Egyptian and Tunisian Protests - A movement grown by youth for change

It's impossible not to discuss the protests in Egypt that aim to oust President Hosni Mubarak and the link to Tunisia's protests that overthrew the government of President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali. When there is a delicate balance of unrest and order in a country, all it takes is a single act of defiance in the face of injustice to tip the scales towards revolution.

In Tunisia, it was the actions of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26 year-old produce merchant. His defiance in the face of repeated humiliation ignited the seeds of change for an uprising after being mistreated by local police officials for over a decade. An action, like Mohamed Bouazizi's, that was visible and poignant becomes a foundation on which others can bind together and take a stand. The Tunisian's were successful in expressing their dissatisfaction, wish for freedom and shift in the government. They have won back the press; newspapers are now printing without Ben Ali's photo for the first time in over twenty years.

Egyptian youth are pushing hard for a shift to occur. Youth activist, Ahmed Maher, discusses how the youth are organizing without a leader through the internet and cell phones states that, "young activists are fired up, and they have no allegiances to anything but change." Corruption, unemployment and a weak middle class are all contributing to the anger that the people feel towards the government. The protests give many Egyptians around the world hope that they will see an Egypt that they dream of. Waseem Wagdi, an Egyptian protester outside of the Egyptian Embassy in London, says that these protests give all human beings "hope for a more humane society."

I stand in support of the Egyptian protests to usher in a new era that supports the vision that the youth hold for a more free and just society. Actions in both Tunisia and Egypt demonstrate that when you have the will and the vision to move forward and the tools to enable action, the collective voice of citizens carries a great power.

Will the actions in these two countries inspire uprisings elsewhere? Is there a way to move towards a greater collective vision for equality, freedom and peace without the violence?

Youth Engagement in Pakistan - How does this inform U.S. youth engagement?

Being in the process of a learning curve, I am in the process of looking for examples of youth engagement in projects that positively impact communities. I found an interesting article called "Social development: Tapping youth creativity for effective solutions." Taking place this week in Islamabad, Pakistan is the Regional Youth Symposium: Youth in Action for Global Change intending to "understand key questions on youth participation."

I'm interested in the follow up to this event. How are the youth being engaged? Are youth part of the group deciding upon a youth engagement strategy? To what extent does the country want the youth engaged? I wonder how this plays out in political engagement.

Seeing the efforts in Pakistan makes me curious to learn whether there are opportunities like this in the U.S. So often elected officials call out the youth and claim their support of younger generations, but with low youth voter turnout I wonder how many young people feel engaged? From my own conversations, it sounds like a percentage of the youth do not vote because poll operating time conflict with work schedules and commutes. I think for many, they do not feel adequately represented so they do not show up.

I remember being in my earlier teens and wishing I could vote. I was engaged in the content and wanted my voice to be counted. One of the first exercises I remember from first grade was a workbook about the 1992 election between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Even then I had an opinion.

Do you have any pros and cons to share about having a younger voting age? I think it would get youth engaged at an earlier age in the decision making process about those who govern.

Putting more power in the hands of youth

Many joyous greetings from us to you for 2011! With the new year comes a flurry of new ideas. The one I'm focusing on right now is an initiative called New England Youth Connect (NEYC). NEYC intends to pull together a diverse group of youth from all over New England to positively contribute to local and regional problem solving. It is an online place where the youth voice can be expressed and shared in a unified manner to strengthen local communities. I intend this to be a model that can be used in other regions of the country and eventually other regions of the globe. Does this sound like a project you're interested in? Any suggestions or learning from your own experience that can help inform this work?

Through my life experience (I'm 24 currently), I have found that youth (people between the ages of 14 - 34) have great passion and ideas for improving the world we live in. Due to having less experience in the constraints and barriers that exist, their ideas are unencumbered, collaborative and creative. I keep hearing in the news and from adults that we need to run things differently. Yet, the people who run this country seem to use the same ideas over and over again (Einstein's definition of insanity) and expect our broken systems to work. Too often it seems like massive funds are being used in a band-aid approach - fixing the symptom, not the root cause. I think it's time for us to employ our creative brain power and ability to create new solutions to make some headway in creating the society we envision.

How do we youth wish to impact our society and country? How can we connect to foster creative dialogue that will help solve local, regional and nationwide problems? How can groups of youth from a diverse variety of backgrounds be supported to share their ideas in a forum that results in these ideas taking root? How can we share our collective voice to move our society to one that creates an environment where all youth (and everyone else!) get their basic needs met (healthy food, a good education, health care, supportive community) and finds their place in the world where their skills and passions intersect? 

I aim to first try this in New England and find groups of youth and youth-supportive adults and elders who are interested in these questions and passionate about getting involved. I'm curious to know in which areas youth feel passionate to collaborate.

Do you know a youth or youth group who would be interested in exploring this idea? Know an adult or elder who has youth connections or a passion in supporting the youth?

How do we as the youth of envision our communities? How do we see ourselves acting as a global citizen?

I see this project growing organically and being created out of the engaged communities in New England. All input is welcome. More to come!

How can we connect for change?

I start this blog holding the question, "how can we learn more about our society and the current state of affairs as influenced by our past in order to better understand how to connect for impact and paradigm shift?" There are wonderful thought leaders who are creating change in their lives and surrounding communities. How can we, as a whole, do much more of this and connect these actions for greater change? How can these actions receive greater visibility so that people who are not directly connected to this movement (a movement of movements) see that positive change is happening and learn that their involvement is crucial. All voices are important.

Last week I spent two days at the Connecting for Change Conference sponsored by the Marion Institute. It is a regional Bioneers conference with the goal to "gather to embrace, share, brainstorm, network, heal, learn, teach, celebrate, recharge and connect for change. We will roll up our sleeves and harvest tangible, practical solutions to the specific challenges we face here in the Northeast and the world at-large."

The keynotes inspired energy to act and connect. How can the wisdom and knowledge of these speakers inform our ability to move forward? 

Alan Khazei kicked off Friday morning's keynotes with his thoughts on "Big Citizenship: How Pragmatic Idealism Can Bring Out the Best in America." This is also the title of his recently released book. He co-founded City Year in 1988 and launched a new venture called Be the Change in 2007.  His vision is to build a strong citizens movement. "No one changes the world by themselves." Even in our hyper-individualistic American society, it's good to remember that the Constitution does not begin with I. What is it again? "We the people..." When President Harry Truman left the office of the Presidency, a reporter asked him what it was like to be leaving the highest office in the United States. Truman replied, “I am not leaving the highest office. I am assuming the highest office, that of citizen.” Alan spoke of our need to reclaim our sense of common purpose as a nation. He envisions a different role for government in the 21st century that is more catalytic, more transparent and helps to scale up what works and shut down what doesn't. He called for more private-public partnerships and said that we, "can't afford to leave people on the sidelines." 

Alan Khazei speaks at Connecting for Change in New Bedford, MA.

Next up was Adeola Oredola, Executive Director of Youth In Action (YIA). YIA is a Providence, RI based nonprofit that empowers young leaders to create social change. She told her own story about growing up in an under-served community where she worked hard to get into Brown University, but upon her arrival realized that she has a lot of catching up to do. She is a proponent of integrated youth leadership and equal access to resources for success and change. YIA is run by the youth, decisions are made by the youth and they have created a Youth Bill of Rights to advocate for greater power to be placed in youths' hands as local decision makers. From a follow up session on YIA that I attended, it's clear that this passionate group of youths are making a positive impact in Providence. 

Adeola Oredola speaks at Connecting for Change in New Bedford, MA

Diane Wilson and self proclaimed "unreasonable woman" took the stage by storm. She is a firecracker! You may be familiar with her name; she poured an oil-like concoction all over herself in a hearing in Congress to protest BP's liability in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. She is a fourth generation shrimper and says, "we are tired of being dumped on." The gist of (and title of) her keynote is "being unreasonable will get us where we want to go and if it doesn't then we're not being unreasonable enough!" She quoted Edwin Louis Cole's famous thought about unreasonable men and changed it to read unreasonable women. I think we need to be inclusive, so the quote reads as follows, "Reasonable people adapt to the world around them; unreasonable people make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable people." She said that to make a change it's important to get into the faces of the ones holding the power. "Ideas that scare you come from the heart" and it's important to follow those callings. Ghandi referred to it as soul power and the ingredient is commitment. "Sometimes being ignorant is a good thing - you don't know what you can't do." Diane was greeted by a standing ovation. It's hard not to stand up when someone is calling for each and every person in the room to awaken and respond to their highest calling.

Diane Wilson discusses sinking her shrimp boat for zero emissions and going on her first hunger strike

 Last but not least was Van Jones. Founder of Green for All, Green Jobs Advisor in the White House for 6 months and currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Van brought humor and a pragmatic approach to getting things done in the U.S. It's no joke that we have to get moving. Some statistics that Van shared during his keynote:

• The Pentagon has scenario planning for stuff that's scarier than anything in Al Gore's film.
• A third of Pakistan was under water this summer. A third of an entire nation!
• An eighth of Russia was on fire this summer.
• Even Putin wants to do something about climate change.

We are becoming more culturally diverse, but less economically stable; "that's not a recipe for a common-ground, that's a recipe for a battleground, so we have to put America back to work to pull America back together." He spoke about change being harder than hope and backed it with a humorous analogy about donuts and losing 15 pounds. When you want to lose 15 pounds, you can make that decision, but enacting it takes time and commitment. And how easy is it to go and buy a donut even when you know it's not the best decision? Some days you fall off the bus, but then you get back on and keep persevering. That's the way change goes. Hope is seeing yourself in your mind's eye sans 15 pounds. Change is losing that 15 pounds. With change, there are good days and bad days. In politics, you have good years and bad years. Our energy workers are America's heroes. They risk their lives and lungs to provide America's energy. But America's future is not down those holes. If you want to see America's future, look up!

There are three ways to tackle change in America:

1. Top down - government
2.  Bottom up - citizens
3. Inside out - us

He talked about climate policy in the United States and said, "you don't want to do cap-and-trade, fine, but you're not off the hook." He equated carbon pollution with general littering laws. If someone throws a wrapper on the ground, they will be charged a fine. You don't see shop owners throwing their trash into the streets. If a store owner is directed to pay for trash removal they don't say, "you are messing with my profit model." And when asked to pay for trash removal they don't scoff and say, "ha! ha! you must be a crazy socialist." The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon pollution and they aren't a bunch of crazy hippies are they? 

"The movement for hope and change wasn't built in the Iowa Primaries. Don't forget you inspired him (President Obama) first. And it was never 'yes he can,' it was 'yes we can.'" 

Van Jones encourages participants to own the movement: "It was never 'yes he can' it was 'yes we can.'"

On Saturday, the closing keynote was by Seth Goldman, Co-Founder and TeaEO of Honest Tea. He spoke about Honest Tea's 40% purchase by Coca-Cola and their impact as the first organic beverage to market in 1998. He shared a case study where Honest Tea set up tea purchasing kiosks around major U.S. cities over the summer. These kiosks were unmanned and they asked people to contribute a dollar into a box if they decided to take a beverage. Boston topped out as 93% honest! 

So what happens when we take citizen power for a common purpose, integrated youth leadership, a commitment to soul purpose and change coming top down, bottom up and inside out and stir in good old American honesty as it comes from the public? We have a concoction for positive change coming from every town, every municipality, every rural area and every community all with the purpose of making this a better place for citizens. Hopefully this means work, life purpose, education, health care and community support are all in alignment. 

And how is this all inspired? Interspersed through this conference was music, poetry, hip hop and spoken words. These mediums connect to people's hearts and inspire action and responsibility.

A couple artists worth mentioning:

• Christopher Johnson, Spoken Word Poet- All I have Is Now "How can I make this now the best now that it can possibly be?"
• Rudy "Rudacious" Cabrera
• ReadNex Poetry Squad

Do you have any inspirational artists you would like to share? Any ideas on how our social movements can gain traction to hasten change? Inspirational quotes or websites? Post them on the comments page.