What do I do?

I just realized that I have been going on and on about my departure but some of you don’t even know what I am leaving!!

..well I work for an student run organisation called AIESEC, what we basically do is run an exchange program that enables students and recent graduates the opportunity to live and work in another country at the same time deliver national and international conferences to our membership that help them recognise their potential for leadership positions in great projects that we run or in organisations that we partner with. We provide the platform for young people to discover and develop their potential so as to have a positive impact on society in over a 100 countries/territories where we are present.

The picture on the side explains how we go about developing this potential, it’s quite a structured, detailed process that assist in discovering oneself. Let me explain it a bit:

Introduction to AIESEC – this is the recruitment at the begging of every year where there are stands during orientation and we make you aware on how you can have that international internship during and after your studies, how you can travel and meet new people over conferences and how you can develop skills practically in being responsible for a project.

Taking Responsibility – This is the part that is most exciting when you have just joined, everyone has a passion around a certain issue in life - it can be around energy, finance, entrepreneurship, HIV/AIDS, education or something not mentioned here and this is the stage where you come up with an idea of an activity that falls under any of those topics and making it have impact and yield positive results for your community and the people around it plus you and the people you were working with.

Have you ever started something small, you watch it grow and it becomes big, so big that when people see it or partake in it – it changes their lives? Well this is where it can all begins.

Leadership Role – When you have gained a strategic skill, can think sharply and make a decision that benefit others positively, and have the ability to lead others then this is where you assume that role within a project like being a project leader or president of the club/society/organisation or as we say in AIESEC the Local Committee President or Executive board member or joining the national committee.

Work Abroad – this is where you can go and do an internship overseas in either technical, management, educational & developmental studies or work in another country on the same project you were working on while you were here.

Head for the future – when you prepare to leave the organisation and have gained all the necessary skills to make impact out there, skills such as being an active learner, culturally sensitive person, entrepreneurial, socially responsible, etc..

Once you have passed through this talent development process with AIESEC then you will be a desired individual in the job market as you will have had a far more in-depth experience in solution oriented thinking than an average graduate.

The reason why I joined:

There is a need for solutions, new ideas, ways of doing things in the world of today and that is where us the youth come into play.

Our environment needs values driven leaders – people who can and want to make a difference! People equipped with the right set of knowledge, skills, attitude, and people with a broad knowledge of world issues and real meaning of diversity.

This is what AIESEC has been for me, a platform where young people can become and be driven leaders of tomorrow!

Remember that we are young so our learning experiences are coupled with fun, building a global network of friends who have the same passion as us.

Everyday at least 10 young people across the world fly to a new country to start a life changing experience, I lived in a house in Auckland park, Johannesburg, South Africa and of 10 people in the house there we only 2 South Africans - every evening at the dinner table – through those conversations my mind opened to the world and I started to think globally with the pursuit of acting locally.

A serious of events in our lives lead us into a process of inner transformation and as a result we follow a dream, when you cross that threshold, the most mysterious things encapsulates one’s being.

All of our experiences have formed an essential part of our developmental path, helping us to shape into what we are in the process of becoming and that is the essence of a learning organisation – development of not only new capacities but also fundamental shifts of mind, individually and collectively

This is AIESEC - a ride I have thoroughly enjoyed!!