In April of this year, I attended an event hosted by the Queen’s Young Leaders (QYL) team at the University of Cambridge called ‘IT’S GOING TO BE GOOD’. The event brought together QYLs from 2018 and previous years who were in London for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and other young leaders and change-makers.
It was an intense day of mind blowing talks from various speakers, as well as interesting discourse in our various groups. One of the speakers who truly moved me, was Farai Mubaiwa, 2017 Queen’s Young Leader and co-founder of Africa Matters, from South Africa. She is a phenomenal young woman and has a TEDx talk which I watched a few times before (I think the link was shared in one of our earlier Leading Change modules). Here’s the link in case you’re interested, (HINT: you should be): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsJ_YkPD5PQ
Even before I met Farai in April, the content of her TEDx talk blew me away, and when I found out she would be one of the speakers, I was honestly so excited; even so I forgot to take a picture with her ! * let’s all face palm together *
Before I go into why I’m writing about this today, I will share with you some information about the initiative Farai co-founded from their website https://www.africamattersinitiative.com/:
“The Africa Matters Initiative (Africa Matters) was created in April 2015 by Farai Mubaiwa and Reanne Olivier as a platform to empower African youth to reject negative notions of Africa and contribute to tangible change in our communities because 'we are the ones we've been waiting for'.”
The last eight words (yes, I counted them) is what I want you to focus on. This statement is so important because it is PURE FACTS !
WE are the ones we've been waiting for. We live in an era where so many phenomenal young people are emerging and doing so many amazing things, in a range of industries.
WE NO LONGER HAVE TO LOOK ACROSS OCEANS TO FIND ROLE MODELS.
Your role models are the people you see every day. They are the people who played with you as a child, the people whose homes you are well acquainted with, the ones whose homework you copied when you didn't do yours, the ones who you are so proud of in this current moment because of how much they have accomplished (I hope some people popped into that brain of ours!)
I’ve been lucky enough to realise that I don’t have to look far to find people who inspire me. They are my classmates (past and present), persons from my village who are doing so many amazing things, the 2018 cohort of Queen’s Young Leaders and not forgetting my friends and family !
This past weekend, while watching one of the graduation ceremonies of the University of the West Indies where two Youth On Fire Movement (YOFM) members graduated with the highest honours, my heart was full ! It began to overflow when sometime after that ceremony, I found out that TWO other persons from Anse-la-Raye were graduating the day after, both receiving highest honours ! MY GOSH ! In ONE weekend F O U R young people from my village graduated with such accolades. Now, though not everyone is academically inclined and we’re moving into a time where vocational skills are more and more becoming a necessity, let's be honest with ourselves - THIS IS A BIG DEAL ! What’s even more impressive is that they were all doing this part time. Can you imagine having to study AND having work responsibilities ? whewwww...chileeeeeee !
I’m a full time student and uni by itself is a full time job !
It honestly is so inspiring. This is what our young people need to share on their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter timelines. Not meaningless things (but I digress). OUR ROLE MODELS ARE RIGHT INFRONT OF US. We don’t have to look far to meet phenomenal young leaders, entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors, teachers, artists, musicians.
We idolise persons who we don’t personally know, while there are persons walking the same street as us in this very moment who we don’t even congratulate for their efforts or just say ‘keep up the good work’ to boost them.
There was a time when we spoke of the great leaders of TOMORROW. Well guess what, tomorrow is today,and WE ARE THE ONES WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.
So in case you haven’t, look around you and see the phenomenal persons in your circle, family, and community. How do they inspire you?
--Your favourite Unicorn
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