Wednesday, February 21, 2007

MCPs road to Egypt!!!!


Two aiesecers, very excited!!! two country leaders!!! two peruvian representatives!!! who travel more than 20 hours!!!!.... crossing the Atlantic and The Mediterranean Sea!!!!... 4 Airports!!!!.... 3 Continents!!!!!.... arrived to the International Cairo Airport with a lot of emotion!!!! and...... we spend 1 hour in inmigration, and 2 hours waiting for someone to pick us up!!!! hahahahaha


First cultural shock!!! is frozen in el Cairo!!!!!! We will kill the guy who put in the delegates mailing "bring your summer clother, is sunny in Egypt" ..... 2nd cultural shock!!! there are no toilet paper in the toilets!!!!! only flush and left hand!!!! ahhhhhh hopefully we had a lot of toilet paper (thanks momm) !!!! 3rd cultural shock, the study tour covers 2 options, regular without security, and special with military security... i mean with bodyguards ..... weir!!!! 4th cultural shock.... almost noone speack english!!!! ahhhh is hard try to say something!!!!! 5th cultural shock!!!! you can not touch a girl, at least she is your girlfriend or even more, your wife!!!! buaaaaaaaaaa


Hahahaa, well is the first history of two Peruvians in Egypt!!! but we still have a lot to tell.....


Don't forget the next reports, .... heheheh


Tuesday, February 13, 2007

My first Love in AIESEC…. OGX!!!!!!!!!!!!



My first taking responsibility in my @xp was to take charge of SN Recruitment Process, the experience who really involved me to AIESEC life and help me to decide to run for AIESEC.

In the past years in LC Arequipa, few students use to went to the informative sessions, and even less decided to run the SN recruitment process, in fact most of the past AIESEC members from LC Arequipa, are family related to other members or family friends, so AIESEC was becoming an association, but only from family and close friends, why? Well easy, a bad promotions campaign, or a not focused recruitment process.

How the student market looks open for this kind of opportunities(meaning X), I decide to run an open and bigger process, starting with a huge promotions campaign. Spam promotions to all virtual communities (each university, by faculty, etc), posters only in economic and management faculty and also information system faculty, media promotion in radio and newspapers, but the best idea where: call to each top student from the university offering this exchange and leadership opportunity, y remember the promotion quote “Leadership, Exchange, AIESEC and you!”, so, do you want to know what we get???... 480 students in the informative session, close to 300 students applying to AIESEC, and only for 10 positions… I just can say, it was the best recruitment experience of my life.

All the LC worked in the selection, interview, and review boards, etc. It was a great feeling inside the LC culture, each member excited to have new SNs in the LC, and each member excited to get involve in the OPS activities.

After a great recruitment process, with 6 very great MT profiles, and 4 TT profiles, we start the second part of the process, the matching and training process, and I had the luck to be SN Manager of 3 of them.

In the Christianism Formation class, or Introduction to Philosophy class, my teacher says, why you are in the world? What is your purpose of life? How you think you can be an impact in the society? …. So I didn’t think that this SN manager role helps me to understand better those questions.

I remember when I was first year student in the university, I meet a guy who I believed he was a leader, and I used to follow until once I hear from him “when you are young, you want to change the world, but after you get back to the reality and you only want to change your life”, after that I felt very disappointed, but then the AIESEC XP came to my life.

Being SN Manager was the most wonderful XP for me, I became a very close friend from each of my SNs, always knowing their attitudes, preferences, motivations, and even get to know their families, nice mothers and cool fathers, and sometimes beautiful sisters, hehehe (that's other history), etc, and also training them with basic AIESEC stuffs, etc. After one or two months they started to match and later realize; but the most wonderful gift I could get was, “Yoel, thanks for all, you made this possible, greetings from… Denmark, India, United Kingdom, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, USA…” students who saw a far away dream to work in other country, back home and get a good job position in a big company… I didn’t knew this point of view until a few months ago, when most of my SNs started to came back to PERU, or starting to moving abroad; the first call was for have a lunch, a couple of beers, and receive feedback and gratitude words from them, those words are the most wonderful gift you can get. You CHANGED their lives, and you are becoming a POSITIVE CHANGE AGENTE to the society.

I just can add, I have more friends, and also a bigger family with whom we can share a great gratitude from each other.

For me, the OGX life is one of the most wonderful experiences you can get from the AIESEC life.

OGX RULEZ!!!!!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

OC Experience.... what a experience!!!!


There is something that we always say to one of my MC Team in any random discussion, “Is because you never were OC”, we all laugh for a while and then we continue with our job.

But, what means been part of an OC Team? what is the difference? Or why is that a difference? Well, to understand this we need to specify first what is the kind of OC are we talking about.

Starting from above, we have the OC from Small Activity like welcome party, or any other party, the barbeque OC, the legislation OC, the cultural presentation OC, the global village OC, the Team Building OC, and on and on; we can see that all those activities are important, but we are talking about a big changing experience, what means a strong leadership role from the OCP, that’s why is defined a leadership role when you work with you OC for at least 3 months, you have plan and budget, and also the evaluation from your directors.

The real OC experience, now this is different, activities like National Conference OC, the National PboX OC (now this role is changing not as OC, but yes as a real leadership position, this issue will be discussed in other blog file), or any National activity.

The top OC Experience, well I just can only saw from outside, we are talking about OC from Regional LDS or XPRO, about IC, ITC, or IPM, (any ILM) those OC or CC (congress committee) experience, for sure are very demanding for any AIESEC member.

What do you learn? Working with a lot of stress, coordination, really really team work, yeees in my opinion, in the OC is when you really improve your TEAM MANAGEMENT skills, financial skills, you need to be ready for make very fast decisions. In my recommendation, if you really want to be an LC EB member (very recommended for LCP), this is a very very good learning experience.

Mmm something for add, I hear a lot of histories about past OCs, histories that you can’t imagine, and when you hear it, you get shocked, for example….

When 4 days before the conference the hotel manager calls you and say: “We had a big problem with the government, we can’t host any event in the coming month”, but you know, there are 100 delegates coming, we have external, half of the delegation is already traveling to the conference, so do you cancel the conference? Do look for other hotel?... mmmm

What happened if you check your financial statement and your number are in red, you need to pay to the hotel, all the delegates are already in the hotel, but you can not afford it… You look for other hotel? (remember the delegates are already here) what kind of hotel? (you don’t have enough money), tomorrow the conference should start (it means there are more delegates coming tomorrow), people needs to eat, because it covers the conference fee (but you don’t have enough money)…… mmmmm

Is the closing plenary, all delegates are in the conference room ready to go back home, but you didn’t pay the rest of the money to the hotel(you don’t have the money) and the manager orders to close the doors and don’t let anyone to leave, like is the last day, a lot of delegates will travel to their countries the same day… and the manager won’t negotiate with you, he only wants the money.

Finally, I can say that no matter what happened during your OC term, remember first what you lived, the emotions, stress, management, learning, skills, and more stress, hehhehehe. All those are learning points for all your life.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Añorando ser Newie otra vez


Uno de los más gratos recuerdos que un aieseco puede tener, es la época en que es un Newie, un member y en casos un VP; siempre recuerdo las conversaciones con uno de nuestros alumni de la decada de los 80, contando sus travesuras cuando eran aiesecers, y me ponia a pensar, "seguro comentaré nuestras travesuras aiesecas dentro de algunas décadas en reencuentro de alumni"; lo gracioso que ese sentimiento se puede percibir ahora mismo.


Una de mis ultimas conversaciones con amigos de mi promocion aieseca, era: "recuerdas el congreso que nos conocimos???", "ese SDL fué el mejor congreso que he tenido en mi vida", "y la fieeeeesta!!! jajaja, queee fiesta", y asi muchas muchas muchas cosas que recordar, sin embargo toodas esas conversaciones siempre suelen terminar en una frase: "Esas épocas, cuando éramos newies..." o "Me gustaría ser newie otra vez y hacer chongo con los demás...".


Todo ello es también aprendizaje, cuando eres newie, tienes muchas libertades, estas experimentando aiesec, y tienes menos responsabilidades, es una época de oro, porque haces grandes amigos, aprendes bastante, tienes las mejores juergas que puedas recordar (o no recordar), y las mejores anécdotas que contar.... Sin embargo llega el momento en que asumes un puesto de liderazgo fuerte, ya sea OCP de un PBoX, LCEB, o MC.... ahi cambian las cosas, por que desde que asumes el cargo, asumes un monton de responsabilidades, y por sobre todo que te conviertes en un ejemplo que seguir.


El Ejemplo a seguir es todo un Issue, esto te priva de super juergas, no puedes salir muy seguido por que tienes que trabajar en casa, y en todas partes, todos escuchan lo que dices por que sea cual fuere lo que digas, esa será la palabra de tu EB, OC, MC.... y si dices o haces algo, es 99% probable que al dia siguiente se ha creado un rumor que se ha expandido, con algunas variaciones, y multiplicado de tamáño por 10.


Una cosa curiosa que siempre he observado, especialmente en cuanto a juergas, jajaja, (es que solia vivir de juergas cuando estaba en el cole y parte de la universidad), es que cuando era newie, siempre tenia algo que contar del fin de semana, por que siempre habia alguna juerga a donde ir; cuando llegué a ser VP OGX las salidas disminuyeron, ya no con los amigos de la universidad, ahora la mayoría era con aiesecos, pero aun asi habia juergas y siempre habia poca presion laboral; la cosa se puso brava cuando llegué a ser LCP ya que las fiestas se limitaron solo para aiesec, asistía a la gran mayoria de juergas, sin embargo usualmente me sentía agotado, ya que universidad + tesis + trabajo + aiesec te deja poco tiempo, y además, menos gente me hablaba en las fiestas, a excepción de mi EB y los miembros antiguos; ahora como MCP similar, circulos de amigos es solo aiesec, porque no conosco más gente fuera de aiesec en esta ciudad, el trabajo es mayor, la presión por los resultados también, las fiestas ni que decir ya que tratas de disfrutar, pero siempre llega el trabajo en la mente y da ganas de regresar a casa y resolverlo, ahhhh y las conversas siempre son con alumni, mc, miembros antiguos etc, y la tematica solo aiesec. Ahora también en los congresos internacionales, observo a AIESEC International, todos conversando solo con su equipo, y siempre con cara de cansados, al PAI casi ni lo ves, porque viene, saluda, conversa un par de veces, un baile y regresa a trabajar; o simplemente están parados a un costado de la pista de baile, con un vaso de licor en la mano, y mirando a todos divertirse y con la mente "Añorando ser Newie otra vez".