Please Describe Your Social Contribution Activity in One Page (Or Maximum 2 Pages)

The 21st Century Renaissance Youth Leaders Invitation Program 2005

Social Contribution Activities – How we can contribute to the community-based activities

Name:JOSE DE JESUS RUIZ FERNANDEZ

Country: MEXICO

Q1: What is the field of your social contribution activity?

Social Leadership Training for young graduates/undergraduates.

Q2: Who is the target beneficiary?

Society, considered in all its levels, but specially the one regarding the youth.

Q3: Please describe your activity in detail

The Effective Social Leadership Programis a new way to understand social leadership within the youth. One of the biggest problem with young people is apathy and lack of interest on social issues. Considering that, it isn’t surprising at all that when this young people get to a high position in government, in industry or any other stage of society, there’s no significant change towards social welfare, but a significant decrease in decorous living conditions for every social being. We have witnessed that with the people in charge of economy, politics, industry in our countries, just a very small group of them try to make a difference, but that’s not easy if the others have no social conscience. Therefor, the solution is easy as a spoken answer (though difficult in practice): Education. Not just instruction, that would only be filling people’s head with information that probably will become useless because there’s no conviction on what they learn. But if that amount of information comes with education in values, ethic, social conscience, then all that will make sense together and will be ready for action, understanding action as the use of that education in social impact projects, in other words, live an effective social leadership.

Through practical sessions, discussions and workshops, the participants will get the necessary tools to start developing a social impact project. They are not alone. Ex participants of the SWY assist them as mentors, sharing with some of what they lived during the Program, and inspiring them on the creation of a new social impact project, and encouraging them to live an effective social leadership. The contact with the ExPYs is an online contact, but in the local ambience, they also have contact with leaders, people that have done something for the local community because of effectively living a social leadership.

Currently we are working in Mexico, in the experimental stage of the program, with 8 young graduates/undergraduates and with the same number of ExPY advisors from different countries. Since the first Saturday of August, 2005, this great human beings have been developing their leadership skills and learning new methods and techniques to do something for their community; not just a onetime something, a long lasting action that really impact their community.

I think this program could be a solution to many social problems, in any country, as leadership is an universal concept, though it has to be suited to the particular cultural and social reality of each group.

Q4: What is your role in the activity?

I’m currently coordinating this effort, and recruiting ExPYs and new participants to make this a bigger and richer program.

Q5: Why did you get involved in that activity?

Because I am really sad about how our society is not improving... Young people is not interested in what happens to others, and we have to consider that in Mexico more that 50% of the population is between 5 and 35 years old... What would happen when if this people keeps that life attitude and get the most important positions in society? I don’t want to wait to see what happens, I want to do something now! And I strongly believe that the best forum to start something like this is the one that the Japanese Government is offering to all of us, I’m sure that we can make the difference!

Q6: What kind of the impact did that activity have on your society?

As the program has only two months of activity, there’s not much to evaluate, but the progress that the participants have shown with the essays they weekly submit to their ExPY mentors. I’ve also seen a different attitude and a new vision towards society. Precisely, that is the slogan of our program ‘A new vision of leadership towards Society’.

Q7: What was the biggest obstacle in carrying out this activity? What are the lessons you learned from this activity?

Bureaucracy. Most people in the government simply don’t care about this kind of efforts. There has been no much support from private and public institutions. Even though, we have been lucky to have the great participation of the University of Coahuila and the support of the Director of COPARMEX, a Mexican organization of businessman interested on the future of society.

Q8: What would you like to achieve during this program?

To share this program with all the other participants, to start building a global network of ESL Program Groups, that can make this something really big, something that brings a new vision of the youth towards society. Also, learn from all the participants new ways to contribute with society.

Q9: How would you like to contribute to the program?

Sharing all what we’ve done in Mexico. Generating new ideas and, together with the other participants, create, build, share and study ideas towards social contribution activities.