MUMTAZA MASTERCLASS!

I'm so very excited to be telling you about Mumtaza's first Masterclass for Women of Colour: Public Speaking Like a Pro!

Details Below:

Want to learn how to #Slay on Stage?

The Mumtaza Network is proud to announce the first of its MasterClass Series for Women of Colour: Public Speaking Like a Pro.

In our survey last year, you said you wanted to learn how to share your stories in the most powerful way possible. You wanted to learn the skills of slaying on stage, of holding a room, of perfecting a powerful presence.

You told us what you wanted, and we listened.

Public Speaking Like a Pro is a day-long workshop run by Women of Colour, for Women of Colour. Hosted by co-Founder and CEO of the Mumtaza Network, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, you will leave the session equipped with the skills to be the most powerful advocate for your message.

Further details will be released shortly, but get your tickets ASAP, as seats are limited!

TIX HERE!

 

Institute of Mechanical Engineers Young Members' Night!

One of the very worthwhile groups that I work with is the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, and I've gotten involved this year to try to increase their student involvement and relevance.  One of the ways we are doing so is with a Student Night, this week! I don't really want to use this space as just free-for-all advertisements and plugs, but I thought this would be worth it.. (and I really like the posters I made!). We have an awesome line up set up - including:

Martin Johnstone - BP Maintenance Planning Superintendent Jonathan Martin - Arrow Energy LNG Implementation Manager Michael Rosengren - Asset President BMC Milton Carruthers - Hatch Associates Principal Mechanical Engineer Leslie Yeow - IMechE QLD President, Energex Ranehipura Dharmasiri (Daya) - IMechE rep, Queensland Rail Jacqui Mcgill - General Manager, South Walker Creek Mine Jessica Holz - Umow Lai Consulting Engineers Belinda Herden - Turnarounds Engineer, BP, IMechE Young Member of the Year Award Recipient (2012)

The details can be found HERE on the Facebook page (and that's where you can register!).  It's this week on the 11th of April!

...and I know this is what you have been waiting for, here are the posters!

Join me and the Dalai Lama at the Young Minds Conference!

A little shout out for a very cool event that I have the honour of being a part of!

I will be joining His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Day 1 of the conference at 9.45am in a forum named  How do we grow a good person?  

Firstly, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic - how do you think we grow a good person?

Also, just because I am so excited about the event, I thought I would share some of these details with you - and hopefully see you there!

***

Featuring special guest His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Young Minds 2013 is an exciting forum exploring the vital issues facing our youth today. Be engaged and motivated by a summit of 40+ leading thinkers.

15% DISCOUNT FOR MY READERS! Given I am presenting, my contacts are entitled to a 15% discount off the full conference fees. Register online using promotion code PJFS or call (02) 8719 5118 and mention my name. Save up to $565 off the full gold pass fee!

50% DISCOUNT FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER 21!

***

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Spend a full morning session with one of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Explore how to grow a good person with leading educators and childhood advocates including Reggio Children visionary Carla Rinaldi.

• Hear an insightful exploration of the impact of mindsets on learning and achievement with motivation expert Carol Dweck, and discover how to encourage our children’s natural curiosity with pioneering researcher Todd Kashdan.

• Acclaimed parenting expert Wendy Mogel explains why a skinned knee is a blessing in disguise, and leading Slow Movement proponent Carl Honoré asks whether we’re micromanaging our children.

• Explore the challenges facing teachers, parents and young people in achieving “digital wisdom” with tech savvy educator Marc Prensky, and Australia’s most popular blogger Mia Freedman.

• Be inspired by Young Australian of the Year Marita Cheng who built a global organisation supporting technical education for girls and myself =).

• Be moved and uplifted by the courage and determination shown by champion Paralympic swimmer Matthew Cowdrey and by mental health advocate Bronte O’Brien.

• Be entertained by humourist and well-known media personality Gretel Killeen as she explores how to be your true, imperfect self and by spoken word poet Bravo Child.

40+ SPEAKERS    1000+ DELEGATES

www.youngminds.org.au

Links: Updates on #SudanRevolts

If you read one piece today, make it Amir Ahmad Nasir's article on Foreign Policy: "Sudan Needs a Revolution". Actually make that two articles for the day: Brilliant analysis on why the regime will fall.

News

Bloomberg correspondent Sarah El Wardany deported from Sudan by authorities

Omdurman dormitories set on fire by the NISS

The Washington Post highlights the facts

Apparently there are "foreign elements" aiding the protests, according to the official line. (Could it be, Oh, the diaspora perhaps?)

Shadi Bushra talks about #SudanRevolts raging underneath Tahrir's shadow

The fuel subsidies will not be reinstated says the finance minister

At the same time, bombing occurs in Darfur...

Blogs and what not.

Sudan: Shaken and Stirred

Great Song for the Revolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QxWn_kmKx0

The Word on the Street

It seems all my recent posts are published at 4am, with very little proofreading and more of an emotional outpouring in response to the situations I find myself in. Maybe I should invest in a diary instead... ***

So, you might find my tone in this post a little different. I have decided to jump feet first into the fray, helping out where I can and doing what I think is right. Taking the moral road, if you will.

You know what I've learnt? It is actually scary as hell.

I don't know if I am supposed to say that. I really don't. Perhaps I should be strong and courageous in the face of adversity and not be admit apprehension...but experiencing things first hand is different indeed to hearing stories.  It makes you truly appreciate what *ahem* actual freedom fighters go through.  It makes you ask the question, is it really worth it?

I think it is. I really do. The sad thing is though, I am not sure everyone else shares that opinion, and that is what truly scares me. For if your everyday Sudanese doesn't care for their country... why will anything change?

***

I like to make a habit of talking to the raksha (tuk-tuk) drivers and the shop keepers and what not to get a feeling for what the average citizen is feeling.

Let me tell you this: the average citizen is weary.

Khalas, they tell me: enough.

'Life is hard, tough, ridiculous... how can we keep living? Where is this country going??' They ask me.

I don't have an answer, because I wonder the same thing.

'Why don't you try to change things?' I ask them.

"Why should we?" 

***

Why should we?

This is the question that makes Sudan different from the case of say, Egypt.

People are not overwhelmingly proud to be Sudanese!  They don't want to do things for their country.

Oh, they will be proud of their tribe, that is for sure. They will tell you yes! I am Shaygi, Ma7as, Ja3fari... and they will defend their tribal name to the death! But defend their country? No...

I was given the example once that if you walked into a restaurant and started loudly bad mouthing Sudan, you wouldn't elicit a response. If you walked in and slandered a tribe though, oh, lord forbid! You would have to be brought out in a stretcher.

To be honest, as someone brought up in Australia I had never considered the tribal aspect of being Sudanese until I returned and Sudanese people would ask me: "So, where are you from?"

"..uh..Sudan?"

"No, who are your people??"

"...uh...My people?..."

*cue awkward conversation endings that included answers like: uh..engineers? ..lovers of rnb?*

Odd, I thought. (They all thought I was odd too, trust me).

Why is it, that people have such strong tribal affiliations but no connection to their national identity?

Perhaps it is because, as my cousin so aptly put it, Sudan has given them nothing.

Sudan, as a nation, doesn't support its citizens.

There is poor education,

A health system that kills more than it cures,

An economy that is strangling its people,

...and even if you make it through all that, there is no opportunity for progress.

Everywhere you turn, people tell me, things are made difficult for you. My own experience backs this up completely: to register at a university or even change a tire takes an entire day, because you have to chase every.single.thing.up.yourself.

I have been told by numerous Sudanese people not to bother trying to change anything. Just get out! 

Why?

Because apparently, Sudan isn't worth the hassle.

It isn't worth getting caught or arrested for, it isn't worth being afraid or losing opportunity for... Sudan, they tell me, is getting worse and there is no uphill from here.

***

I disagree.

***

I don't think it is going to be easy.

I don't think it is one person's fight -- or even just one generation's fight.

I don't think it will happen quickly, or painlessly.

But you know what? I think it has to happen.

I think the people have to believe that Sudan is worth fighting for. Because it is!

It is the land of the Nile, a land of culture, family, food, hospitality and tradition. 

A land with promise!

A land that needs its people to believe in it. 

Oh yes, the idealism of the youth, my older, more jaded family members tell me.

You will learn that this system strangles the hope from you they say.

Well, let it try.

***

I have learnt a lot over the past few days...

Learnt how difficult it is to control something like a "movement"; sometimes you just have to go with the flow,

How to speak as a "we" rather than an "I",

What people will give up for the cause,

What lengths people will go to in protection of the status quo...

To think, I only came to the country to learn Arabic!

Do we have a role to play?

It is not an unfamiliar story; born in a developing country and having the fortune of being brought up in a country with opportunities. It is not an unfamiliar story at all, but somehow I find myself in unfamiliar territory.

Perhaps this is an issue that is best suited for quite discussion around a coffee table with trusted confidantes, perhaps it isn't a lament suitable for the public arena.  If it is an issue that is affecting *me* so profoundly though, who is to say there aren't others with a similar dilemma that I can learn from?

I am an Australian, through and through and proud of that fact.  I travel with the Aussie passport, I have an Aussie accent, when I am asked where I am from (in my brown skinned & hijabed attire), I say that I am an Australian.

The fact that I was born in Sudan was always just a part of my background story, something that added flavour to my introduction.  Yes, it meant I ate different foods at home and I had a slightly "exotic" home culture and cultural expectations, but it was never really something that affected how I saw myself interacting with the world.  I was Australian with mixed Sudanese heritage, I would say.

Spending some time in Sudan though, has brought up questions that I never thought I would ask myself.  

The country is in an extremely difficult position, for a number of reasons (that requires its own analysis, perhaps when I am at a different address).  As someone who has always been passionate about social change, human rights and the like, it is no longer something I can ignore, no longer something that is just a part of where I come from.  I used to visit quite frequently with my parents as a child and the trips would be all *visits, nostalgia, happiness, excitement, family*. As you get older though, you begin to see the cracks...especially when the cracks are widening.

So it became a question of wanting to do something.

Something, anything.

From the socio-economic perspective, I could see where work could be done.  Working with the grassroots community, helping with education, food, orphans, teaching....achievable in discrete amounts, bit by bit...

Then cames the realisation that this may not be enough.  No amount of aid or number of mobile libraries is going to fill a gap that the government should be filling. So I cast the net wider...

...and realise that there is, maybe, a hope for change.  All the neighbouring countries rose up right? Why can't Sudan be the same?  That is the question I hear asked... by the young, the bloodthirsty, the hungry and desperate.

The more seasoned critics reason with experience:

We've been here before and worse, they say...

What is the alternative? they ask...

Better the devil you know then the devil you don't, they counter...

This one is satisfied. He's "shab3an" (ate until he was full). If anyone new comes, they will come hungry and do it all again....

So one sees all this and thinks well maybe, maybe there is a way I can play a part in this. The critics are right, there needs to be an alternative? Does an alternative exist? Do those who are rising up and protesting have a plan? Perhaps I can offer some semblance of support or control or aid...

I ask these questions because of desperation to help, somehow.

I think maybe I can play a part, somehow -- 

Then comes the questions -- the questions on the back burner, the questions that people ask:

Well who are you to get involved?

Do you even really consider yourself Sudanese?

Who do you think you are?

Why should we listen to you?

Do you know what we have been living through?

Are you just bringing in their ideas??

Can you even speak the language properly?

...and I begin to doubt.

But in such a situation, there is no room for doubt.

All that is left is the question:

Does the fact that I grew up in another country, and consider myself an Australian, exclude me from fighting the fight in the country of my birth? What right do I have, does it make me less legitimate a voice in this battle? If I choose to join this fight as part of the Sudanese sha3b (people), does that mean I forsake my "Australian identity"? 

...or is it a case of deciding for myself what my identity is and what "fights I choose to fight?"

I think that perhaps may be my answer, but that in itself, isn't an easy thing to do...

The older I get, the less sure I am of where things stand in the world and the more I realise it is all shades of grey.  

What do you think?

Reflections on the APR

So the 26th Asia Pacific Roundtable has come to an end, and so has my first foray into truly international relations at the higher levels. I have learned a great deal over the last two days; a lot that I didn't know about the region, many perspectives that I hadn't thought to consider and even more so about the efficacy, purpose and outcomes of such an event.

Having spent most of the plenary sessions listening intently, attempting to understand not only all that was said but was was being said between the lines certainly was a new (and surprisingly exhausting) experience.  I found myself asking not one or two but quite a number of questions of the various panelists; so much so that when I met new participants I no longer had to introduce myself -- I was "Yassmin, from Australia", who asked all the questions.

I was a little unsure as to whether it would be polite or appropriate to ask so many questions, however at the end of the day it was a way for me -- and I hope the rest of the participants -- to learn about a speaker's perspective on a particular nuance of an issue.  Most of my questions were quite to the point and as such weren't always answered (i.e. asking a highly ranked US Marines official if he thought the rotational deployment in Darwin was worth the ire Australia was receiving from its ASEAN neighbours for one) but asking them allowed me to:

• Learn to frame my questions in a way that I could clearly articulate to the speakers;
• Listen closely to sessions to see where I had questions or queries;
• Open up avenues of discussion that might not have previously been being explored; and
• Introduce me as an Australian participant to the attendees -- and demonstrating that the "emerging leaders" were taking notice and asking questions.

I also think that sometimes, someone needs to ask the hard (or to an outsider, obvious) questions.

Coming from my engineering background I sometimes (quite often) feel like a flying fish out of water -- i.e. I can survive, but it isn't my natural habitat.  What it does give me though, is an external viewpoint as well as an alternative approach to issues.  Furthermore the fact that I represent an NGO is always quite liberating in such forums...

I think I just need to suck it up and read more...ensuring of course, its relevance. Hehe.

***

I learnt a lot at the forum and it will take time for me to process.  Suffice to say here were some themes that struck me and others:

• The topic of the day is clearly the issue of the South China Sea and how it is to be resolved;
• Australia doesn't seem to factor in any decision making or thought process about the region;
• India seems happy to remain as a "developing country" and doesn't seem ready to step up to the plate as yet;
• ASEAN wishes as a bloc to be in the "driver's seat" and "be providers of security instead of consumers of it..." however there is a long way to go before this is even feasible perhaps?
• North Korea...well, see below;
• Myanmar has been doing fantastically but rebuilding a nation takes time and the region shouldn't expect all the changes to happen at breakneck speed;
• Back door diplomacy is really how things happen;
• The United States, regardless of rhetoric, is interested in the region and sees itself as an important player; and
• The ASEAN way is probably the method of the day.

That is an initial outpouring of thought, I will come back for further analysis later.