Successful Change Conference

Gavin reports on OA’s latest community involvement:

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On January 19th, Duncan and I hosted a workshop, on behalf of Opportunitas Aequa, at the 2008 Change Conference at GlenLyon Norfolk School in Victoria.

To quote the Conference’s website: “The Change Conference is organized by youth, for youth (or anyone else who’s interested in change). The goal of the Conference is to promote the creation of positive change on a personal, community, and global level.”

Check out the website for more information on this primarily student-organized event.

The 45-minute workshop was attended by over 50 eager and passionate students (see picture, below). We gave everyone a brief history of OA, how it formed, and then we showed them what went down in Ecuador (OA Video Journals).

However, the most exciting part of the workshop was our interaction with the students. We discussed the difficulties of putting ideas into action and the variety of obstacles that present themselves when trying to make change. We also brainstormed about the issues that are personally-meaningful to them, and how they could actually start addressing them.

As we (the World) are totally inundated with the on-going problems that are now facing us, it can be overwhelming at times to actually believe that one (or a few) people can actually make a difference; however, we stressed the importance of focusing on a specific issue/problem, rather than THE issue/problem.

It was very refreshing to see and interact with some of those who are taking initiative and who have made making positive change their personal responsibility.

As we were only a part of the Conference, we also had the opportunity to connect with a whole bunch of like-minded individuals and organizations. Two of the more special connections were with Peggy Frank, of Positively Africa, and Jon Nsabimana, a UVic student and Rwandan Genocide survivor, who is now an ambassador for UNICEF — two amazing people.

All in all, it was a very inspiring experience for both Dunc and I, and I strongly encourage everyone who we met to reach out to us either via email or Facebook and to keep in touch.

Thank you for the continued support,

Gav

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For the latest happenings in Ecuador, stay tuned for Andrew Brownlee’s Project Ecuador update, early next week!