It’s over a month since the workshop of the Youth in Landscape Initiative and the Global Landscapes Forum ended. Personally, I had expectations about how it would be and if I would be prepared for an event of this greatness. It would be a real challenge to attend an event in which many people were well knowledgeable on the subject. This event would allow me to practice my English, I was excited but I also had doubts. I knew I would do my best.
I was in the landscape restoration team and being part of this team was truly spectacular. I feel that everything happened in the best way for everyone thanks to the establishments we made of what we wanted, what bothered us and what we expected of the other team members. Our personalities were quite similar which helped to create a better understanding amongst us.
Being part of the landscape restoration team and seeing the quality of people I was with, gave me the confidence to express myself knowing that I would be listened to and never judged, which felt great! All this reminded me that no matter who you are, you should always be good while dealing with people in order to have the best of people.
All young innovators were motivated and did an excellent job and that pleased me very much because I was finally at an event where people concerned about specific problems came together to try to make a difference.
I don’t know if the different solutions that we gave to the different challenges could be implemented and allow a real change but all that work week motivated me to go ahead and continue to believe that together we can make a difference if we seek first the common goal above personal gain.
The relationship with my teammates was so great that even in less than a week, we talked about our personal lives and that helped us to give the best of each of us and express our ideas without problems or fear. The good disposition that we had helped us to achieve the results and the motivation obtained from that was incomparable.
At the beginning, I was uncertain of the commitment I made but then I realized it was a good decision and thanks to that, that week was one of the best experiences of my life and I am going to keep these words forever: “Be comfortable being uncomfortable” and “it doesn’t have to be perfect, it has to be awesome”. These quotes are perfect for me.
Daniel ZARATE is one of the 10 young champions who worked on the “ Landscape restoration” challenge with Youth program’s partner: WLE (CGIAR).
Learn more about the Global Landscapes Forum Youth program, meet our 50 youth champions, discover the 5 Landscapes challenges they took up and the solutions they developed and pitched at the Dragon’s Den on 6th December 2015, in Paris.
