Joseph Munyambanza, 20 years old who is the Coburwas Education director and a Global Changemaker, was invited to represent COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) at the World Economic Forum on 4-6 May, 2011. As an agent of positive change and the source of inspiration to many young people in his community, Joseph was invited to be the voice for the youth on the continent during the Forum where he had the opportunity to present during the IdeasLab session and work with the facilitating panel during the five challenges, one solution session. Global Changemakers is a community network of over 600 Changemakers in 110 countries world-wide. The mission of the program is to empower youth to catalyse positive social change, a value which Joseph and his fellow CIYOTA Leaders stand for.
Joseph sharing his experience at the Forum with his students and fellow leaders in the comunity.
How did it feel like to speak to all those big people at the FORUM?
It was a great pleasure to stand and tell leaders, economists, entrepreneurs who are shaping the globe today. At first I was intimidated by the people of high caliber before me but I was later encouraged to speak it all since it was the only opportunity to share about the unique work COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa has done in the community. I decided to be myself and said it all in a humble and right way
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Did you manage to tell all about CIYOTA?
There was much to say in a short time; Mr. Jamie Drummond, founder of International ONE and Katherine from British Council briefed my fellow Global Changemakers and I on how to do it smart. This enabled me to make a summarized presentation about CIYOTA’s bigger picture, approach, success, challenges and areas where we need intervention.
What did you tell the audience about the youth in CIYOTA and the communities CIYOTA works in?
Of course it is very hard to precisely tell how wonderful CIYOTA youth are; but I tried to do so with the few pictures that I had in my pecha kucha presentation. I talked of the wonderful kids at our Learning Centre, Nursery and Primary school and the students at CIYOTA students’ hostels in Hoima town.
I emphasized on what CIYOTA considers to be most pressing community challenges like lack of responsible leadership and education designed to solve the community problems on our continent, and how we all work together to lay a foundation for young people who will bridge this gap and transform the community.
Were you able to share with the people at forum some of the challenges we face in our daily struggle?
Yes, I did talk of some challenges and areas where we need well wishers to make our projects more self-sustainable and replicated in other parts on the continent.
I was not able to say it all because of time issue at the forum. And so I encouraged people to be part of the big dream which CIYOTA has for this continent. Even though we always have problems on our way, I decided to tell people of how strong and committed we are and what we have done with little resources available in the poor communities in which we live. I wanted to inform people that in CIYOTA one can make a big positive change with little energy, little time and any little resource availed.
And did you share with them the new ideas we have to expand and that everyone is welcome to be part of CIYOTA family member and friend?
I did talk about the existing projects like our nursery and primary school where we carter for over 100 orphans and children from the poor community and how we are working need people to help in building better classrooms enough for these children and many others who are still in the community without hope.
I shared about the boys and girls hostels in Hoima where the students whom we bring from the poor communities perform very well and take big responsibility positions in their schools. I took a beautiful shopping basket which one of the students had made from the recycled materials and how the students need market for their products.
However, I did not get enough time to give specific details of how every CIYOTA student has an individual or group community service project he/she runs to improve lives in the community. Because of time, I was not able to clearly say how one can mentor our students, sponsor a student and visit CIYOTA students’ hostel to experience a life changing community of young people who are ready to challenge their problems.
Didn’t you share with experience people about CILA and IYFA Foundation?
Oh yes, yes, I did talk about both Coburwas International Leadership Academy (CILA) which CIYOTA plans to build in Uganda and International Youth Focus on Africa (IYFA) Foundation which we intend to launch early next year.
About CILA, which intends to provide a unique Advanced level curriculum designed to address the community needs to around 100 students per year. I briefly talked of how CILA will increase passion for Africa among the students, create, train and empower extraordinary leaders who will be able to solve the complex problems of Africa. Three people took enough time to give me great ideas on how we can best establish CILA and I am looking forward to sharing all this with you. These people were Mr. Cobus de Swardt, Mr. Noel N de Villiers and Ms. Lorna Solis and they all run big and successful global organizations.
I said little about the IYFA-Foundation during the formal discussions but in times of networking, I shared with individuals this great idea through which we hope to create a network of youths who will plan for the future functioning generations, advocate for peace, functional education, better health, infrastructure and high economical growth on Africa. I shared of how we plan to use a model of exponential empowerment in our projects whereby each student, participant etc will be inspired and empowered to use all skills in his community and encourage many others to play their role in making Africa the best place for all. I also shared of how this foundation will take place once a year and happen once in a country. I never forgot to explain how we will keep good truck of the alumnae of the foundation and maintain the interactive network on the continent.
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