I wish I could say how wonderful and hospitable Iran is. Or: Iran is unpredictable, full of outlandish incidents, paradoxes that drive you mad, make you yearn for safe home, stable life with all luxuries that are given to you just because you had luck to grow up in West. I have mixed impressions intensified by my working experience here, exposure to Iranian business and also academic and more official environment.
Turbulent and rich history of Persian Empire imprinted deep crack in Iranian mentality. Being invaded by Arabs, forced to absorb Islam, years after that, experiencing dramatic Revolution in 1979 which blocked most connections to the West. That makes everything here more complex then you expect. People are indeed hospitable and friendly, at the same time they are masters in hiding their feelings – these negative ones…They are tormented by jumble of feelings – will to change Iran into a better place to live and… a desire to have their own good life far away from the country where most of entrepreneurial initiatives are hindered, and as a normal citizen you are harassed by different kind of police instead of getting support from their side! Yes, now I'm afflicted also by that since I’ve been caught 4 times in 1 month in the street by hijab police. Ok, first you think it’s another interesting “cultural experience” but after 3rd time you are pissed off that somebody is limiting your freedom to wear what you wish! Still obeying Islamic rules though. And it’s just a peak of an iceberg in stories with military services.
Nevertheless, I can say with the deepest honesty – I feel safe here. Safer then I used to in Poland. Safe enough to catch a taxi alone at 2 AM in bustling Tehran, to travel with 1 German girl to central, traditional part of Iran, to walk alone along the street in Tehran, to speak to strangers, have a chat with them. There is a time where I’m invited to Iranian family for a dinner and this becomes great celebration because foreigner is at home:) I have a chance to talk with them honestly about times before 79, how they feel now. In the meantime we start dancing to Persian music which is so sensual and convivial:)
I will always remember a 3days trip to the North – Kelardasht with bunch of Iranian friends where we had a chill-out time. There’s actually nothing special about Caspian Sea beside the fact that it supply the world with 90% Of caviar (!). But when you came to Caspian’ beach with some of your closest friends and suddenly got brilliant idea to … take a bath there, then it’s pretty awesome experience. Especially wading into muddy stinky water with your manto, jeans on you!
Sometimes it’s all about a moment, a second barely noticed during a day. Tehran waking up at 7 AM glowing in the morning sun which embrace both swanky apartments of the richest and sloppy, grim shadows of buildings stemming densely from the city. The uniqueness of Tehran, is that almost from any spot here you may indulge yourself in looking at vast piece of 12-million city as it’s sprawled along soaring Alborz mountains’ slopes.
I do enjoy living in Iran. Country which suffers from similar problems as Poland in 80s, and world under financial crisis nowadays. I do enjoy my job(s). Kind of
volunteer but opening my eyes to other people’s needs. And what’s the most important, it makes me realized what I want from life. What I will fight for myself and pe ople I care.
AutCo
I would like to present one of the biggest events organized by our local committee: AUTUMN CONFERENCE. It was the statutory conference of AIESEC in Poland with participation of OCPs.
What happened between 18 and 21 of September in Kielce?
About two hundred amazing people- leaders met together in one place in order to get knowledge and motivation indispendiable to grow ourselves and AIESEC.
FACI consisted of National Team and two fantastic international facilitators Victor and Ferenc. The whole conference was lead by Chair Irina Ruseva from Bulgaria. She is incredibly organized and wonderful person.
Two tracks: one for Executive Board and the second for people who will coordinate own project (PBoX)
Unique evening parties: Cowboys Style, Asia Party, Global Village
and more...
LC Kielce was represented by nine delegates: Madzia, Ania, Dominika, Kasia, Antek, Damian, Łukasz, Piotrek B., Pioterk O.
Congratulations and big applause for
organizing committee: Szymon-our coordianator, Marika, Paulina, Ola, Dawid, Karol, Wojtek, support- Agata from Wroclaw, Liene and Snezka. We said that we are not team but we are family. I am realy happy that I was member of the team. Why? Because I know that every of my brothers and sisters made everything for the second person and project.
Finally I want to say THANK YOU for all of you who were on AutCo.
It was great for me to meet with you and I wish you all the best.
Your Ilonka
Labels: Konferencje
AIESEC Alumnus Martti Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize
Celebrating 60 years of activating leadership, AIESEC congratulates alumnus and Nobel Laureate Martti Ahtisaari for his bold commitment to peace. For the first time in 60 years, AIESEC is honored to congratulate an alumnus, and champion of the AIESEC vision of peace, for being awarded the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. “Nobel Laureate Martti Ahtisaari is a role model AIESEC alumni. His lifelong commitment to peace, participation and diversity reflects the best of 60 years of AIESEC history, enabling the leaders of positive change our world needs. On behalf of over 30,000 young people in more than 100 countries, I congratulate Martti Ahtisaari for his contribution to peace and the fulfillment of humankind’s potential” , said Juan Cajiao, President of AIESEC International.Joining AIESEC as a young student in Finland in 1963, Martti Ahtisaari was immersed in an international environment that pre-empted his future as a global peacemaker. With his role in peaceful negotiations, Martti Ahtisaari has embodied bold leadership, forging international co-operation in seemingly intractable circumstances. Reflecting on his early engagement with AIESEC, Martti Ahtisaari welcomes the world to work more closely with young people in the pursuit of peace. "I support the valuable activities of AIESEC in Finland and internationally. Therefore I encourage organizations and companies to find out more about AIESEC and support the work of these young people. " said Martti Ahtisaari.As an AIESEC alumnus, Martti Ahtisaari joins over 800,000 former members, including fellow statesmen Junichiro Koizumi and Jan Eliasson. Today AIESEC has grown into a leading platform for young people to truly discover their leadership potential—and a real training ground for the world’s next influential leaders.“As a true leader of positive change, AIESEC thanks Martti Ahtisaari for his actions in bringing hope for a peaceful world to the young people of today” , said Juan Cajiao.
Choosing
Iran as my next destination after Netherlands was an outcome of a jumble of emotions mainly those irrational called intuition, inner feeling which eventually guided me to the land of paradoxes. Shortly speaking:)The way to get here was by far bumpy, fraught with difficulties: visa rejection:( ,my job conditions change just 24h before coming to Iran, plane's breaking failure to name just a few (!). In a state of initial disappointment, anger I'm considering cancellation of the whole trip. Then, a moment of enlightenment comes ? there are dozens of young, full of potential Iranian awaiting me! There is huge, pioneer project to carry out! Would I ever dare to look in the mirror if decide to withdraw? So what could I do? Immediately book my flight and?run to the airport. Ech? years ago I would never suspect myself to be so spontaneous :p. And that was prelude to the Iranian reality. What is Iran like?
Disciplined - first minutes at the Imam Khomeini Int. airport deep in the night ? hours of checking, controls, scanning ? so that none of careless tourist brings e.g. zubrowka in his bag! :p Then I'm welcomed by 2 wonderful guys who safely take me to my new apartment (from which I moved out a week later:)
It's also worth to mention here that owning a gun in Iran by its citizens is strictly forbidden and
punished! Contrary to countries such us: US, Finland..:(
Spontaneous - in all aspects of their life including doing business. I'm leading a team of a few Iranian people who are responsible and easy-going thus cooperation goes smoothly:) It's a pure pleasure and honor to support first! In history national event. Daily work is quite unpredictable but brings lots of satisfaction when you see people who believe in your ideas, in making positive change?It's all about it, isn't it?
Hospitable - Despite Ramadan period which is already over (yeah!) people were understanding enough to accept fact that I want to drink, eat something during a day while others are fasting. And when you happen to visit Iranian friends, please expect tones! of good food on a table:)
Friendly - Especially young Iranians have a habit to do a small chat with you in the street, invite you to sit together on the grass and talk in English just to practice. I also found out that majority of society has very laid-back attitude to politics and official stance regarding international relations. Thus it's so unfair to generalize about the whole country and Iranian community!
Being a woman in Iran - it's hard to experience thoroughly being a foreign girl here when people think that I am Iranian;) Nevertheless woman can lead here a good life while being a manager in the company, driving a car, doing sports etc. Obviously in some specific cases she has limited rights but she's not denied respect from male part of society either. Wearing headscarf (hijab) and manto (knee-long dress) is obligatory but shouldn't be associated with a total enslavement! Currently I'm cooperating closely with Iranian men who show me more care, attention and respect then some male friends from Poland or Netherlands. Isn't it strange?!
Entertaining - what undoubtedly surprised me here is how wonderful Iranian can enjoy their free time! Imagine, that you are in a park around midnight and what you see are families having picnics on the grass, children playing, others are admiring amazing musical performance of lights on the lake located in the middle of the park. And I'm playing badminton with a friend of mine trying at the same time not to loose my hijab:p And speaking about paradoxes...you can not dance or sing in a public places anywhere in Iran, however you may make a great party! in a taxiJ when a driver puts on loud, Persian tunes and you can start swinging following the musicJ By the way...if you learn how to drive a car in Tehran than feel free to join F1 races:)
And if you get enough courage to cross the street then doing a bungee jump is a piece of cake for you.
It's pretty hard to pull together all recent memories, thoughts that come to my mind every second now. I'm grateful that something brought me here and allow to experience this country with all senses. What I can surely say now ? is that nothing can be for sure in my life:p
Eyes became opened, mindset unblocked - nothing can be as ever before. Ewa Bryla
Labels: Internship
Meeting with alumni AIESEC Kielce
Labels: Alumni, Konferencje
From sleeping on the train station to challenging ourselves on MultiTO
CHALLENGE HUNTERS STORY’S
First part: From sleeping on the train station to challenging ourselves on MultiTO.
Every year current Member Committee in Poland organize conference for new Local Committees Executive Boards. This time we (Magdalena, Antek, Damian, Dominika, Katarzyna, Piotrek B and Piotrek O.) were chosen by you (members) to have this unforgettable experience. We called ourselves “Challenge Hunters” because of from the beginning our preparing to the next term we have to cope with a lot of obstacles and difficulties...
It was the same during our first common conference...
Our journey to Ślesin, where the conference took place, wasn’t easy as we thought. Our first challenge was overcome problems with getting to venue. At 1 am. when we arrived to Konin we received information from OC that our possible transport to Delfin will not came for us. We had to sleep in railway station, which wasn’t nice after 5 hours spent in trains. When we arrived to venue we were angry, tired and sleepy. We thought that we will never forgive OC for that waiting. Next days of conference caused that our opinion about OC changed from anger to love:).We spent funny and nicely time with OC during MultiTO.
MultiTo had the intention to bring knowledge about AIESEC in national and international perspective, building common understanding the role of each person in executive board and empowering to achieving goals, however integration between Committees was important too.
First day of conference took into our heads (especially in male part of EB Kielce) that AIESEC in Poland is managed by women-kind. Only few Committees has similar structure as LC Kielce. But it isn’t problem, because all EB members are strong people who know what they want to achieve.
As we know AIESEC’ers confess some rules, one says: “work hard, play harder”. I have to admit that we executed it 100% :)
During sessions we had the opportunity to gain and share knowledge between different LC’s. We received learning beginning from part which helped us to improve our soft skills, about our roles in LC, we got information’s how manage it, ending on AIESEC History
On sessions we were active: we asked when we didn’t knew something or we were giving answers on questions, after sessions we were talking with others about reality in theirs and ours committee. Our activity didn’t finished on sessions, we saved energy for parties too. Some of you know why we were called Cactuses on MultiTo, for those who don’t know I will explain:
When we were preparing to conference we decided to challenge ourselves, and we made up our minds to dress up on every party in different clothes then others:)...
First party was under the name Western Movies. We concluded that all people will be dressed in cowboys or cowgirls so we started thinking what other things are connected with Wild West. Damian hit on idea that it could be an cactus, we decided to do this. Our dressing appear big success during the party. Thus now You know how the history of Cactuses come from..
On the each conference one person is very crucial, in AIESEC we called such person as a “chair”. Now I want say something about person who was responsible for opening and closing plenary. It was Anastasia Gulyavina President of Member Committee Russia 2007/08. I have to admit that Anastasia breeze through in our opinion. She shared with us her experience and thoughts about meaning of leadership and what in our life is important. She was very inspirer.
It will be shamed for us if we didn’t mention about people who were responsible for delivering to us knowledge. The FACI Team who was consisted of actual Member Committee of Poland 2007/08 with a leading person Maria Długosz and two guests from AIESEC International: Abishek and Ivan Lopez Global Network Central and Eastern Europe Director.
Their preparation and personal commitment into the conference deserve only for two words: Thank You:)
This conference wasn’t without OC, who consists from LC Wrocław AE members. As I said on the beginning we were angry on them when we arrived to the conference. After this one incident cooperation with them became only pleasure. Other things like venue, food, atmosphere was great. They were ready at hand when we need something.
I want mention about last crucial part of the conference: Delegates. All of them set goals before conference, they knew what they need to improve or what kind of knowledge they have to gain.
This time which we spent together motivated us to achieve goals, and made it easier, because we know that we are not alone and we can count on them.
Now we are waiting for next conference InPut, where we will be planning our term. I hope that it will be at least as good as this one:)
You can be sure that we will share with you about our experience:)...
EB_2008/2009
Time for challenges and change
There was a time to decide...
There was a time to challenge ones weakness... There was a time to take a chance and show
to rest – I CAN...!!! In the begin everything looked quite normal.
A new leaders starts to look for her own team. She prepared some questions and gives them
to our committee. But the results of the searching were unpredictable.
The seven candidates who decide to take a chance, were incurable differentJ
Damian, little bit to lazy but very smart VP Talent Management.
Kasia, chocolate addicted, beautiful and intelligent Outgoing Exchange VP.
Piotrek – beaver, Mr. Digression and question, ambitious and great potential External Relations VP.
Dominika, miss “Broth on the dinner in Sunday”, conscientious and ambitious Finance Minister.
Antek – Chaffinch, grumpy Mr. „I will not play in football again”, intelligent and aim on excellent InComing Exchange VP.
Piotrek – Rasiak, too tall Mr. big nose and “I have a stupid idea again”, passion sharing and hard work Communication VP.
When our LCP, mysterious Magdalena, Ken Lee, Mather Headmaster, miss “Prepare PWS”, leader and teacher, saw what kind of team she will lead, she knew, it will not be easy to do…, but she loves challengesJ.
Our team starts to work together a few days before LC meeting. We had to prepare a presentation and we finished it at 2 am. Everybody wanted to stay to end and finish with the others. Then during Team Days in Nowiny we define our values with are road signs and the vision with is the duraction of our way. Way … to provide development all members our committee and realize ambitious goalsJ
The way is the most important part of our cooperate. We have the same target. We will not lose in any case:)...
Turbulent and rich history of Persian Empire imprinted deep crack in Iranian mentality. Being invaded by Arabs, forced to absorb Islam, years after that, experiencing dramatic Revolution in 1979 which blocked most connections to the West. That makes everything here more complex then you expect. People are indeed hospitable and friendly, at the same time they are masters in hiding their feelings – these negative ones…They are tormented by jumble of feelings – will to change Iran into a better place to live and… a desire to have their own good life far away from the country where most of entrepreneurial initiatives are hindered, and as a normal citizen you are harassed by different kind of police instead of getting support from their side! Yes, now I'm afflicted also by that since I’ve been caught 4 times in 1 month in the street by hijab police. Ok, first you think it’s another interesting “cultural experience” but after 3rd time you are pissed off that somebody is limiting your freedom to wear what you wish! Still obeying Islamic rules though. And it’s just a peak of an iceberg in stories with military services. 
volunteer but opening my eyes to other people’s needs. And what’s the most important, it makes me realized what I want from life. What I will fight for myself and pe ople I care.
