It is interesting how we as human beings are so inter-connected. We all live different lives and in different cities, and yet there is something more powerful that links each one of us. Incidents, situations, words, emotions, and technology link us all in more ways than we can imagine.

Sitting miles and miles away from India, where I belong and where I have lived my entire life, I cannot help but remain connected.  While sitting at work in the US, my privileges allow me to have Indian newspapers delivered to my e-mailbox.  It is now a common practice (due to time difference) that I wake up in the middle of the night, squint at my phone, and register some headlines of the day (even though, I don’t remember any of them, by the time I wake up!!)

One such headline, followed by an article, led me to a link on Youtube, this very morning and I was hooked to it. The video link (how I wish, there were subtitles) is about a reality based program that is being hosted by one of the Bollywood actors, namely Aamir Khan.  The completely brilliant actor is also known for his humane and socially aware self. The program allows him to witness reality and live amidst social evils, and invite real-life heroes, perpetrators to talk about the issue. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyamev_Jayate_(TV_show))

The first episode was on a topic that shook the nation during its last census, last year. The decline in child sex ratio (0-6 years) from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 and further to 914 females per 1,000 males in 2011 — the lowest since independence in 1947, has been a cause for many a national debates. The sex ratios stood abysmally low in many states in India.  Malpractices of sex determination despite the existence of acts like Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act 1994, have prevailed.  Despite  several legal provisions, incentive-based schemes, social awareness, etc, the ‘unborn’ girl-child is the severely ostracized. And although it is just as menacing for a nation to dealing which the decreasing numbers, however more is it difficult for victims who go through this pain.

This program brought together 3 women with shocking stories, who struggled to give birth to their girl child and who were tortured to every possible extent, for bearing one . The first guest on the show was Amisha Yagnik from Ahmedabad. She said that she was forced by her husband and in-laws to abort her female unborn child six times in a span of eight years and further shares her experiences to finally give birth to a daughter later. The second guest, Parveen Khan from Morena, Madhya Pradesh shared the story of her husband disfiguring her face by biting it, when she insisted on giving birth to a female child against his wishes. Next, doctor from Delhi was asked by her orthopaedic surgeon husband and in-laws to abort her girl twins just after 20 weeks of conceiving. On the show, she said her husband and in-laws “took every wrong step to force me to abort” but thanks to her family ”I saved my kids.”

And however gruesome these stories may seem, these are realities that some survive in. They might not affect us in our day to day life, but they ache us. They connect us ‘in pain and solace’ to these women and many more around the world.

It is amazing how similar could the challenges be sometimes – across the oceans, and across the countries with different levels of development. And I am talking not only about some challenges or issues in general, but about attitude towards people with disabilities.

Only today I have had an interesting discussion with the executive of Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities – and apparently we found a lot in common (well, may be not that a lot though). She has been sharing a story that had happened literally couple of days ago – a kid with a disability (non-verbal, medically fragile) was pushed in the school, felt down and broke his arm. The most outrageous part was that when that happened no one in the school (neither nurse, nor teachers or peers) bothered to call 911. “Had this happened to a teacher or a kid without a disability, they would have definitely called 911. People with disabilities are STILL treated in a different way”.

Hearing that made me to quietly “wow” – even here, where literally almost every building is accessible, where advocacy efforts had been so successfully loud over decades, where people actually are not any longer locked up in institutions and where the whole judicial system works quite efficiently (in most of the cases perhaps) – even in this society I can still hear something like that.

For me personally it is just another proof of how people are just the same everywhere. Probably every social system, even the best one (considering that building that best one is in theory possible) will have its drawbacks. There will always be someone who will try to take an advantage of a weaker or vulnerable one. There will always be a cause to advocate and stand for.

These thoughts are quite simple and surely not something unique or smart. The point that I am trying to make here is that realizing this should actually fuel up efforts in trying to make it better – for as many people as possible. Behind each success story or each accident there is a human life, full of hopes, aspirations, gifts and talents ready to shine and grow. Speaking of people with disabilities – recently somewhere I came across an interesting expression – someone said “handicapable” – meaning capability and ability, not a disability. I so much agree with such wording – it indeed highlights abilities of each person. And as for the disabilities – all of us have our own disabilities – there is always something that we are not capable to do.

Back in 2005, while I was still an undergraduate student, I became a member of AIESEC, the biggest youth-led non-for-profit organisation in the world. AIESEC was created back in 1948 in order to create a dialogue among war-torn European countries after the end of Second World War. In the past 64 years this network has been growing, and currently AIESEC is present in over 110 countries and territories, with more then 60,000 members in over 2,100 universities, devoted in providing young people opportunity to become global citizens, and a platform for youth leadership development through its program of internships, conferences and global  learning environment.  Internationally, AIESEC manages relationships with  over 4,000 partners, facilitates more than 16,000 exchanges and 20,000 leadership roles, and organizes over 470 conferences each year. http://www.aiesec.org/

Becoming a member, and later one of the leading people in AIESEC Bosnia and Herzegovina was my first step towards the living, learning and working in an international environment, and one of the main reasons why I became interested in civil society, youth development, diverse working environment, but also how I discovered that it is more then possible to be passionate about your job.

Putting all statistics, and the awesomeness of this organization on the side , personal benefits of one AIESEC member are immense. Besides international network, unique internship program, leadership development platform, AIESEC creates fully trained young leaders, who besides the university degree have a real practical knowledge and expertise, and compared to an average student poses set of different skills that organizations and companies search today in young people.

Even though I am currently one of 945,000 alumni that this organization has all over the world, it is almost impossible not to get involved in its work wherever you go. During past two months I had a privilege to work with AIESEC members from Georgia State, and Georgia Tech, and to understand once more that no matter in which part of the world you find yourself AIESEC will always bring that amazing feeling back in which you are surrounded by smart, fun, international and open-minded people, but at the same time give you an opportunity to change someone’s life…sometime without even realizing it.

I guess it is true when they say: “Once an AIESECer, always an AIESECer”

The public services in Spain are the base of a social model that has cost many years to build since the Spanish transition to Democracy in 1975. From the universalization of healthcare to the free access to public education, we achieved many social rights during the prosper years of the economic boom that were defining Spain as a prosperous and united country.

In these previous years we were not only solidifying the welfare state in Spain but also strengthening our development policy and contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In 2010 we were the 5th largest European government donor, spending US$5.9 billion on net official development assistance (ODA) and in 2011 we had an ODA share of 0.4% of the GNI targeting a 0.7% by 2015.

The Spanish government is currently taking different measures that will drastically impact the welfare state in my country in the sectors of education, healthcare, dependency and justice. However, I thought it would be interesting to bring up some the governmental actions that will affect those in more need. Below are two examples worth to be commented:

-          Starting September the 1^st, only legal immigrants will retain health coverage in Spain. Among illegal immigrants, only children, pregnant woman and emergency cases will qualify for free treatment. This measure will leave 150.000 illegal immigrants who have been counting on Spain’s health coverage with no safety net.

-          The Spanish government cuts US$ 1.800 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) for 2012 reducing the funds allocated to this matter by a 40%. This measure will cause the percentage of GDP devoted to ODA decline from 0.4% to 0.23% down to 2004 levels and will blow up the objective compromised by Spain in international Human Rights and Development Forums of achieving the 0.7%.

Daily I witness the development of media, technology and information. In moment of serenity like this, I often think of my parents and their generation, who had to adapt to the new (context) faster than they were able to assimilate the (content). Keeping pace with advancements is difficult. It is certainly very challenging for those who lead these advancements and make them accessible to the public. Let’s take education for a stance.

Although distance learning presumably originated in London in the 19th century, concepts such as online education and distance learning were a mere novelty to me just ten years ago. I recall hearing someone telling me he is enrolled in a distance-learning master program in Germany and I sighed in disbelief that such an approach could lead to any…anything. Today, the demand for distance learning is on the rise and even premier schools mobilize to meet it.

Coursera, a social entrepreneurship project brings a consortium of America’s leading institutions, such (Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania) in an initiative to offer hundreds of people access to free of charge courses brought by the world’s best.

Harvard University even goes further. The HU Extension School, distance learning students united through cyber spaces such as Second Life, a 3-D virtual environment.

Although the advantages of distance learning are obvious for all parties involved: schools get additional income with relatively less input, students can easily access educational resources despite constraints, may they be physical, socio-economical or geographical.

Nevertheless, I ponder if this all of this is enough to overlook the importance and significance of inter-personal communication or student-professor dialogue. Not so sure. What do you think?

The other weekend, I was invited by a Vietnamese-American friend, David, who works for a non-profit partnering with disadvantaged young people in the city of Washington DC, to volunteer cooking dinner for the homeless people. The idea of working with young people, one of the sector that I am really passionate of working with, gave me the adrenaline excitement to say yes to a friend’s invitation without a doubt!

The organization that I volunteered basically works and partners with high school aged students, who are at risk of dropping out from school or those who dropped out already from school. The young people that they served are from very economically disadvantaged families of the city and most if not all experienced social problems in their homes and even communities like drugs, gang violence and even psychological trauma of being transferred from one foster home to another. Aside from serving, they engaged these young people who are mostly from the Southeast of Washington DC to volunteer and do relevant activities to unleash their leadership potential.

Actually, David’s invitation was long overdue already, since he invited me many times already since the first few months that I arrived in Washington DC. It had always been cancelled due to conflict of schedules. The moment of excitement within me came until that weekend when I was finally able to arrange a schedule with him and the rest was history.  The excitement was because I missed working directly with young people and  David told me that we are doing to do a “Dinner Fellowship” volunteer work with young leaders.

The concept of a “Dinner Fellowship” was something new to me then. What we did was we worked with the identified at risk young people to cook dinner at the shelter for the homeless, the Samaritan Inn in Columbia Heights. It was serving, eating and sharing stories with the people of the shelter in one.

Having such idea and excitement, I decided to volunteer that sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. David drove to pick me up and came already with a young leader named Raven. Then, we proceeded to pick up the other young members of the team.

Raven is a very inspiring young leader. She is on her senior years and she is about to graduate in college this coming May. Despite all the social and economic challenges in her life, she shall finish high school and she, as she declared, is ready for college, is it that wonderful to hear? Raven loves sports and she is also the peer mentor of her community group. In her community, she is leading four other disadvantage young people, and at that time she mentioned in our conversation that two of the four young peers already stopped seeing her and joining the leadership and volunteering sessions that they had in the community. She continued saying that she felt bad about it, but she is very happy and hopeful to share that the two that were left considered getting back school this school year.

Listening to her shared her youthful story while we were cooking the spaghetti, toasting the buttered bread and preparing the salad, I just felt good and very inspired. She was sharing and teaching me the value that life is real good, and in every person there is always this potential to be better.

Such moment showed me on how engaging disadvantaged young people in relevant volunteer and leadership activities impacts their lives. This is despite of the fact that oftentimes the perception of a very judging society considers them unproductive and, worst, unwanted. Raven is one of the living examples who inspired me a lot, that there is better to proud about these sector of young people and we need to understand them deeper to bring out the best in them.

After we cooked, Raven and the rest of us joined the people in the shelter ate dinner. We had all the great sharing that whole evening. Raven continued sharing and told me that she just felt happy doing the feeding for the homeless, the first time. She thought before that her experience in life was the worst. At that moment, she realized that she is more blessed compared to the homeless people in the shelter even if she was living in a foster home. She said that she is still lucky to have foster parents who loved and cared for her unconditionally.

Hearing those statements from her, I was touched and felt happy deep inside that somehow that volunteering engagement that we shared that day touched Raven’s inner self. More than that, I am happy to rekindle my inspiration of working more and better with disadvantage young people because of such meaningful and priceless volunteering experience!

At 27 and ambitious, I have sketched my life’s plan in the next 5 years.

I guess soon after you hit the quarter life, that’s when you start to seriously rethink about your life and make a mental note reflecting circumspectly about your direction both personally and professionally.

I have arrived in the United States last January to join an 18-month professional fellowship program. This has been part of my ‘5-year plan’ and being able to tick it out in my list excites me more than anybody. It was also a sweet bonus to learn that I will be serving with Operation Smile International as one of their Program Coordinators. The organization works in more than 60 countries and brings free medical surgeries to children with facial deformities especially those with cleft lips and cleft palates. Another box is set to be marked off – trip around the world! I went on my first mission last month in San Cristobal, Mexico and had a real awesome time with some of the most amazing in-country and international volunteers. It was incredible to see an unmatched level of professional skills coupled with passion and dedication to serve the children in that part of the world that otherwise may not have had the opportunity to have a normal smile and life if not for Operation Smile. Without a doubt, I more convinced that I made the right decision to volunteer. The happiness I felt to be there was simply irreplaceable.

In my quite times, I muse on the fact that the plan I have started building in my head 2 years back is finally coming into reality. I aimed to be in an international fellowship program, travel the world to gain more international development perspective, and once again be a volunteer.

My interest in humanitarian and development work started 7 years ago when I also had the opportunity to join an international volunteer network called Global Xchange Program. I was fresh from college and while my mom was not particularly agreeable to the idea that I will be spending some months in Mindanao which has generally been portrayed with unstable security situation I fearlessly embarked on the journey living and volunteering in the communities of Bansalan, Davao del Sur, Philippines and Luton, UK with 17 other young people with diverse backgrounds for a period of 6 months. It was such a fulfilling experience that has inspired me to pursue a career in the non-profit.

My first ‘paid’ job was with a livelihood project grant from Asian Development Bank to poor families in the southern part of the country with high poverty incidence. This allowed me to work with various local NGOs and foundations in the Visayas and Mindanao – an excellent transition after my six-month volunteering. After the project, I joined an international NGO operating in the country focused on addressing children’s wellbeing by developing and implementing development projects with various stakeholders in a community. It was also a humanitarian relief organization and so I easily found myself later going in the floods, packing and distributing relief goods. It’s a heartwarming experience. I feel that I am making real sense and use of my life for being able to make a direct impact on the lives of many disadvantaged groups in our society. I get to travel a lot in the country and occasional trips abroad for training or conferences which ensembles the desire of any young person eager to see new places.  It was also fun to realize that all my high school and college friends are in government or business (for profit) organizations which means I get to tell a unique experience during reunions or simple get together.

But like any person trying to create a work-life balance, mine wasn’t exceptional. I struggled with a 3.5 year-long relationship which ended almost 2 years ago. It was my ‘first love’ which has deeply made an impact in my life. Like any other romantic relationship, we had our shares of highs and downs. But the breakup was the most horrendous feeling I have ever experienced. I had sleepless nights, poor concentration at work, loss of appetite, and absolute disregard to being alive. I thought it was the end of me. I reeled in the abyss of depression for a long time that I thought recovery can only happen through medical professional support or paranormal interference. Describing the breakup experience as terrible was an understatement. There’s just no word that can express what I was going through that time. My emotional state was very vulnerable that I frequently find myself weeping in a taxi, or during breaks in a conference I am facilitating, while on a flight, or any other mundane activity. Dog-tired, I have decided one day to start picking my broken pieces back together. I knew I was at the losing end. I knew I should do something. New life at 25, I thought to myself nearing my birthday.

I started to set high goals for myself again and this time actively seeking for opportunities and activities that will make them happen. I enrolled to a Masters program at the University of the Philippines. While the breakup experience was the greatest bottleneck in my life, it was also an opportune time to have a fresh start in life. This time I am equipped with healthier awareness and lessons in life. Lessons after all spring from the most painful experience of our lives and in my case motivated me to think relatively long-term.  I am definitely looking forward to sharing my journey again with someone but while that may be in the sticks at this time, I relish being alive and think highly of my 5-year plan.

The sub-Saharan African region is still predominantly rural with only 36.7% living in urban areas in 2011, country figures however varies tremendiously in the region. In Gabon for example, over 80% of the total population live in urban settlements while only 11% of Burundians live in such conditions.

Projections of the proportion of urban population in these two countries shows that by 2050, these figures will increase to over 90% in Gabon and about 28% in Burundi.

Libreville, the capity city of Gabon

The city center in Bujumbura, Burundi