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 Well folks, congratulations. You won't know exactly what this congratulations is for until you reach the end of your week in Prague; it isn't for getting into the conference. It may be for managing to stay lucid amid long days and late nights of cross cultural communication. It may indeed be for managing to overcome a trepidation or fear while in Prague. It may be for gaining a wealth of first hand knowledge from some of the brightest, engaged students you are ever likely to meet. At the closing ceremony, everyone will have a congratulations offered for different, but no less equal, achievements.
Without sounding like someone at an AA meeting, my name is Matt and I have a problem. Every six months for the last year and a half my life has been hijacked and taken to Prague to facilitate at the International Youth Leadership Conference, a drug so potent it would knock Kate Moss for six. I hail from sunny Northern Ireland and if you need to know anymore (to determine if I am trustworthy or mad) my bio is on the IYLC site. Most of my friends don't really understand what exactly it is I do in Prague, or why I am so enthused. It is pretty simple really. The facilitators are there to make sure that every conference is better than the previous one, and that you gain the most out of the experience. We aren't bosses, we aren't the establishment, just people who really, really enjoy getting to know others from across the globe. Our job is to get everyone to know each other, work together, then stand back and let you all take the lead; catalysts if you will. This blog is to keep you all up to date with new developments in IYLC land, to answer any questions you have about CCI, IYLC or Prague, and to make sure that you are well prepared for the week ahead. At the next conference in July 2008 the facilitator team come from Kenya, Morocco, Canada, United States, Northern Ireland (that would be me), Cameroon and Pakistan. So far, Ismayil and the CCI team have had hundreds of applications and have so far selected students from 35 countries, with more being added to the number every day. I'm an excitable type, and this just makes it worse. |
