Soweto!

On Sunday there were tours provided for us from the city of Johannesburg that went to different places around the city. I went on the tour of Soweto, which visited Nelson Mandela's house, and showed us various parts of Soweto. We had an excellent tour guide who told us that the name Soweto comes from the abbreviation of South Western Townships.

We visited Vilakazi Street, one of only a few streets in the world where two Nobel prize winners have lived; Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. We were able to see Nelson Mandela's house, which has been turned into a museum, and look inside, where there are photographs, letters written by Mandela, and a few pieces of the original furniture. We also saw the Hector Pieterson memorial, which honours Hector and the people that died during the 1976 Soweto uprising. Hector was one of many school children who were protesting peacefully when the police shot and killed them.

We also visited a place in Orlando, Soweto, where there are old cooling towers which you can take a lift to the top of. They offer various activities, such as free fall, bungee jumping and abseiling, however we just took the lift to the top and look out over Soweto.

After the tour was over, we had to get to the airport, to fly home. The flight was slightly shorter on the way back, and when we landed at Heathrow the pilot announced that we had arrived in Hong Kong!

During my week in South Africa, I met many amazing people who have done incredible things both in their own countries and around world, changing many lives for the better, seen great things, and listened to plenty of inspiring speakers. I had a fantastic time and I am very thankful and grateful that the University of Exeter provided me with this wonderful opportunity.

Closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony was held on Saturday evening at the Santon Convention Centre, and was full of energy and enthusiasm. There were performances from Emmanuel Jal, and an Irish dance group from Dubin, because the 2014 summit will be hosted by Dublin. There were speeches from the Mayor of Johannesburg, Parks Tau, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Oisín Quinn, and from Nelson Manela's second wife Winnie Madikizela. The summit baton was then officially passed from Johannesburg to Dublin.

We were given a piece of One Young World ribbon and a pen and we had to write down our commitment for the next year. Everyone had the then tie their ribbons together so we had a (very!) long line of ribbons which were then added to a ball of ribbons from the past years' summits. There was also a video shown which contained photos taken during all the sessions during the summit.

Videos from the plenary and special sessions and other information about the One Young World summits can be found at www.oneyoungworld.com.

Last Day of the Summit!

Today, was the final day of the summit, with a very early start of 8am! The topics covered today included Global Business, Richard Branson Q&A, Internal Breakouts, The Power of Protest, and Leadership & Government.

Before lunch we had a plenary session on Global Business and a special sessions on Your Role in Delivering Sustainable Development, Introducing the B Team, Social Business with Muhammad Yunus, and a Q&A with Richard Branson.

The Global Business session started with a talk from Blake Mycoskie (founder of Toms Shoes) who shared his story of how he came up with the idea of the one for one concept, where a pair of shoes is delivered to a child in need for every pair of shoes purchased, and how they expanded the company with the same one to one idea for Toms eyewear. The delegate speakers for this session covered how businesses need flexibility, especially between different cultures, and projects such as helping teach more nurses in Mexico; free fishing trips to teach children about marine science in India, and engineers without borders building a clinic in the Amazon with the help of Siemens.

Next, Paul Polman (CEO of Unilever) discussed sustainable business growth and said that 30% of food produced is wasted and that 12 billion people use 75% if the resources. He also told us the quote, "if you want to go fast go alone, if you you want to go far go together".

Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Group) answered lots of questions from delegates in the Q&A session including how to overcome learning and physical disabilities in business, and also how to compete with big brands. One thing he said was "screw it, just do it"! He was also asked about Virgin Galactic and one delegate challenged him that once there was a green way to go to space, to invite her on a trip!

Introducing the B Team was about delegates who had written a charter for the members of the B Team to agree to. Some of the B Team members are Richard Branson, Kathy Calvin, Jochen Zeitz, Arianna Huffington, Guilherme Leal, and Shari Arison.

After lunch was the internal breakout sessions, Malaria No More, The Power of Protest, Leadership & Government, and The Orbital Perspective. The interal breakout session I chose was Digital Economy: Friend or Foe? Within this we were split into smaller groups and discussed different things about the digital economy. My group talked about trust, what it means within the digital economy, why we don't trust, and solutions to increase our trust, mainly focusing on data and content of the internet.

Malaria No More was a talk from Martin Edlund about the organisation Malaria No more which he founded. He said that there has been a 33% decline in cases of malaria in Africa in the last 6 years, and claimed that malaria will be the first disease to be beaten by mobile, since the organisation uses a text system to remind people to use mosquito nets and to authenticate their malaria treatment drugs. If you visit act.po1.org and use the code OYW they will send 1 test and 1 course of treatment to save 1 person's life in Africa.

The Power of Protest involved Christine Ockrent and delegate from Brazil, Turkey, Bulgaria and Egypt. They discussed protests that have happened recently in their countries, what the causes were, what was done as a results, and what needs to be done next.

Leadership & Government plenary session was the last before the break. The delegate from Pakistan spoke about a project where professors from the UK teach workshops to young people in Pakistan. There were also speeches from delegates from the USA, Venezuela, Israel, Jordan, and Greece who spoke about the different projects they are part of in their countries.

After the break, Ron Garan (NASA astronaut) spoke about the orbital perspective, innovation through collaboration and said that "the key is we". He also showed some amazing pictures and a time lapse video of the earth from the International Space Station. 

The Middle Day

Today was a less intense day, but equally interesting with some brilliant speeches.

This morning was Women Up, Defining Purpose with Barclays, Youth Unemployment, HIV and AIDs - The New Challenge, How to be an Entrepreneur, and The Third Metric.

The Women Up session included a video from Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), from Lean In and a talk from Emmanuelle Duez who started Women Up to try and encourage gender diversity in the workplace. One of the interesting things she said was that this is the first generation where both boys and girls have the same aspirations regarding work and careers. Next was the panel including Maria Ramos, Fatima Bhutto, Lauren Bush, Lily Cole, and Dr Mamphela Ramphele. One of the facts from this panel was that women make up 40% of the labour force, but only 1% of world leaders. 

Next was Anthony Jenkins, CEO of Barclays, who spoke about the values of Barclays and how they are helping to combat youth unemployment. 

The Plenary on Youth Unemployment involved councillors Arianna Huffington, Kathy Calvin, James Chau, Zafar Siddiqi, Anthony Jenkins and many delegates including James Eden, the founder of studentbeans.com. One quote from Anthony Jenkins is that "when you're scared you have to be brave, when you can't be brave you have to be braver". 

The HIV and AIDs session covered what stigma actually means and how people's HIV status shouldn't affect how they are viewed or treated, which involved panelists such as Justice Edwin Cameron, James Chau and Ashwin Willemse. 

The Third Metric talk was my favourite of the morning where Arianna Huffington (founder of The Huffington Post) discussed how crucial it is to balance work and rest, talking about ways to remain stress free, such as meditation, and the importance of sleep, saying you should "sleep your way to the top"!

In the afternoon we attended external breakout sessions in smaller groups around Johannesburg. I attended the Banking for Change sessions which showed how Barclays, Care and Plan UK are working together in rural Africa to encourage and teach communities saving, earning interest from their savings, and, in the future, offer the communities loans. 

After this we went to the Lion Park for dinner, which was a great experience. We were able to go into the cage with lion cubs and pet them, see animals such as hyenas, leopards, wildebeast, gazelle, antelope, ostrich chicks, and giraffe. After dinner a cheetah was lead through were we were sat and we got the opportunity to take a bus through the lion area to see them being fed. 

First Full Day

Today was a long day, though also interesting and thought-provoking. With many plenary and special sessions including Education, Food, Human Rights, Sports and Sustainable Development, with talks from lots of well known and knowledgable people such as Kofi Annan, Jamie Oliver, Boris Becker and Ahmed Kathrada (to name just a few!). 

The first sessions were on Education, The Food Revolution and Knowing Nelson Mandela. The Food Revolution talk was with Jamie Oliver via a live satellite link with London. Some of the interesting ( and a little shocking!) facts during his talk were that more people die from obesity related problems, than from malnutrition and malnourishment, and that this is the first generation with a shorter life expectancy than that of their parents because of obesity. During the Knowing Nelson Mandela session Ahmed Kathrada talked about when he first met Mandela and his experiences of being imprisoned at Robben Island with Mandela. 

After lunch were sessions on Human Rights, Ambassadors in Action, Sport and Society, Sustainable Development, Kofi Annan Dialogues: Live and Decoded. The panel that spoke during the Sport and Society session included Boris Becker, Francois Pienaar, John Barnes, Ashwin Willemse, Ryk Neethling, and Lucas Radebe. They talked about how sport can influence people on many topics due to its media coverage, and how the youth of today has forgotten the real reason behind sports and thinks more about the fame and money involved. They also discussed how sport can reach even the poorest of places and help teach values and life lessons to children. The decoded session at the end of the day was done by two members of the company Decoded and they mentioned how anyone can learn coding, and that it needs to be taught in more schools. They showed a map of the world with all the flight paths to Johannesburg appearing during the days leading up to the summit with a clock showing the time, that the delegates were on.

Overall today was an inspiring day, and I'm in awe of the number of young people that have done, and are continuing to do, great things all over the world. 

Opening Ceremony

We arrived by coach to Soccer City (FNB Stadium, location of the 2010 FIFA World Cup) and waited outside for the other coaches to arrive. 

Once the flag bearers had arrived, and photos had been taken, they led everyone into the stadium ready for the opening ceremony. 

The opening ceremony was full of enthusiasm, with some local school children attending, and South African music playing. The commitee and councillors were announced and the flags were all brought onstage.

We listened to talks from Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, and Bob Geldof (when we could hear them over the noise of the vuvuzelas!) There was food and an after party once the ceremony had finished, and then the coaches started to arrive to take people back to their hotels. 

Johannesburg!

After a long and uncomfortable flight I arrived in Johannesburg. At passport control there was a separate queue for people attending the One Young World (OYW) summit, although I'm convinced it would have been quicker to queue with the other passengers!

We got the bus to our hotel (after some confusion about which hotels people were staying in from the bus driver!) and then had about an hour to get ready to leave again, for the Sandtown Convention Centre (SCC). 

Once we arrive at the SCC we collected our badges and then headed to the Nelson Mandela Square to find something for lunch.