OYW x QUB – A critical reflection on the purpose of our lives, and a different perspective of the world.

Being the 3rd and probably last article of my OYW x QUB campaign, if you had been reading them since the first post, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and support. Nevertheless, if you are a new reader, welcome on-board!

N.B. I would not be able to cover every detail of the sessions, thus feel free to check a recap of Day 3 here, as well as all the recorded sessions here!

Exploring the “World” by listening and talking to people from across the globe

Coming towards the end of the OYW x QUB campaign, I would like to explore my reflections directly from a delegate point of view, and how my view towards the world had shifted significantly in the summit.

This happened mainly after I had the chance to connect and network with young leaders across various sectors, industries and even nations through attending a workshop, several Round table Sessions and also informal meet up sessions.

In the workshop organised by Amnesty International on the topic of Making Rights a Reality with Young Human Rights Defenders, I had the chance to listen to front-line activists in Poland and Kazakhstan sharing their experience advocating for a democratic society back home.

In the round table sessions that I attended talking about Mental Health issues, Human Rights and Activism, I not only got the precious opportunity to connect with like-minded people who are already working effortless in those areas, I got the direct glimpse on what challenges people are actually facing in the United States of America, Canada, China, India, Liberia, UAE, and Taiwan.

These may not be inspiring words uttered by great leaders in the Main Stage Area, but they are all real stories and struggles that I never had thought people across the world had in common, whereby some (especially countries whom suffer from political instabilities) were scenarios that I could never had even imagined as someone who lived in a peaceful and safe country since young.

Besides, student delegates like myself in OYW even organised a few meet up sessions talking about topics that were relevant to our area of interest, discussing on what we had been doing in the past and identifying any potential opportunity to collaborate.

Freedom and Peace where we had mostly taken for granted.

The rest of the Summit had been even more powerful, leaving me literally emotionally exhausted where we got to listen first hand experience by YeonMi Park, GeumHyok Kim, Grace Forest, Bill Browder and many more people who had been through authoritarian governments, deprived of their fundamental freedom to express their opinion, albeit to be in control of their lives, and even the cruel truth about the ongoing Modern Slavery issues we are having every day.

The story mentioned by William Browder about his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky who were murdered after exposing fraud committed by government officials especially gave me the shock, finally accepting the fact that there are lives at stake everyday fighting to simply live a free and peaceful life where I never really even took time to appreciate.

Moving Forward

I am not too sure for you, but for myself I felt quite sad and depressed after realising the problems we face, but at the same time I am motivated by all these young leaders who stood by all the struggles, and work on their passions confidently, step by step.

My roommate throughout the Summit, who is a European Commission Peace Ambassador had also given me a lot of inspiration when I got to know more about the social venture he had been actively working on in Guatemala despite at his young age.

Thus, I shall remember that no effort is too small to make a difference.

In my next and final post of this OYW x QUB campaign, it will not longer be personal reflections, but I will share with you my plan to hopefully engage with young, passionate leaders in QUB who are inspired & interested to contribute to the local community.

I am due to graduate pretty soon, thus I sincerely hope that I would be able to pass on this baton to future students, and hopefully a small OYW community could start to be formed in QUB!

As a form of solidarity, I will end my future OYW articles with the call of support for one of our fellow OYW Ambassador Loujain Al Hathloul. Being in jail since May 15, 2018, where she is subjected to sexual harassment and torture, her only crime is to lead the fight for the emancipation of women in Saudi Arabia. #freeloujain