It's funny, I used to make excellent prepared speeches and presentations and was quite the opposite when it came to impromptus or one-to-one verbal judo that required social intelligence in a split-second decision. I found it an important area to work on because I had been trying to do personal projects for self-development for quite a while. After studying the traits of successful people in life I understood one of them - purpose. In my understanding purpose was the same thing as vision - a generalised objective bigger than myself which I could always strive to achieve. It would be something I would passionately love to do 24/7. I had actually no idea what this meant until I spent a few years working in different industries after graduation. While working in a non-profit organisation by chance I met some interesting people and started discovering the answers to many unanswered questions of my life.
The experiences I gathered after I decided to follow my sense of passion instead of lucrative careers worked as powerful antidotes for my childhood experiences - which created in me a certain dislike of my own position in society as a young adult. I worked as a volunteer in the slums of Dhaka city and saw how the helpless father was willing to learn safe drinking water lessons from me to protect his little kids. This made me understand that parents were always willing to arrange the best support for their kids. In turn, I realised that my parents too helped me the most than many other parents not by how much they've given me, but by giving whatever they had to help me. I also learnt to engage with people from different social classes without my business card or degree as an ornament.
How did I find affirmation of my belief? Putting it simply, when did I first find the practicality of an initiative that would let the oppressed speak out? One day when I was attending just another session of the local Toastmaster Club, I met a gentleman after the session who was working in a radio station. He gave me a newspaper about radio stations and from there I learnt that there were some foreign organisations that were giving funds to community radio stations to promote English language learning to coastal area residents. On the front page was a picture of a member of a Dalit minority community cleaning the drains after night to make a living and the title was about how a community radio station was helping this minority community stay in touch with modern languages and news. Obviously, I loved the idea because giving voice to those who did not have a voice had been my vision.
While I was an undergraduate student me and a close friend of mine were desperately looking for a platform or a stage where we would get a mike. I wanted to become a motivational speaker and my friend wanted to become a comedian (!). We also had a vague idea that politicans needed to give speeches to people. At that time, I liked what the motivational speaker did - inspire and encourage the audience towards a better life. To be more specific, I liked the part where the motivational speaker made the listener feel better and inspired them to do better, not necessarily productivity. I liked the part where he could rally many people under a common cause. Certainly, public speaking was a skill I was wishing to learn. This led to me study the speeches of well-known speakers from anywhere I could find. Winston Churchill's "", Martin luther King's "I Have a Dream", Adlof Hitler's 1933 Chancellor speech, I didn't even leave Joseph Goebbels. In terms of oratory skills to garner field-level support he was probably second to only his boss. While looking out for opportunities to improve my skills I heard about the Toastmaster's Club in Dhaka city and got myself registered ! However, this was only a skill, not an attribute or a life vision. How did I connect the dots from public speaking skills to my purpose ?
I found a strong connection between my own childhood experiences and with that of many other teenagers of the country who are talented but never get to actually speak out. I knew I had excellent English persuasive writing and speaking skills but I needed direction. While interviewing the parents of the underprivileged students at my work I was fortunate enough to witness what children meant to their parents in-front of my own eyes. There was a couple who could never have children and decided to go very far to adopt a girl child. Her father was crying when explaining his case to me while his wife sat stone-faced nearby. I understood that people can appear to give an impression which they don't intend to give when connecting with others. I also developed empathy and understood what the parents were looking for for their children. So, I understood that there were thousands of me living their lives from all different classes of society. Talented, intelligent but without resources to make a change for the nation. Without education, character-building, and tools to manage their own emotions while facing life's adversities - the bright but naive teenager of today would not become the able man of tomorrow who would support his family. So, my purpose was to give voice to those who did not have a voice (either because they've been told to be calm and quite because of their socio-economic background or because they simply didn't have that vision!) and to give them a voice I could give them a platform from where they could develop their own voice / public speaking skills ! This basic understanding drove me to study the details of Interventions, Community Development Initiatives from University of Kansas's Online Tool box (quite a powerful tool!) and take courses on Project Planning and curriculum development from Coursera.org. I started designing, and then re-designing the curriculum for the initiative launched by the President of of the Toastmaster Club and the Listener's and Speaker's Forum in Dhaka, Bangladesh to execute my plan.
Referring to my experiences in my childhood, I have realised my own position in society and what I want to do to make a positive change. Fast forward to present day, I right now am developing a curriculum for a unique educational initiative where I'm creating a connection between the public speaking skills as well as the attributes of a leader. The idea is to make our target beneficiary group - the teenagers - aware of what they can become if they develop certain attributes and skills. No, certainly this is not a wishful thinking initiative from my end. The teenagers of Dhaka city grow up quite detached from outdoor sports, go through unique psycho-social problems due to dysfunctional families, and are taught to be service-holders and rigid thinkers since the first day at school. We need to understand that a small but important incident in a teenager's life can make a permanent stain on her self-image. If she's not helped by tools or if she doesn't stumble upon the tools all by herself to improve herself, then she'll continue to produce her learned wrong responses to similar stimulus. Teenage years are one of the best times, if not the best time in life, to do character-building. This is how I plan to implement my initiative in the near future:
In the first phase, I'll help teens to develop their leadership skills as well as attributes. Once the structure of the program is finalised and I have had some experience in facilitating sessions, I will move towards my original target beneficiary group - the underprivileged but the talented. In a country like Bangladesh where less than 1% of the population owns cars, it is not a practical idea to execute an initiative and make the middle-class and the lower-class audience to it. The teenager who hears the inspiring stories of other teenage success stories from all over the world and in their own communities will learn to believe and actually will contribute positively in their families, in their communities, in their friend circles, in their own life decisions, and ultimately to the nation by refraining from the traditional teenage mistakes.
Life skills training for out-of-school adolescents and soft-skills training for foster teenagers is also my target.
I found a strong connection between my own childhood experiences and with that of many other teenagers of the country who are talented but never get to actually speak out. I knew I had excellent English persuasive writing and speaking skills but I needed direction. While interviewing the parents of the underprivileged students at my work I was fortunate enough to witness what children meant to their parents in-front of my own eyes. There was a couple who could never have children and decided to go very far to adopt a girl child. Her father was crying when explaining his case to me while his wife sat stone-faced nearby. I understood that people can appear to give an impression which they don't intend to give when connecting with others. I also developed empathy and understood what the parents were looking for for their children. So, I understood that there were thousands of me living their lives from all different classes of society. Talented, intelligent but without resources to make a change for the nation. Without education, character-building, and tools to manage their own emotions while facing life's adversities - the bright but naive teenager of today would not become the able man of tomorrow who would support his family. So, my purpose was to give voice to those who did not have a voice (either because they've been told to be calm and quite because of their socio-economic background or because they simply didn't have that vision!) and to give them a voice I could give them a platform from where they could develop their own voice / public speaking skills ! This basic understanding drove me to study the details of Interventions, Community Development Initiatives from University of Kansas's Online Tool box (quite a powerful tool!) and take courses on Project Planning and curriculum development from Coursera.org. I started designing, and then re-designing the curriculum for the initiative launched by the President of of the Toastmaster Club and the Listener's and Speaker's Forum in Dhaka, Bangladesh to execute my plan.
Referring to my experiences in my childhood, I have realised my own position in society and what I want to do to make a positive change. Fast forward to present day, I right now am developing a curriculum for a unique educational initiative where I'm creating a connection between the public speaking skills as well as the attributes of a leader. The idea is to make our target beneficiary group - the teenagers - aware of what they can become if they develop certain attributes and skills. No, certainly this is not a wishful thinking initiative from my end. The teenagers of Dhaka city grow up quite detached from outdoor sports, go through unique psycho-social problems due to dysfunctional families, and are taught to be service-holders and rigid thinkers since the first day at school. We need to understand that a small but important incident in a teenager's life can make a permanent stain on her self-image. If she's not helped by tools or if she doesn't stumble upon the tools all by herself to improve herself, then she'll continue to produce her learned wrong responses to similar stimulus. Teenage years are one of the best times, if not the best time in life, to do character-building. This is how I plan to implement my initiative in the near future:
In the first phase, I'll help teens to develop their leadership skills as well as attributes. Once the structure of the program is finalised and I have had some experience in facilitating sessions, I will move towards my original target beneficiary group - the underprivileged but the talented. In a country like Bangladesh where less than 1% of the population owns cars, it is not a practical idea to execute an initiative and make the middle-class and the lower-class audience to it. The teenager who hears the inspiring stories of other teenage success stories from all over the world and in their own communities will learn to believe and actually will contribute positively in their families, in their communities, in their friend circles, in their own life decisions, and ultimately to the nation by refraining from the traditional teenage mistakes.
Life skills training for out-of-school adolescents and soft-skills training for foster teenagers is also my target.
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