team, Aikido for 4 years, and some others that just skip my mind. He got injured and stoped training, he repeted 3rd year of university to go to MC. He slept on average 4-5 hrs per night during the past 3 weeks, as it had been a hot sales time in his MC [AIKIDO training helps aparently with this]. As LC VP ER he turned his LC around and achieved for the 1st time in the history of AIESEC Serbia, 55 years old, 100% of his planned objectives. He raised 22 TNs - the previous term had done 4 - he created the most fantastic ER team structure I have ever seen in AIESEC, he reads 1 management book per month, he is exptremely disciplined and is operating with a lot of funky concepts about ER. He is really modest and humble in spite of this succes and wants to go to an internship in Japan to train AIKIDO with a professional master, although this would mean waking up at 5 am every day! He is a big fan of Heading for the Future... products :)!

Aigul is a 22 year old russian girl, MCP of Slovenia. She manages 4 boys, all older than her - well that's not an easy task, right, ladies? ;). Marco, MC VP X in her team is portuguese, joined AIESEC 2 years ago, studies telecommunications and works for 2 companies from office/home in Ljubljiana. He is officially part time MC member, doesn't get paid, but dedicates 8 hrs a day to his VPs and his goals. He is doing matching constantly and will realize 25 exchanges in Q4. Slovenia did 6 the whole last year!

That's my "bulletin" about the legendary people I've met so far. Hope you will get maybe just a little bit of the inspiration Ive got by capturing these experiences and sharing those thoughts with you!

Tomorrow I am doing an LC Visit in Katowice, Poland! Hope to keep you updates with other cool stories from our network of legendary individuals,

Mo

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Monica Costea
Director, Central and Eastern Europe
AIESEC International

I know you were all wondering where the world's largest carpet and largest chandelier are and now you know.
They're in Oman!





The Sultan has an amazing mosque here that we went to this morning to check it out. It was a bit awkward as we were wearing abayas, the traditional Omani dress, but clearly looked foreign so people weren't quite sure if we were there to pray or to take pictures.


Cheers from 33 Degree Oman,

Annika

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Annika Rudback
Director of the Middle East & North Africa
AIESEC International

November 3th to 10th
2008!