The Young Facilitators Journey to YLC

Screaming on the Volley Ball court, landing with a twisted ankle, not realising what to do next, was when the thought occurred to me again. I was yet again in a similar situation surrounded by young people in their early and mid twenties, all energized trying to play a sport which they knew not much off. But, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were involved. Meeting new people, new faces, and accommodating anyone and everyone who had the passion to play. They didn’t care whether someone was worse that amateurs They were all there to support each other and help everyone pick up their game.

Similarly exactly a month ago, I had found myself in an exact situation, while attending the 10th Young Leaders Conference, 2011 organized by the School of Leadership. I was surrounded by some 400 young individuals as the whole hall was vibrating and glowing with energy. Though there were students and young professionals all around, the Sheraton Hotel, Karachi was buzzing with young people from all corners of Pakistan.

Most of the focus was on the participants. Everyone was speaking to them, Session speakers, media personnel and whoever wanted to know more about the conference, wanted to hear the participants out. But as I would walk down the halls, any one of the Young Facilitators (YFs) would smile and walk down with me. Giving me the royal treatment. It would be the YF’s on call whenever I needed something, or any student needed an advice, or help with anything. It was the YF’s running around for all the work, Session Speakers, facilitating them, helping and guiding them. The Young Facilitators to me were the true pillars holding the Fortress called “Young Leaders Conference.” It was them, who were tested to their greatest abilities and strength. They were the soldiers in shining armor, keeping things calm and composed and not letting the participants feel any less important.

In those 6 days, I did manage to speak to a few YF’s myself, only to find out more about them, and their love story with School of Leadership, mostly trying to understand their chain of thought to a journey they will surely never forget in their lifetime.

Surprisingly, most of the YF’s at the Young Leaders conference are previous YLCians. It’s the whole culture, heart to heart connection with anyone and everyone who wants to bring a change in themselves. Bilal Nazar Sibtain, Maalik Khaskhely the duo champ team who got acquainted with the world of YLC and SoL family in 2009, and nothing makes them give up their love for the YLC family. They love to touch more lives, and share hands with SoL in changing paradigms and mindsets for the youth.

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Maddi Murtaza a Young Trainer and a successful entrepreneur feels no different about the magic of YLC. Someone, who took a jump start in their academic life with engineering and leaving it midway knows now exactly what intrigues and moves him. Maddi himself feels, once becoming a part of YLC was a realization to his “method to the madness.” He felt much closer to a world similar to him, wanting to change lives and improve upon the lives of others. Lost in the mediocre mindset that majority of our youth shares; it’s a sole mission for Maddi to eradicate all kinds of negative thoughts and replace them with constructive madness.

The queen thinker behind the Idealistic theme of the 10th YLC is none other than Namreen Akhtar. She herself being a part of YLC in 2009, has been fascinated and inspired by the people who run the show. Namreen who had recently attended an International Youth Conference in Turkey, had returned all charged up with renewed energy to find her country in the midst of the worse floods the nation would ever encounter. There was a lot of energy and hope, and form while planning ahead for the upcoming YLC. She knew that the theme had to be Big and Strong. Thus, Emaan, Itehad & Tanzeem – Inqilaab came into existence. Even though her education was her main priority, this young graduating student has never said ‘NO’ while helping the YLC team organise themselves.

Zainab Haider another YF who was a participant at the 2009 YLC too has never looked back since her first interaction with the SoL. Being a participant of YLC, it had touched & moved her to such an extent, that she flew to Lahore to attend the TTYT (Train the Young Trainer) at the very next chance.

What amazed me is that these young individuals were so passionate about YLC and empowering their fellow youth members, they are more than excited to volunteer for 6 days at the conference and not only that, they go through a rigorous 5 day Boot Camp just before the conference commences.

After being around these extra energized young lot of YF’s, I have still to feel any less motivated and less energized. The drive and passion to make things happen not only for themselves but to help improvise things around them is absolutely spectacular.

Since the end of YLC, I have noticed numerous youth & skill development training, Public speaking & confidence building workshops conducted by these same Young Facilitators adamant to change the world. I would like to wish all these young individuals the best of Luck in their endeavors to change the world around them.

Signing out till the next YLC: Asma Inayat 

The Idea and the Experience – Rebirth of YLC 2011

Every morning on my way to the School of Leadership (SoL), I would pass “Teen Talwar”- the monument of three marble swords, constructed in reverence to the future Quaid envisioned for Pakistan. “Unity, Faith, Discipline”-words iterated and reiterated by people seeking to inspire, bring back the passion with which the nation was built, words delicately woven into poetry in the hope that the few songs sung every 14 August would spark some patriotism. In some distant corner of my heart too, the same words reverberated with an aching to be brought to life with a focus on action. 10th Young Leader’s Conference was to be that revival, of not just a mere quotation but of the spirit too that must reflect the Quaid’s devotion to this country.

A revolution of sorts is needed to give back to this nation the strength it deserves.  A revolution brought about by uniting in our diversity to tolerate and respect religions, cultures and values different from ours while cherishing the common bond we share in many ways. A revolution persevered with faith in our ability to the shape the future. Lastly a disciplining of our energies to the common goal of salvaging our nation, through focused effort towards elimination of corruption, empowerment of youth, and education.

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Armed with a mere idea, banking on Apple’s creed that an “idea can change the world” – I went to SoL, hoping that this presentation would triumph others’ and I be chosen to lead this YLC. And so it happened, an opportunity anyone would dream of. As a business student, I thoroughly enjoyed the creative process of conceptualizing the conference, of building corporate relations, formulating marketing strategies and of experiencing a corporate culture at SoL that encourages personal growth. And so I continued for six months to juggle full time studies with the responsibilities that come as project manager. For me, YLC turned out to be a reawakening within myself- a close scrutiny of my strengths, weaknesses and abilities.

“Itehad.Imaan.Tanzeem- Inqilab” (Unity. Faith. Discipline- Revolution) was in its nascent stages when I had to painfully detach myself from the project. But gathering hope from the fact that the Quaid too entrusted a nascent Pakistan to the hands of the youth; I left YLC to the true custodians of a future brimming with hope, to the force that has driven the conference since its inception, to the youth of this country.

By Namreen Akhter Syed

The writer is an undergraduate student at IBA, Karachi, and also a public speaker/ trainer.

Brand Yourself – Learn from the Experts

Umair is a trainer by passion, an entrepreneur by  profession and a social worker by persistence. 35,000 souls  across Pakistan and around the globe have been, as Umair  says, “turned on.” He has worked with corporate  executives, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, trainers, teachers,  students and people from a variety of professional classes.
He would pull away the earth of your beliefs from your under feet, make you doubt, think, analyze and then help you recreate the basics of your ideology as you like it and as it would suit you best. He is known as a magician and a wise wizard for the same.

His core areas of training are ‘Live your 100%’, ‘Communication & Presentation’ and ‘Sales with Service’. He has developed training brands like The PlaySeeBowEffect, FourPlay and Max based on his philosophies.

Umair is a surprise every time but what remains constant in his variable approach to impact is the convergence of different disciplines like business management, entrepreneurship, religion, psychology, social sciences and common sense above all.

Umair is the Chief Turning Office of Torque – School of Leadership‘s corporate function.

To Learn more about Umair subscribe to his Blog

Walk the YLC Talk with Kamran Rizvi

Celebrate 10 years of Youth Leadership

Kamba a.k.a Kamran Rizvi will welcome the 10th Young Leaders Conference Participants, at the Sheraton Hotel, Karachi. He plans to initiate the conference with a Decade long Journey of Young Leaders and Youth Development, with the School of Leadership. 

Kamran Rizvi is a founding director, trainer, executive coach, keynote speaker and consultant at Navitus, a leading organization development (OD) consulting and training firm in the country. He brings innovative, effective and practical strategies for implementing change in a variety of organizations striving to grow, build sustainability, and improve productivity, efficiency, quality and impact.

Kamran pioneered the personal-improvement and OD movement in Pakistan in 1991, after working for fourteen years in retail and commercial banking in the Middle East and the UK.

He specializes in behavioral and organizational change and is a well-known inspirational speaker. Kamran facilitates learning programs locally and internationally for the corporate sector, non-profits and youth to enhance their managerial and leadership effectiveness, covering inspirational and visionary leadership; out-of-box thinking; change leadership; team performance; mentoring & coaching for excellence and the like.

He regularly writes leadership and management articles for Blue Chip, a leading business magazine of Pakistan. Kamran obtained his MBA degree from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, where he majored in organization development. He is a graduate of the Dale Carnegie Inc., having completed courses in Management; Executive Image; and Effective Speaking and Human Relations. He has also attended a number of courses that include “Leadership for the 21st Century”, at the J F K School of Government, Harvard University; Dr Peter Senge’s “The Learning Organization – Building a Sustainable Future”; and “Strategic Leadership and Change Management” at the Wharton SMU Program, in Singapore. Kamran is an approved training resource for members of YPO (Young Presidents Organization), headquartered in the United States.

Kamran loves to devote his time facilitating leadership programs for youth locally and internationally. To this end, he serves on the board of School of Leadership (SoL) in Pakistan, best known for its flagship program, the Young Leaders’ Conference (YLC), now in its 10th year. He is also a board member of ICLS (Intercultural Communication & Leadership School) headquartered in Rome, Italy. He is invited to conduct sessions on leadership, internationally, to encourage confidence building between young community leaders from different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.

He frequently speaks at corporate annual conferences on topics of contemporary management interest and has also been invited as a key note speaker by the National Defense College, Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC), and a number of universities, colleges and schools.

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Meet the Young Facilitators @ the 10th YLC Conference

 Meet the Duo Champs who will greet you, meet you and shake every    spirit inside you for the coming 6 days conference.

The Duo are former YLC champs, and Young Leaders Conference Leads.  They will be with you, around you, behind you, watching over you,  spying on you and clicking pictures of you while napping. But, they will  surely be your best friends, during, at and after the conference.

 

Meet Champ 1:-Bilal Nazar Sibtain 

President – Nawabshah Youth Organization

Conference Lead -Pakistan Youth Conference 2nd Edition

A computer science student lives in Nawabshah, loves to innovate bright ideas. He Inspired by the 6-days Young Leaders Conference 2007. He increased his experience when he started Nawabshah Youth Organization (NYO) by motivating young blood of Nawabshah, working as a president in NYO & organized such events like Art Mela with special children.

A one day event for all the youth to identify our culture, “I Clean Nawabshah” and one of thePakistan’s biggest youth conferences named as Pakistan Youth Conference (PYC 2009). He has been a trainee in different training programs. He also attended the 1st Pakistan Youth Congress. 

After being trainee he is now giving trainings to various institutes of Nawabshah. After inspired by his hard work The Rotary Club offered him to lead the Rotaract Youth Club in Nawabshah. He recently led youngsters in Young Leaders Conference 2009 as a Youth Facilitator, and now He is the Conference Lead of Pakistan Youth Conference 2010 with the theme of YUVA – The Future.

A certified trainer fromSchoolofLeadership, he gives trainings to Rotary Pakistan, RotaractPakistan, WWF-P, SZABIST, andFoundationPublic Schools, PYDN – Pakistan etc. As a personal interest and love for communication skills He is also working with Sachal Hot FM 105 Nawabshah as a RJ. He was awarded as a ‘Top 30 under 30’ youngster ofPakistan. Bilal holds the honor to representPakistanat “World Youth Congress 2010” where He represented his country inTurkeyJuly 2010.

Meet Champ 2:- Maalik Khaskhely

Maalik is a business student, who loves to keep his teachers busy in multiple and generative questions. He thinks that when teachers work as a sleeping pill then questions work as an antidote. He experiences life fully and concludes that “if you want a happy life then start loving all those things which you are doing to live”.

As a facilitator, he electrifies his participants with high volts of energy and transforms their anger into positivism. He aspires to magnetize the globe by trainings globally. Currently he trains fromSchoolofLeadership, Indus Resource Center (IRC), Young Students’ Welfare Association (YSWA) and Youth Empowerment Network (YEN).

Having participated in YLC 2007 as a participant and later as ‘Young Facilitator’, Maalik is currently leading the 10th Young Leaders’ Conference as a Co-Champ. Maalik aspires to dive into politics.