Hey guys! I know you guys heard all about the trip to Poland for International Congress. Just recently, I submitted an article on the trip to NUS' Globetrotter Magazine. The article is as below, read and enjoy!!! :) - Imran

Imran and the MCP and MCVPICX of Afghanistan

The Singapore MC 2006/2007 Delegation in Poland

Imagine a conference hall with 600 young people representing a leadership team of 92 countries around the world. Imagine feeling the beat and hearing the emotions from dances and songs that each country shares unique to its culture. Imagine laughing and dancing along to jokes and songs known by everyone in the hall. Imagine 12 intense days of sharing experiences and practices from each country and region. Imagine making friends from different countries, that will last a lifetime. Imagine seeing and working with global companies which not only share and teach you skills and knowledge, but encourage you to learn more and explore more in a global environment. Imagine changing your paradigms forever.

For a group of young people representing Singapore, we didn’t have to imagine. From the 23^rd of August to 3^rd of September, 2006, 7 young people, including Phoebe Lim and myself, Mohamad Imran, from National University of Singapore, attended AIESEC International Congress, in Warsaw, Poland.

AIESEC is the largest university-student organisation in the world. It focuses on leadership development, preparing tomorrows leaders with skills, networks, and ability to deal with issues like CSR, HIV/AIDs, Education, Energy, Entrepreneurship, Globalisation in their professional and personal lives. Our biggest program is the International Traineeship Exchange Program, which sends members of AIESEC to work in partnering organisations like DHL, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, ABN AMRO, Electrolux, the World Bank, and United Nations, amongst hundreds of others, anywhere from two to eighteen months.

AIESEC International Congress is AIESEC’s largest conference held annually at a different country each year. The leadership teams of each member country congregate in one place to engage in sharing, learning, talks on partnerships and collaborations, discussions on global and national direction and strategy, and a whole lot of fun and bonding. As President in AIESEC in National University of Singapore, my main concern was to bring back learning points of the experience, and the message from the global vision and direction, back to my members in NUS. At the same time, I sought to learn from projects that other chapters of AIESEC in universities around the world were embarking on, such as a project on social entrepreneurship in the Phillippines, where foreign AIESEC interns mentored slum residents who were given a small loan to start a business, in areas such as accounting, filing for taxes, creating good systems, and marketing, or the creation of a CSR manual for enterprises, in India. In each case, learn from their good-case practices, while constantly looking out for potential initiatives in which NUS could collaborate with universities in other countries. This was through interactions with dozens of other presidents of AIESEC chapters in dozens of other universities, like ones in Bucharest, St Gallen, Seoul, and Delhi. The output has a lot of potential.Already, talks are in place to have a study tour between Korea University and NUS, and an summer internship project between Hitotsubashi University in Japan, and NUS.

What really opened my eyes was really the diversity and excellent people at the conference. I realised that the world over, there are smart, brilliant and very very passionate young people, and I am so honoured to be able to call some of those people my friends now. One highlight of my trip was to talk to the president of AIESEC in Afghanistan, and learn from him firsthand what everyday life in Afghanistan was like and hear from a future leader of Afghanistan his hopes and vision for a better future in his country. It was inspirational.

I met too, many other inspirational and warm characters, too many to recount. Places that I never imagined I would meet citizens of, like Ecuador, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Cameroon, Bahrain, I met in International Congress. And because we all had the same vision for a united future, for a better future, because all of us in that conference hall believed in the power of the work we are doing in this point in time, even a person you met for the first time from another country could be joking with you like old friends. If any politician stood in the conference hall and looked at the camaraderie between Taiwanese and Chinese people, between Indian and Pakistani people, between Americans and Middle Eastern people in the conference, he would stand ashamed. And I am very proud to say that I am in an organisation that promotes such international understanding.

In Poland, I experienced more of a backpackers’ experience, mainly in the towns of Warsaw and Krakow. For myself, being the first time in any central or eastern Europe country, I found many sights fascinating. The old-town feel of Poland is still very apparent, and it is still a favourite past-time of the people on the weekends in the evening to just have a drink at a café by the roadside. From eating morning pastries, to zapiekanka(cheese and mushroom on french loaf), Poland was truly an experience for all my senses. Taking a horse carriage ride into the old Krakow town and wandering through the town market, with its big smoky barbeques, quaint knick knacks and traditional costumes, I was really transported into a whole different world. The fact that almost everything is in Polish added to the fascination and we were fortunate to get by with polite smiles and hand signals. A good finish to my travelling was a visit to Auschwitz, a World War Two extermination camp where allegedly millions of Jews and other prisoners were killed by German occupiers. A truly sobering visit which taught myself and my team a lesson from history.

With the backdrop of Warsaw, also known as Solidarity City, for it being a centre of democratic and capitalist reawakening in the then Communist Bloc, our delegation from Singapore had an experience of a lifetime. Through intense discussion, meetings, learning, reflection, and having fun, I also discovered more about myself and my motivations, as well as got to know my team mates from AIESEC Singapore on a much closer basis. Sharing pre-trip anxieties, long flights, random accomodations in backpacker hostels, visits to World War II concentration camps in Krakow, tears on our last day at conference, and post-conference reminisces, I know that we will be friends for a lifetime.

I met hundreds of people in Poland. The people closest to my heart, however, will always be my friends I made from Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, people in the Asia Pacific network. In fact, I know that wherever I go in the world, there is a very high chance that a warm smile and a welcoming hug will be waiting for me. And for that I am grateful. Grateful that I have opened my eyes to the world, and that I have such a diverse and global network of friends I have made through this amazing organisation.