A letter from the President of AIESEC International
The great Brazilian novelist Paolo Coelho has said “The world is changed by examples, not by opinions”. We envision a better world and our example is to develop youth leadership through our experiences. “We, the young generation, are the future we can bring valuable changes in the world of tomorrow this is why I encourage everyone to be proactive, take part in intercultural events so one day people will realize we live in a small world with beautiful people in every country, on every continent that is a great organization for the work it does and the impact it has on nowadays society.” Andra, Romania after completing her GCDP experience
This is the world we are fighting for. This is our contribution. This is our impact on young people by sending them abroad. This is AIESEC. And we know that by 2015, we need to provide thousands of such experiences. In fact want to deliver 1 million experiences because we hear the world calling upon us to change a generation of young people. If not us – who? If not now – when? We are waking up every morning to because AIESEC must grow like never before.
How are we doing? Currently we are not developing enough leadership through our professional development internship Programme – GIP. And we are not growing fast enough. In GCDP the sustainability of our programme is a concern, especially on the incoming side. See more here and here. And here. And here. “Basically we are doing some promotion for a company. I don't think it's useful to improve the environment. Furthermore, they offered not ideal accommodation and food for us. We paid 150 USD for our accommodation and 300 USD for 45days food even there are only two meals per day and the food was not offered in the weekends. Anyway it's totally different Job-description with they ever mentioned. I'm so disappointed with AIESEC and regret to come by this way.”
Too often we hear these stories. I wake up every day reading stories of disappointment in our organisation – “I regret to come by this way”. It hurts. Let’s be clear – if AIESEC stops being the example of leadership we believe in, then we will stop developing that leadership as well. We must provide a real and powerful internship (outer journey), and a conscious facilitation of learning by doing, reflection and value generation (the inner journey). AIESEC must deliver Leadership in every experience.
How are we doing? Currently are clear on our why, but we are not translating our operations into an AIESEC that can deliver this. Too many experiences don’t reflect our purpose, and our customers are telling us. And rarely do we implement processes to actively facilitate our interns’ leadership development. See more here and here. How can this be? How can we grow like never before and develop leadership in every experience? My question is – how can we not? Why would we even be here, the world’s largest student run organisation if we don’t fundamentally live up to our promise of providing the youth leadership our world needs? This is
BIG AIESEC.
Is it hard? Yes. Do we know how? Yes. By being fast, focused and listening to our Customers. I wish for you to be able to say, “I was part of this generation. I was part of Generation Bold�. Happy reading of the Quarter 3 report of AIESEC International.