That's a line from Across the Universe (for everyone who is NOT Amelia, and won't get the reference otherwise.)
It's recently come to my attention that a lot of people (friends, family, strangers, etc) don't really know what I do, or what it is that keeps me moving farther and farther away from home. So, here it is. What I do. I warn you, it's a very long winded explanation.
Part I: AIESEC, The Global Organization.
AIESEC is the largest student-run organization in the world. It is run for university students by university students (and recent graduates). We function at the global, regional, national, and local levels. We started just after WWII in the late 1940s. Originally, AIESEC started in Europe, but it spread. We are now in 110 countries. Overall our aim is the "Peace and fulfillment of humankind's potential." That means that we believe that given the right tools and motivation that humans, particularly youth, can make a positive difference in our world. We can shape the world into a better place, a place in which peace is the overriding theme, not hate.
So how do we go about building peace and all that jazz?
We operate through two main functions. 1) Exchange 2) Leadership
Exchange - Parts of our organization focus on creating relationships and contracts with local/national/global companies to create internship opportunities for international interns. The other side of this is the group of people who recruit local students and AIESEC members to prepare and send them for internships to other countries. So, our exchange facet focuses on sending students (both AIESEC member and non-AIESEC member) around the AIESEC network for internships.
Leadership - We build leadership skills through putting people in leadership positions and letting them learn from the experience. There are tons of leadership opportunities in AIESEC. Students can do anything from leading a functional area team for a year at their local chapter. So, for example, leading the incoming exchange team to create contracts near their university. Or, they can lead team of 4-10 people to plan, organize, and run a conference. AIESEC has regional, national,and international conferences every year in every country that we're in - someone needs to plan those, and someone needs to lead that planning team. There are a lot of different opportunities, but you get the idea.
So, how do these two things create peace and happiness?
The idea is that if a person goes on exchange to a country they are able to build a more accurate idea of that country with less prejudices and assumptions. They make friends in that country and form a better opinion of that country. When they return home they talk to the friends about their experiences and how awesome this other country was. It's hard to hate a country when you have friends and good memories there. It's hard to hate a country when your friends at home talk so highly of their experience. This is particularly important between countries that have negative or wrong views of each other. Mongolia to China, India and Pakistan, US to Bahrain, France to England, the list goes on...
By putting people into leadership experiences they are forced to learn and recognize parts of themselves that may have never been uncovered otherwise. They learn how to motivate their peers, how to relate their experiences in AIESEC to the "real" world, how to be a role model.
By combining the two experience you get someone we in AIESEC idealistically call a "change agent" - someone who realizes the size, scope, and potential of the world AND has the ability to go out and make a positive difference. Wham, bam, peace and fulfillment of humankind's potential.
Yeah, that's great...but what do I do?
Part II: AIESEC in Mongolia
AIESEC started in Mongolia about two years ago. We are very new in a country that has a lot of potential to develop both in AIESEC and out in the rest of the country. My team is the national staff of AIESEC in Mongolia. We run AIESEC in the whole country of Mongolia. Right now AIESEC is just in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, but we'll get bigger. My team consists of three people. The MCP: Member Committee President, Gina Palmisano from the US. She oversees everything and is the boss lady. MC VP ICX: Member Committee Vice President of Incoming Exchange, Tomas Petrzela from the Czech Republic. He works with the businesses in the city to create contracts for internships for international students. MC VP TM: Member Committee Vice President of Talent Management, Bridget Mailley from the US. I work with the university student to create and deliver leadership training, soft skills training, and other organizational education. I am responsible for generating leadership positions, coaching conference organization teams, coaching my local counterparts, and monitoring the satisfaction of members with their experience.
My team is also the first team to come to Mongolia to do what we do. The last "team" was one international guy and a Mongolian girl. I am the first MC VP TM of AIESEC Mongolia. Before me, there was little to no leadership generation, and certainly no one making sure that students were satisfied with their experience.
Since the beginning of our one-year term, my team has done a lot in the way of building structure and precedent. I have run recruitment for new members; run induction training for those members; built local structure for leaders; created the procedures and run the first local leadership elections; created the first conference organizing committee (OC) for the first ever AIESEC Mongolia conference; taken that OC to China to experience an AIESEC conference before they had to plan one; coached the OC for that conference; wrote (parts), edited, and ratified the first compendium of AIESEC Mongolia; and that's just the stuff that's easy to explain. And, all of that was just the first seven months. That's what I've been doing.
Some context...
AIESEC is particularly important in a place like Mongolia. The education system is lacking. The education content is poor and they expect very little from their students. There are few or no other organizations like us here, that give students the opportunity to challenge themselves and learn valuable business skills and life lessons outside of the classroom. Most other exchange organizations here are expensive and offer opportunities abroad like dish-washing and fast food service. We offer everything from financial internships with Pricewaterhouse Cooper (one of the largest financial consulting firms in the world, and one of AIESEC's largest partners) to educational internships teaching language or arts around the world, to IT internships in the gaming industry in Europe, to internships helping run the administration of an NGO in China. We offer an attainable opportunity for Mongolian students to access the rest of the world in a field of their interest. We tell them that it's not only okay to dream about seeing the rest of the world, but that it's a possibility. In the US, this is not as big of a deal, American students have all kinds of opportunities thrown at them on a daily basis. Mongolian students don't. They especially don't get opportunities from their current university system to take ownership over their projects or goals and the chance to learn through experience. that's what we offer. We offer real-world experience in generating business skills, soft skills, international education, CV building activities, along with international exchange, and leadership opportunities.
When I was explaining some of my recent activities to my Gramma, she said, "So, you're changing lives." I'd like to think that she's right. That's why I'm so far from home, and going even farther away from home. I believe that my generation has the opportunity to change the world if just given the right tools. I'm equipping my peers with the tools to go out and change their world.
