February 27, 28, 29; March 1, 2020
Be the change you want to see!
“Be the change you want to see.” “Young leaders’ conference for capacity building (YLC) was one of the best, most thrilling, and efficacious programs I have ever participated”, said Aman Rasuli. One of the conference participants who came from Herat province.”
IPSO’ social-cultural containers’ Alumni Young leaders In Mazar-e-Sharif, launched a four-day conference called “Be the Change you want to see!” the conference was attended by young people from across the country, and members of several governmental, private, and international organizations in the country. Balkh Young Leaders worked more than three-month day and night to facilitate this brilliant opportunity for the participants from all over the country to discuss, explore, learn and reflect.
Murtaza and Mubarak are the Young Leaders who had the idea of the conference several months ago, after they had completed their community project of the first round of young leader said:
“We formed a dynamic and creative team of youth, created a Facebook page called “Young Leaders/رهبران جوان” rented an office, and wrote our proposal. When the first application form was released on the Young Leaders’ Facebook page, just within a week more than 600 people applied from all over Afghanistan and some people from southern Asian countries; whereas, until the last round of application about two thousand people were eager to attend this conference. In the end, 200 people were selected by the Young Leaders team to participate in this exciting and life-changing conference from different provinces of Afghanistan.”
In the four day conference they discussed the following topics:
- Art Exhibition: The artworks from artist, which their artworks portrayed people’s problems and difficulties, traditional and cultural style of living, and inspiring paintings.
- Leadership and Management
- Strategies for Personal Growth
- Theater about family relationships
- Games about Effective communication
- Trip to A Local Gymnasium
“To build the capacity of the youth, we used different approaches to this conference. At the beginning of the conference, we called on the regional artists to share the arts of their community with the participants through their artistic practices and exhibition. We also hired master trainers for youth conference to train our participants in leadership, administration, personal development, furthermore we also set up a theater with the help of local artists to have theater activities about relationships between families so that our participants can learn more about the benefits of family relationships. It is worth noting that during the conference, with the help of a number of young leaders, we launched some games aimed at effective communication, which were effective for participants.” Says the conference organizer Mubarak Sha Majidi and Murtaza Hashimi
“The conference was a milestone in my life I got exceptional insights of the training sessions. In particular, strategies for personal development session was awesome, now I know how to build my capacity as well as others’ through holding various academic and non-academic activities.” Says one of the participant Edris Sediq
Another participant of the conference Fatima Amiri says: “Leadership and Management session was very beneficial and interesting for me. Young Leaders’ conference and their activities motivate me to be a great leader in the future.”
“After completing our community projects in our communities, we wanted to maintain contact so as to tap into our energy and experience to bring about change, we have launched the conference to bring the young people closer to each other, to create a volunteer spirit in order to address social and cultural problems.” Says Murtaza Hashimi.
Mustafa Wafaee from Bamyan province says, “Young Leaders’ Conference for Capacity Building (YLC) was tremendously impactful and influential on me as I acquired adequate information about effective communication, leadership, management, and strategies about personal development, had practical leadership, team working and capacity building academic and non-academic activities, and some dialogues built up me, and now I am passionate to convey my experiences of this conference when going back to my province Bamyan.”
Young Leader Ahmad Walid says “We have also offered a workshop during the conference on proposal- and report-writing in order to be prepared for their future entrepreneurship activities. Another topic were family relationships. The participants saw a theater about family relationship that was well received by the participants and was the starting point for many discussions. A visit to a sports center was a new experience almost for all. Participants
“This project brought new insights to participant’s motivation and perspective on co-education, volunteer-social engagement, and communication. The overall purpose of this conference was to inspire and motivate youth to participate in society, to engage socially and to change positively their own lives,