Youth Innovators and Mentors
Ten youth innovators from ten different countries, with different academic backgrounds, experience and problem solving skills came together. How easy do you think it will be for them to forge a common understanding to produce an innovative solution which will address the education landscape challenge?
Yes, I am talking about the Education Team in 2015 Youth In Landscape Initiative at Global Landscape Forum. The team members include Novia Fadhila Sari (Indonesia), Diane Guerrier (Martinique), Joseph Mwakima (Kenya), Jose Carlos Martinez Hernandez (Mexico), Katie Minderhoud (The Netherlands), Dinesh Panday (Nepal), Rossana Merizalde (Bolivia), Prakriti Mukerjee (India), Jhannel Tomlinson (Jamaica), and Tamanda Chabvuta (Malawi).
Before our face-to-face meeting in Paris, we met online via a teleconference between youth innovators and challenge mentors. Our mentors were Cora Van Oosten and James Mulkerrins from the Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation – with the support of other Challenge Partners from Landscapes for People, Food and Nature, Wageningen UR, EcoAgriculture Partners , and the World AgroForestry Center.
For this landscape academy, our team developed the idea of an online self-assessment tool, called LandSelf, that enables people to assess their landscape related competencies including soft skills (such as multicultural understanding) as well as technical skills (like agricultural knowledge) to identify what are their gaps and needs to be able to think landscape.”
Landscapes Leaders Workshop
The workshop was held on 1st – 4th December at BeeoTop, Paris, and was facilitated by Gabrielle Schittecatte and Hannah Smith. It started with an Ice-breaker game to encourage youth innovators to know and relate with each other. ‘Photo Scavenger Hunt’ was an additional exercise to foster working together in challenging learning situations, and to encourage making decisions as a team – and we got time to see a bit of Paris also. Sequel to that was a Skyping date with mentors to understand our challenge. We defined our problem with pieces of evidence and the landscape challenge through group discussion.
The second day focused on the Review of Active Listening and Critical Thinking, and Pitching Workshop. We received guidance from one of our mentors (James) where he suggested that our work should focus on the concept of ‘Education Landscape Academy’, why it is important and how solutions can be proffered to manage the existing problems. He advised us to define landscape professionals, their competencies, curriculum and a good solution. We listened to and documented every innovator’s opinion, respecting group values and strength. We agreed that “A landscape professional should be able to understand (changes in) landscapes, be able to coordinate with individuals at community and policy level and have experience with the realities within their respective contexts.” Since the team was composed of diverse people from around the world, our brainstorming focused on ideas with concrete examples, from our different regions and realities, to back up our claims.
The third day was focused on Brainstorming and Developing a Range of Solutions to address the education problem. That day, we defined competencies needed for mid-career professionals who want to enhance their knowledge, skills and attitude to be able to facilitate the integration and collaboration required to implement landscape approaches. Because if people have a lack of landscape competencies, there is a lack of implementation of proven landscape approaches and the benefits they provide. We proposed several competencies which will be required for young professionals/ mid-career professionals to become a landscape professional.
The final day of workshop focused on Choosing Top Solution and Practice of Pitching. We followed Klaff’s “STRONG” Method for Pitching to address education as a landscape challenge; that how can we create an education platform that will equip specialist of different land use sectors with the right knowledge, skills and mindset to become landscapes professionals. Finally, we (Dinesh, Joseph and Rossana) did practicing of pitch and received comments and suggestions from panelists to improve our pitch for final presentation. We also got feedback and guidance from our mentors, whom we were excited to meet in person for the first time.
Dragons’ Den – Youth Pitched Ideas for Sustainable Landscapes
The most exciting part of Global Landscape Forum, 5th – 6th December 2015, Paris was obviously the youth session, Dragons’ Den where all five challenge teams pitched their ideas in front of a panel of scientists, policy makers and CEOs. Both days, before start of session, we practiced and practiced to give a good, clear, succinct and creative pitch with a convincing message. Diane, Jhannel and Joseph delivered a final pitch at the Dragons’ Den.
During the challenge, our mentors continually advised us, “use your own experiences, your group’s diversity is what made us want to give the challenge; we want to learn about what you know.” This was really a great motivation to us; also we received continuous support from the organizing team. After pitching at Dragons Den, we were applauded by the panelists (with encouraging comments) and the audience – perhaps a better one than the other competing teams. We were so proud; we are still proud with our team work, and we are going to make it real.
Blogpost written by Dinesh Panday, @dineshpanday
Dinesh Panday is one of the 10 young champions who worked on the “Education” Landscape challenge with Youth program’s partner: Landscapes for People, Food and Nature , Wageningen UR , EcoAgriculture Partners , World AgroForestry Center .
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.
