Do we change lives?

This was a question I always did to my self in the past.... there are moment when we seat and just start to think, did AIESEC change lives? I'm changin lives? there is a purpouse to being part of AIESEC???? well, this question I made were solved just two years later since I became member of AIESEC... but firs I will start from now....

At MC level... well... I still don't know how I change lives, in my team, in my friends, or other members in the organization, or maybe in the organization it self, in fact maybe I won't know the answer untill coming years.

At LC level... almost the same as the previous point, some members tells me that in my LCP period the LC was stronger than ever... best SSGN LC, a lot of partnership, good support from university and BoA, good work with ceeders, etc etc.... but if that means change lives? untill now the CEEDERS sends me mails telling my their history of succes and greetings for their time in my LC, thanks to the support from my members, and for the friendship they gain in their time in my LC.

At area level... is here where I know that I made a positive impact others life; last year I receive some mails from the SNs I realize... they wrote :"Thanks Yoel, thanks to you my life start to change" ....or... "I'm working abroad!!!!... i still can not believe it! thanks man"....or.... "I supouse to working in a small company in the city, thanks to you I'm working in a very good job"...or.... "I'm going to Peru to visit my family and pack my stuffs and for you, thank you so much for this opportunity you gave me"....or..... "I'll get married!!!! next year! you are invited as beast man!... thank you "Cholito" "..hehehehehehehehe.. those are message from some of my SNs that currently are working in a very good company in Peru, or working abroad in a multinational. Since that moment I say, "Thank AIESEC, I'm changing lives thank to the organization...."

At personal level... this is quit difficult to analize, I need my friends, family, and even more my team for this; they are the only one who saw me as regular university student to an aiesecer, if there is a change, they will see the difference... I'll ask them in the future.... personally point of view, I wan't to thanks AIESEC for this great opportunity... like manage a team with the best background and strong profiles in Peru, to have a holistic view of AIESEC in PERU, and even more, an holistic view of my life, what I want to became, what I want to do in my life.... that knowledge comes from AIESEC but even more from all the people I knew in the organization during my AIESEC career... my team, my friends, my critics, etc....

Thanks AIESEC PERU for change my life and allow me to make a positive impact within my friends, SNs, relatives.... my goal was, is.... and always will be ... being a "positive change agent in the society".

It's AIESEC.... It's up to you!

My first fall... becames a success

As Steve Jobs said, is all about "connecting the dots"... Three years ago, just four months after became part of AIESEC, I was making a traineeship in Banco de Credito in Lima, at the same time working as ceeder in CLPA, and also working with other LC members from CLUL and CLUC, thank to that experience I was very motivated, with a lot of ideas on my mind and wanted to take a leadership role; so I applied for LCVP OGX, I still was in Lima when I applied, but my LC won’t trust on me, maybe because few members really knows me, maybe because I was “too Newie” applying for the EB position, the fact is that I applied for VP OGX together with two great candidates, my VP OGX and other OGX key member… in the first round I lost. :(

How did I feel? Well, of course very sad!!! I was too disappointed with my LC, I was thinking… why…? now what…? My only chance was to wait until next year, I thought "I lost my chance to be LCP, and what can I do now?" (I knew that if I wanted to became LCP I needed to be VP before), you know... I really desired that leadership position, and I really desired to be the VP OGX, but that didn’t happen. To Quit wasn’t an option!!! So I decided to work hard as SN Manager with a new personal goal, to became the best matcher in LC Arequipa, then I started to MATCH every SN who comes to me, hehehe, it was nice, but later I didn’t knew that MATCH will became my inspirational history to stand for AIESEC. (I’ll tell this history in other blog post)

What about my personal goal? … Well by now I Realize 10 SNs and 1 TN from CLAQ and 2 SNs from CLUC, so it means 13 eXchanges in my AIESEC career by now. That is my record. I thing is the Record in AIESEC PERU, I’m not pretty sure, but I’m still happy becouse my personal goal was achieved. OGX Rulez! hehehe

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!!!!!

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.