Sikander Sabeer: My Experience at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

Saturday, June 30, 2012

My Experience at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

I would like to use this opportunity to highlight some of the opportunities which I got in Rio+20.

* First and foremost- getting the highest status which is official youth delegation status/ D-badge at this historic summit, the National Delegation was headed by HE President Mahinda Rajapakse and I am very proud to be a part of such a high profile team. It was a great pleasure to represent 1/4th of Sri Lankan population which is Young Voice.

* As Rio+20 was once in a generation opportunity, where UN declared as "Rio+20 is one of the biggest and one of the most important summit in UN history". It's indeed a rare opportunity to attend such a high level event.

* I could not attend Rio+20 just as a youth delegate, I attended as a Youth activist, a youth facilitator, a negotiator tracker, and a youth speaker. I was able to facilitate several youth events, taskforces, and share what Sri Lankan Youth contribution for Rio+20 and beyond. We as Sri Lankans were able to host number of High Level side events in Rio+20.

* I used this opportunity to meet some of World Leaders such as Prime Minister of Nepal, Deputy Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Dozens of Ministers from Environment, Foreign Affairs to Economic Development, heads of UN agencies, world business leaders etc.

* Meanwhile I got an opportunity to represent the Half of the World’s Population [3.2 Billion], that's Young people (Major Group of Children and Youth) at the closing ceremony of the High Level Segment of the Rio+20.

I am very proud to say that we the Sri Lankan youth was able to Shine the name of "Lanka" and unleashed our hidden potential in this conference and lift our Nation at this International Arena.

Get the entire story of the Rio+20 through my Daily Blog Update

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UnknownJuly 5, 2012 at 5:13 PM
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About Me

Sikander Sabeer is a product of Isipathana College and holding a first class with distinction Bachelors of Science (BSc) degree on Biotechnology, Biochemistry and Microbiology from Spectrum Institute of Science and Technology (Sri Lanka), an outreach campus of University of Mysore (India). Presently reading for his Masters of Science (MSc) on Business Management at National School of Business Management (Sri Lanka), an outreach post-graduate institute of University of Dublin (Ireland).

Sikanders’ development work can be categorized into three avenues, namely community service and community development; youth empowerment and professional development; climate change and sustainable development. Meanwhile his development work is two phased, firstly action oriented, secondly strategic and advocacy. In the action oriented phase, he gets in to the field and implements his ideas. He works very closely with multi-stakeholders such as children, school students, youth, corporates & business firms, UN agencies, non-governmental and government organizations on diversified projects at different levels and on different capacities. With his strong grass-root level initiatives and experience, he invests equal time on advocacy, mentorship and youth policy framework, which is a unique, and a strategic bottom up approach.

Sikanders’ voluntary action oriented initiatives and his strategic thinking has given him numerous opportunities to be a guest speaker and youth facilitator; to share his experiences, best practices to motivate and inspire youth at number of National and International youth conferences. He has represented his country and fellow youth (1/4th of Sri Lankan population) at high profile youth conferences and high level UN summits/conferences, at some of the UN meetings I have served as an ‘Official Youth Delegate’ of the National Delegation team headed by HE president. Half of the world’s population is made up of young people and as a youth representative and a major stakeholder he had made several interventions on behalf of Global Youth and Sri Lankan youth at some of the UN conferences.

He has held several key positions in organizing several national and international events/programmes and he is one of the co-creators of the YOUTH is the word –Guinness World Record, where 1500 Sri Lankan youth stood to gather to form the largest human mosaic in the world.

His local, national and international initiatives on youth led community development, Climate Change; youth empowerment and youth advocacy led him to earn the most prestigious “Commonwealth Youth Awards (CYA)” for Excellence in Development Work (2012), The CYA’s celebrate and recognize extraordinary young people among one billion audiences from 54 member states of Commonwealth who are making a positive difference to the lives of others through development initiatives ranging from poverty alleviation to education and protection of the environment. This is awarded by Commonwealth Secretariat (CYP) headed by HM Queen Elizabeth II. He earned the "Global Changemaker" title of British Council Youth Empowerment Programme on 2010 for outstanding contribution for Voluntary Activities. He serves as a Youth Ambassadorial role for climate change and serves as a Youth Facilitator for climate sustainability under British Council International Climate Champion program. Apart from these major recognitions his team earned U.S. Department of States Federal Assistant Award Grant for “Green the Home” project and Global Changemakers Community Action Project (CAP) and Regional Action Project (RAP) grants for Youth Empowerment Initiatives.

Presently Sikander is serving as an Assistant Manager for Business Development and Project Officer for recycling solutions for Neptune Recyclers (Neptune Papers [Pvt.] Ltd) in Sri Lanka, a member of multinational corporate Expolanka Holdings PLC. He works very closely with multi- stakeholders, especially with school students, Industries and Corporates on recycling solutions which create an additional income from the trash while minimizing the environmental pollution.

"Do as much as voluntary activities, because volunteers Inspire in Action, they make a real change in their community, they talk less and work a lot, but never expect any personal benefits from their action, Indeed one day they will earn the rewards, that’s confirmed; Install this in your mind “I will do the best I can”

-Sikander Sabeer-