Sikander Sabeer: Rio+20 Daily Blog

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Rio+20 Daily Blog - Day 02

June 12, Youth Blast, Hosted a mini side event on "Youth Engagement on Development Process" at the youth blast, the event was hosted by the government of Sri Lanka, National Youth Services Council Sri Lanka. The side event focused on post millanium development goal agenda and how youth can get engage with development process, as Sri Lanka is going to host the 2014 UN World Youth Conference, so this event was a good opportunity to spread the message of WYC and show the world what we do in Sri Lanka.

Mini - Side Event at the Youth Blast

Attended a official youth delegation meeting, where my team and i was able to meet official youth delegate from different parts of the country, such as Germany, Norway, Swiss, Brazil, USA etc, meanwhile we were able to meet delegates from Kenya.The sessions mainly focused on planning a strategy for upcoming 15 days and explore the benefits and the restrictions of the the "Government Delegation".

I got an opportunity to share my experiance and my opinion at a Youth Blast mini side event organized by ICIMOD on How Green Economy help your country, this gave me an opportunity to share how my resource full country can promote Green Economy as youth activist.

Closing Ceremony - Youth Blast

In the closing ceremony of the Youth Blast, Mr. Sha, the Secretary General of the UNCSD addressed the closing ceremony of the Youth Blast, where he stressed why youth should get engage with the Rio+20 process. One of the youth asked a question from Mr. Sha "what will happen if Rio+20 gets failure? He said with an inspiring energy "Rio+20 is not to going to fail - failure is not a choise". He is with loads of hopes on a concrete political out come from the Rio+20, which inspired youth demand the negotiators for a concrete deal at Rio+20.

He streed more on actions, implementations what the nations have committed 20 years ago and he further added this is an opportunity to renew the political commitments.

In the late evening we had a very important task force meeting on Green Economy, where we discussed on the three major sub-groups, Employment, Education and Natural Resources, from June 13 on-wards these three working groups will follow and track the negotiations with the official youth delegates.

Green Economy Task Force Meetings

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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-