How Annual Conference Inspire Me....

Inspiring People

As you guys might already know, Annual Conference is starting from February 21st - 23rd. I give you a brief explanation about this event in my last post, but I'll explain more in depth here. This event is the biggest event in UWC-USA. As I said, we invite more than 30+ organization, school, and community to listen to different kind of workshop, speech, plenaries, and activities leads by more than 15+ speaker from all around the world. Out theme for this year is Migration and Belonging. If you see from the theme you might think it's not s broad topics that everyone could relate to, no no no, you're wrong honey. That is also what i was thinking at first, but nahh this topics might seems short but it could be applied in different kind of situation. 

Also our main speaker this year is Ndaba Mandela! which is Nelson Mandela, grandson. He's pretty cool and his voice is so damn deep lol I love it <3 Here's the picture of his first speech about Migration and Belonging. This was on Friday [which means we have no class] and this day was all full about annual conference event starting from Ndaba speech till a small workshop and activity. It divided by 3 sessions on Friday and one last session on Saturday + the closing event with our president, Victoria Mora!

This picture was on Friday, the first day of Annual Conference and also my birthday! After Ndaba Mandela speech, i got his book in the atrium of the auditorium and lined up to ask his signature and also take a photo with him. It was really nice talking with him he's such a humble person. Also funny at the same time. Even though there's one of his answer towards the students question that's kinda off and controversial. A lot of people said he's just Nelson Mandela son and he's big because of 'Mandela' name. But idk from what I've seen and trying to put myself in his shoes, he's doing a good job. Maybe i haven't see the whole thing but i get it, it's hard to carry such a big name "Mandela" on your shoulder. So with one mistake, we shouldn't generalize all his achievement and effort. 

The whole day went pretty good. It's inspire me A LOT to do more good for this world. I walk around campus to take footages for my video. i have bunch of footages that i need to edit but i accidentally uninstall my Adobe Premiere program so whoops gotta wait a bit long. There's a lot of different kind of workshop and activities that students can join and participate. Starting from kinda ted-talk style talking about Settler Colonialism, Belonging across continent with 100 Mandela, Migration music and dance in Roma, Asylum seeker in the US, Criminal and Immigrant Justice, Gender and Immigration, Council Process, Public Speaking-how to create your own Late Night Show, Theater of Oppressed Participatory, Education culture place and identity, Photography in Making Time Machine, Imposter Syndrome, and any other else. Literally there's a bunch of opportunity and to try make the best out of it. I love all the workshop. I feel like I'm doing the UWC mission in this two days and became the best UWCers i could ever be so far hahaha. 

 In one of the workshop, they talked about imposter syndrome which I find it interesting. It's basically a psychological pattern where someone doubts their accomplishment, and afraid of being exposed as a fraud. One of the symptoms is when you keep questioning yourself whether you're good enough or no. Most of the times it comes out from your own inner critic. The inner critic is the voice that just popped out on your head and you keep hearing it daily. There's a negative and positive inner critic, if it a constructive inner critic, we should adore it and keep doing it. But most people have a negative inner critic that just make them feel disgusted at themselves and usually leads to a destructive mindset in the long term. This is why we need to be aware when we have this syndrome so we know how to deal with it. 

The event ended with a beautiful performance by the African Chorus with 2-3 song and Victoria Mora speech. This event has a special spot in my heart. I won't forget what I've learned here and what I'm inspired to do because of this event. It may take time to execute all my plan, but one thing I know that I'm still gonna do it. And I've made a promise to myself to try my best doing what i can do to help my community, my people, my country in the future. Thank you Annual Conference for all those valuable opportunities that i won't be able to get it somewhere else. 

I hope this post could inspire y'all Algos and I'd be really happy if anyone has any question or want to discuss some topic. Just hit me up on my email or the comment section in this blog! I'm down for it! See ya on my next post <3