Knowing the nuances of navigating leadership is something that comes with years of experience, but sometimes we don't have years to develop experience. In the video Mary Shindler explores some techniques for strong leadership and preventing burnout for young leaders. Whether you are working on a political campaign or getting a community initiative started (and even if you aren't young!) these tips have universal applicability.

This training was part of the 2013 Lead Now Fellowship training series. We will continue to post videos from trainings as we can.

A few weeks ago, the 57^th session of the United Nations annual Commission on the Status of Women brought together countries’ representatives and members of civil society organizations in New York City. Delegations from countries and organizations shared their vision of and good practices for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls. The series of meetings turned out to be bitterly disappointing for two reasons.

First, the session was overtly politically charged. Quite a few countries did not hesitate to make politically provocative statements oriented more towards past conflicts and misunderstandings than the topic at hand. Syria, for example, appealed to the international community to “take action against Israel” and “condemn the occupiers.” It also mentioned that “some governments” breed terrorism within its borders and asked the international community to address this issue. Venezuela’s speech sounded very much like an attempt to glorify Hugo Chavez and his regime. Russia, paranoid, as usual, about other countries interfering into its domestic affairs, reminded the international community that Russia’s government is the only body that knows best what policies would be good for Russia. Such an atmosphere at the session showed that countries came to the meeting with heavy political baggage that they were unwilling to leave aside for even five minutes – the time given to each country’s delegation for a speech on the session agenda.

But perhaps more disappointing was some countries’ explicit reluctance to even discuss certain issues related to violence against women. Kuwait, for example, stated that, in its view, any attempt to make a link between religion and violence against women is “intolerable.” What is really intolerable is closing a particular issue for open discussion on the grounds of some allegedly universal truth. Whether some religions sanction socio-economic or physical violence against women and girls is a question that is currently being explored by scholars and civil society. Attempts to turn this question into a statement, without any evidence, are equivalent to imposing one’s highly subjective perception on the international community.

In a similar vein, Tunisia declared that it fully supports the goal of elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, as long as it doesn’t contradict “the precepts of Islam.” What this means, in my understanding, is that there is a line that some countries draw for themselves and which, no matter what, they do not want to cross. It’s the line beyond which there will be no discussion. It’s the line beyond which there can be no questions.

Unlike Kuwait and Tunisia, Lebanon admitted the “challenge of promoting non-violence while retaining cultural values and religious beliefs.” In other words, the country was open to dialogue with the international community, recognizing in advance the complex nature of the question and potential disagreements about it.

Some countries, when opening highly controversial political issues for debate, were unable or unwilling to elaborate on their views and offer a viable alternative. For instance, the Holy See stated that China’s one child policy is a blatant violation of reproductive rights, but did not provide any potential solutions for China’s demographic problem. Indeed, does today’s China have an alternative?

The second aspect in which the session was a disappointment were the many countries’ approaches to the agenda. Almost every speech was a listing of how many rehabilitation centers a country has built, how many hot lines it has opened, and how many counseling services it has funded. No doubt, many countries have built up an extensive infrastructure to provide legal and psychological support and medical assistance to women victims of domestic violence, rape, or other abuse. These achievements are laudable, but they all address the symptoms of the “disease” while ignoring its causes. Only two countries of all the countries I heard speak, touched upon the roots of the problem. One of them, Moldova, explicitly referred to society’s morals and the need for moral education as fundamental in eliminating violence against women and girls. The other, the Holy See, went deeper and stressed the mass media’s responsibility for society’s sense of morality:

“In many parts of the world, women are the first victims of reductive ideologies that postulate and glorify a conception of the human body and of its sexual availability that is strongly threatening to the dignity of women. Pursuing this ideology only leads to a vision of the human person, wherein women … are easily considered as a possession … disposable at will. The advertising which proliferates around the world today is an example of how the human person is demeaned, commodified and sexualized into an object for others’ perversion and lust. The woman is thereby reduced to a body without a mind or a soul. In this context, it is most urgent for us to discern solutions that are not merely limited to the short term, or lowest common denominator, and which inevitably prolong the causes for violence, but rather to pursue solutions which address the root causes of violence versus women.”

Many countries also boasted on how many of their seats in parliament or minister positions are now taken by women. Although this is an achievement that has the potential for inducing long-term changes in the societal status of women and girls, countries should keep in mind that attitudes cannot be imposed from above unless they have a strong foundation at other levels of society. Legal changes do not necessarily bring in wide-scale societal changes.

As I was walking early Saturday morning in Manhattan to catch my bus home, I was verbally abused by two adult men in their 30s or 40s. When I chose to ignore their offensive sexist comments, they shouted at my back threats of rape. If it had not been the center of Manhattan and if they had dared to physically abuse me, I would surely have appreciated hot lines, rehabilitation centers, and counseling services. But why do I have to become a victim in the first place only because of someone’s fundamental lack of morality? And would the fact that the United States is at the forefront of promoting legal gender equality have made my trauma less painful? Very meaningful in this regard is one of the slogans of the recent campaign against rape in Delhi, which reads “Don’t tell your daughter not to go out, tell your son to behave properly.”

Anna Malinovskaya was a SustainUS delegate to the 57th Commission on the Status of Women. She is an international undergraduate student. 

I believe I’ve spent a good part of the last 5 years doing diverse things, but the single accomplishment I’m most proud of would be organizing last year’s Conference of Youth (COY) at the Qatar Foundation’s Student Center in Doha, Qatar. COY is an annual international youth conference that happens the weekend before the UN climate negotiations. Asian youth presence has generally been weaker at the climate negotiations, both in numbers and in voice. I won’t try to justify why, but I’m glad to have provided an Asian perspective on the COY organizing team ahead of the conference. At the conference I was able to help people with directions and instructions in my capacity as a Mandarin Chinese speaker.

COY and Doha in general provided me with so many new experiences, and I’m honestly grateful to have the opportunity to work with local Qataris and climate campaigners from the UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC) and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) to plan and organize COY. As coordinators, we worked on the conference program, finalizing keynote speakers, selecting suitable workshops, among other things. Since I’m more of a media person, I was also in charge of the @WeAreCOY8 twitter handle, our Facebook page, and our email account, which was used mainly to contact workshop facilitators.

I’m proud of having contributed to COY because it is a brilliant place for people to mill about, interact and share experiences, in addition to attending the capacity building workshops which certainly allowed for knowledge-sharing and the acquisition of new skills in preparation for the climate negotiations.

I’m proud of working towards bringing passionate climate activists together.

I’m proud of creating an environment for under-18 year-olds to experience an exhilarating 3 days, and for us to make friends. It was disappointing not being recognized for our dedication and efforts at COP, but at least we banded together during COY and formed a “Youth Access” Working Group to discuss pertinent issues and formulate plans for Young and Future Generations Day (YoFuGe). COP might have been a letdown, but COY was certainly not.

In Doha, I (regrettably) witnessed developed countries’ lack of commitment in the way the negotiations unraveled. The “Doha Climate Gateway” was haphazardly mish-mashed together in a bid to finally end the climate talks, a day after they ran overtime. Civil society was an oppressed presence, with certain youth interventions being cut down to a mere minute and under-18 year-olds kept out from the conference venue. At the Intergenerational Inquiry, Mary Robinson lamented that the current situation was akin to the “Titanic moving towards the iceberg of 4 degrees”. This is not what I envision the next climate negotiations (COP19) to be – there needs to be a radical shift in attitudes of governments and the world, and quick.

I know that many people around me have been left disillusioned after attending the climate talks, and are concerned that COP19 will again leave much to be desired. Regardless of circumstantial constraints, we cannot lose faith in us – that means continuing to come together at COY and at COP, in a strong show of solidarity. Youth representation definitely plays a pivotal role in changing mindsets and opinions at the climate talks.

Although we’re already well into 2013, memories of COP are still fresh in my mind. Philosopher Dan Dennett once averred, in ruminating on the secret of happiness, “Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it.” In all honesty, before I hopped on that plane to Doha, I had no idea what I would want to spend the rest of my existence doing. Although I’m not 100% sure, I think I’ve found a cause worth fighting for.

Nueva York: Como parte del Día Internacional de la Mujer, cerca de 100 mujeres marcharon hoy, 8 de marzo de 2013. La inclemencia del tiempo no sirvió de obstáculo para que el grupo de mujeres que representaban distintos países pudieran marchar por un motivo en común. El mismo reside en la importancia de exigirle a los Estados que tomen medidas concretas para erradicar la impunidad -uno de los retos que no permite que haya justicia en los casos de violencia contra las mujeres- pues mayormente a nivel mundial, las personas que atentan contra los derechos de las mujeres no les cae todo el peso de la ley.

Salimos a las 10:00 am de la Avenida 1 de la Calle 42 y nos dirigimos hacia la Plaza Dag Hammarskjold marchando con pancartas y uniendo nuestras voces con la esperanza de ser escuchadas y poder transformar el mundo. Mientras la nieve nos arropaba, decidimos continuar porque “somos imparables”.

Estratégicamente esta marcha surge en respuesta a la 57ma sesión de la Comisión de la Condición Jurídica y Social de la Mujer(CSW57), que tiene lugar en la sede de Naciones Unidas en Nueva York desde el pasado lunes 4 de marzo hasta el 15 de marzo de 2013. En esta sesión, representantes de los Estados Miembros analizan los avances que han tenido sobre la eliminación y la prevención de todas las formas de violencia contra mujeres y niñas. Por consiguiente, muchas organizaciones a nivel mundial desarrollaron este esfuerzo para exigirle a los Estados que respondan, protejan y prevengan la violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas.

Al llegar a la plaza, varias activistas tomaron la palabra y expresaron su sentir sobre el tema de la violencia hacia la mujer. Recuerdo que una mujer hondureña, señaló que en la Resolución de las Naciones Unidas no se añadió la erradicación de los femicidios como parte de los esfuerzos que se deben llevar a cabo para erradicar la violencia.

Como parte de esta iniciativa, muchas organizaciones se aliaron y apoyaron la causa, entre estas se encuentran: Association for Women Rights and Development (AWID), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Feminist Task Force (FTF), Red Latinoamericana de Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, entre otras.

En fin, decidí unirme  a esta marcha porque yo soy mujer y estoy convencida de que es imprescindible  levantar nuestras voces para eliminar la violencia hacia las mujeres (VBG). Cuando hablamos de VBG, nos referimos  a todo tipo de violencia que atenta contra el desarrollo y los derechos de las mujeres y niñas. Como activista mi misión es involucrarme y tomar acción para lograr el cambio que quiero. El mundo que yo quiero, es aquel en donde la equidad y la justicia prevalecen.

- Joan Soto from Puerto Rico

SustainUS Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women

Today was the first day of a marathon process which was conceived years ago when the women's emancipation cause was taken up. During the several conferences and panel discussions I attended today as a youth delegate of Sustain US, I inferred that this movement has come a long way but that there is still so much to be done.

Michelle Bachelet, the first Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women and the former President of Chile, opened the day with a thought provoking address. She made it clear that this year has seen distressingly large numbers of instances where the inalienable rights of women have been violated. Our objective through this conference is to establish that women are citizens and deserve the inalienable, indestructible and indivisible rights which come with citizenship and that they cannot be treated as sub-human. It troubles me deeply to think that some girl my age in some war-ridden country is being coerced to let her body be used as a battleground.

After the opening address, I attended parallel panel discussions on the dual strategy of addressing gender inequality through the Millennium Development Goals and the prevention of violence against women in times of conflict. The panel discussions were very thought provoking and showed how economic liberation is a key in the solution framework. We listened to inspiring excerpts from representatives of Colombia and learned, most importantly, that everyone knows and is aware of the problem of violence against women. And so it is high time we start thinking of feasible and effective solutions.

I do not want to simply rant about the problem, but be a part of the solution. With this objective, I look forward to the next few days here at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women.

It felt like my entire professional career had culminated to this point. I had done Model UN for six years and have worked for various international aid groups and government agencies, but I had never really been right in the middle of the decision making process. My week as a Youth Delegate to the Commission on Social Development was probably one of the most enriching and eye-opening weeks I’ve had in a very long time.

The priority theme – “promoting empowerment of people in achieving poverty eradication, social integration and full employment and decent work for all" – was integrated in every discussion and policy proposal organized by the Commission, and every large session and side-event divulged into various aspects of this broader idea of “empowerment” – including issues such as youth rights, ageing, disability liberties, migration, and unemployment. Besides for wanting to learn more about education and women’s rights – two priority themes for my personal charity’s initiatives – I came in with a goal of understanding more about youth policy integration in the various UN mechanisms. I definitely departed with a great deal of knowledge on the presence of youth at the UN.

It boils down to this point: if youth want more of a voice at the UN, we have to ask for it. The infrastructure in place is not conducive to youth involvement; even the United States, a nation that serves as a sponsor on most resolutions regarding social development and empowerment, has barely gotten its own embassy-led youth delegate program off the ground.

That was one thing I realized as I met ambassadors and NGO-leaders at the conference – the system wasn’t built for us. We needed to establish the connections. We needed to hold our heads high and walk, talk, and negotiate just like everybody else at the conference. I’m really proud of our delegation and the work that we managed during the week: we developed a info-graphic on our action items for the conference as they related to the priority theme of the Commission, spoke up at sessions and side-events on the importance of youth integration and social empowerment in the global arena, delivered our oral statement to the entire body, as well as met with other youth delegates to develop a youth resolution to the Commission. It was a productive week, to say the least.

There were a few moments that I’ll never forget. Sitting five rows away from the Iranian Ambassador, who in the past has given his fair share of extremist public statements, was unbelievable. There was also a side-event by Ms. Raghida Dergham, the founder of the Middle East-based think-tank Beirut Institute, which I thought was the single most interesting talk on the state of intellectual organization in the region that I’ve ever sat in on. Standing there while Ashley, my fellow youth delegate, gave the oral statement that we’d all worked on was so incredibly satisfying.

The last thing that I took away from the week was this: from my experience, more seemed to get done in backroom deals, negotiations, or side-events than at the larger sessions. This was ironic, seeing that throughout my whole life the main stage of the UN seemed to be where all the action happened. It was actually the final parting words between delegations, or the in-hallway resolution mergers, that made the most lasting differences. This changed my view on the scope and form of negotiation, and I wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity without actually being on the front lines.

At the end of the conference, a nice elderly lady, who later introduced herself as the Chief Representative from a non-profit on ageing at the conference, came up to us and shared her gratitude. She told us the importance of what we were doing and to never stop asking questions and searching for solutions. It was a great final note to what was an unforgettable week, and I hope that this coming year until the next Session of CSocD is even more productive than this past one.

Thank you to SustainUS, to the UN Commission on Social Development, and to my fellow youth delegates for enriching me in ways that I can’t even begin to explain. 

This blog was originally posted on the Huffington Post.


The fossil fuel industry is getting uneasy.

The climate movement is growing by leaps and bounds, as more and more people (80 percent of Americans) connect the dots and begin to understand the nature of the threat. A massive fossil fuel divestment campaign has reached cities, churches, and over 200 colleges and universities in just a few months. The Keystone XL pipeline and other tar sands proposals are drawing increasing opposition, and will be the target of a historic rally this February. The pressure is building as America looks for meaningful climate action.

We're starting to sense more defensiveness as the fossil fuel industry and its allies try to write off the growing movement. They alternate from calling us naïve and misinformed hippies to crafty political insiders and special interest lobbyists.

I was at the rally in Portland, Maine last Saturday, where some 1,500 people gathered to protest a proposal to pipe tar sands oil through New England. John Quinn, Executive Director of the New England Petroleum Council, which represents the oil industry, had this to say about the protesters:

''They intend to demonize oil sands because it's a direct threat to wind power.''

Not quite, Mr. Quinn. We intend to expose oil sands because it's a direct threat to humanity.

Having followed the fossil fuel industry's well-funded manipulation of America for some time, I'm willing to bet that this quote represents yet another attempt to mislead the public into acting against their own best interest for the sake of some of the richest people in history. But maybe, just maybe, they are genuinely that misinformed and out of touch with reality.

Let's clear something up right now:

Those people filling the streets? We're not lobbyists. Most of us aren't even activists. We are citizens, landowners, business owners, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, religious leaders, congregation members, elected officials, scientists, mothers, fathers, and youth. We are not an activist movement -- we are people who have been forced into action to protect our future.

And make no mistake, that is exactly what's on the line, with climate change, and with the precedent set by these pipelines. As NASA scientist James Hansen famously declared, exploiting the tar sands would be "game over for the climate."

The truth is, the fossil fuel industry has become America's greatest threat. The richest industry in the history of money (ExxonMobil just surpassed Apple as the most profitable company in the world, and the Koch brothers are worth more than the GDP of 48 countries) it spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year to manipulate our democracy and mislead the public. It's corporate welfare in the form of subsidiescosts taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

While once vital to our country's growth, the industry now works against our national interests, evicting homeowners, endangering Americans, and dragging our nation backwards by stifling smart growth, while countries like China, South Korea, and Germany take the lead in innovation, production, and the race to the green economy. The fossil fuel industry is a fossil itself, a relic of a bygone era, and one that is now fundamentally un-American.

Oh, and it's also wrecking the planet.

At last, a powerful movement is rising up to stop them. We're not a movement of radicals. To me, the radicals are the ones who are fundamentally changing the chemical structure of our atmosphere and endangering humanity. We're not a movement of lobbyists. We are none of these things they try to label us.

We're people who want a decent future for our children and future generations. Nothing more, nothing less. That future depends on mobilizing like never before, and we're rising to the challenge, using a diversity of tactics from divestment to non-violent civil disobedience.

The climate movement is the civil rights movement of the planet, and it's about to explode. Wise politicians will read the writing on the wall and start distancing themselves as fast as possible from this industry gone rogue. Leaders will become champions of climate action, or lose their positions to those who will lead.

I'll end this with a message to the John Quinns, the fossil fuel executives, even the Koch brothers. Please understand this:

It's nothing personal. Truly, it's not. It's just that your industry is destroying our chance at a livable future, and we're not going to let that happen. 
Period.

History will judge us on how we respond to this moment, the greatest challenge in the history of humanity. America should lead. Our legacy depends on it.

Our commitment to this runs deeper than you can understand. Our dedication goes beyond presidential speeches, beyond legislation, beyond greenwashing, half-measures, and false solutions. We are in this for the long haul. We won't be bullied or drowned out, no matter how much money you spend to try to stop us. We're doing this for our future, for our children and yours. We have no other choice. This is a moral and a survival imperative, and we will not stop.

Even if you don't thank us, your children surely will.

Today the SustainUS CSocD Agents of Change delegation got the opportunity to deliver a statement to the country representatives at the UN Commission on Social Development in New York. They also supplemented the statement with this awesome infographic on the points they are calling for more attention around.

Statement delivered at the UN Commission on Social Development 2/12/13:

Distinguished members and government officials,

We are here as youth, representing one billion of the world’s population. We must note that we are here out of our own volition, not as part of a UN-sanctioned youth delegation, and we fear that our voices are not always present in these conversations. Our objectives are not only to speak up as the voice of the youth, but also to call for a change in the approaches that have been taken by this Commission.

We have been talking about a people-centered development agenda as being a critical aspect of our role here - this means that we must not only try to imagine new ways forward, but analyze and address the root problems that marginalize people.

The dialogue that has dominated discussion so far has not addressed the core issues that we see to be the most relevant to the work of this commission, namely the quality of education, youth unemployment and migration.

We call for policies that increase access to primary and secondary education, training activities, access to the Internet, and basic services, which must be at the core of any effort to decrease unemployment and promote youth prosperity.

We call for the design of a set of youth-sensitive indicators, incorporated into the design of future SDGs that recognized non-formal education, public access to information, social entrepreneurship and full and active participation of young people in policymaking processes related to governance. We must ensure that education and participation allows youth to define their own circumstances, and not let their circumstances define them. Education is the tool of empowerment, and while it is imperative that school curricula provide language, math and science foundations for students, we can innovate within the educational system in a manner that will expedite economic progress and empower the next generation of community leaders.

Governments, NGOs and other actors should invest in teacher training methods that go beyond the human capital aspect of educational institutions. By training educators to teach community organizing, project development and group management skills in the classroom, we can provide more youth with the tools they need to be community leaders and spur economic progress at the local level. Not only global markets, but new and improving democratic systems require young people who can think critically and creatively. We believe that by helping to support and develop the whole person we can both engage young people in their learning and help them to gain the abstract skills and technological abilities necessary for the tasks of the 21st century workforce and democratic citizenship.

We are hopeful that the outcome of this Commission will take into account the importance of innovative quality education for youth that prepares them to decide their own futures.

As youth exit the world of education and enter the world of work, they are facing a dearth of opportunities. The global youth unemployment rate stood at 12.6% in 2010, according to the ILO. The chances for securing employment are even slimmer for female youth.This is a contributing factor to the reality of young women being trafficked into sex work or forced labor with no pay and brutal work conditions. It is important for leaders to see the informal economy as not only a scourge on their balance sheets, but as a cycle of labor imprisonment for people who don’t have a way out.

Part of the purpose of this Commission is to discuss not only decreasing unemployment, but recognizing the need for full and decent employment for those in the workforce. We recognize the need for jobs with which we can support ourselves and our families. The ability to participate fully and freely in the social and political life of a community is a necessary standard for citizen political participation, and economic marginalization limits this ability. Upholding the needs of development in democratic societies must require the unrestricted right of the workforce to mobilize themselves. The right of workers to control the conditions of their labor is well established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and yet it is still not met, in either formal or informal economies.

In discussing a rights-based and human-centered approach to development our discussions here have merely touched on the interrelationship of international migration to the theme of “Empowerment and decent work.” We need to recognize the millions of unauthorized migrants and displaced people, especially the youth among them. They face discrimination, inequalities, lack of social protection, barriers to social integration, exploitation and poor living conditions. Unauthorized migrants specifically are routinely denied access to basic human rights laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including:

-The right of full equality at a fair public trial
-the right to asylum
-the right to freedom of movement
-the right to Social Security
-the right to equal pay for equal work
-the right to recognition everywhere as a person under the law

Depriving people of their human rights marginalizes them within larger society and prevents people from any real public participation. 12.6 million young people are currently displaced by violent conflict. The delegates representing the Southern African Development Commission and the Caribbean Community touched on the issue of climate change in their regions, and we would like to reiterate that dramatic weather events, droughts and floods caused by climate change are a major cause of migration and displacement; over 45 million people were displaced by weather events alone in 2010. Climate change not only affects the economies of developing countries, but those displaced by the effects of climate change.

Economic factors such as low wages, unemployment and labor conditions are another leading cause for migration. According to the ILO, in 2010 there were 214 million international migrants, where almost half of the international migrants were women.  Due to the economic struggles that family’s face they are lead to migrate to other countries that have better standard wages and labor conditions, yet once there, they are stripped from their human rights, as they are unauthorized migrants. In 2011, 11.1 million unauthorized migrants were accounted for in the US alone.  How can they become involved in processes of change when they are prevented from participating in it?

We have been discussing the creation of positive environments for people to empower themselves; access to rights is the most fundamental basis for empowerment. If we are going to discuss full employment and decent work for all, we must include those who are unauthorized or displaced. Human rights are human rights regardless of who or where a person is, and we must seek to ensure that unauthorized people have access to them.

Change is about working together to pursue a common goal. We want to promote change and create a sustainable environment not only for the billions of youth, but for the next generations that follow us. It is important that youth voices are included in the creation of the post-2015 development agenda. As stated by the German UN Youth delegates, “strive to be our partners” so we can all take collective action for a better tomorrow. We are agents of change.

Thank you.