Innovative Approaches to Leadership Development in Nepal through AIESEC
Nepal as a country has its own unique challenges such as economic development, social cohesion and political stability. Such issues could potentially arise from a traditional approach towards leadership in our country. Innovating leadership is key to harnessing the potential of the country and its youthful demographic.
Leadership at its core, is the ability to guide, influence, and inspire others toward achieving common goals. Leadership is the fundamental solution is what AIESEC believes in. We enable young people to develop their leadership through learning from practical experiences in challenging environments. But how is it developed inside AIESEC?
Every youth organisation has their own value proposition on how they develop leadership be it through service, networking or events. Our unique value proposition to the world is cross-cultural exchange. After the Second World War, in 1948 AIESEC was established when students from 7 countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden determined that cross-cultural understanding was essential to avoid war conflicts and contribute to tolerance between people. Now it has expanded to 106 countries. In 76 years of history, a lot has changed within the organisation but cross-cultural understanding is still intact.
We establish projects using indicators from sustainable development goals (SDGs) in schools and NGOs so that youth from other nations could come here and volunteer. We send young people to another country to volunteer and come back with cross-cultural experiences and leadership development. This is called an Experiential Leadership Development (ELD) programme. Another such ELD programme in AIESEC is called Membership Experience where you get to be a member of our organisation which facilitates and promotes cross-cultural exchanges through events which incorporate SDGs and international relationship building with youth from different countries. These ELD experiences are exclusive to people between the ages of 18 and 30 years.
How does AIESEC measure its impact? We have evaluation metrics to measure the effectiveness of our programmes through pre and post-experience surveys, participant/member feedback and impact assessment. AIESEC is truly for the youth, by the youth and of the youth.
Being a 23-year-old who got an opportunity to lead an organisation would not be possible without AIESEC. The unique leadership development model where we get practical experiences develops a variety of skills in young people like me. In this way, AIESEC creates a small but significant impact on people’s lives. Can you imagine what happens to the world when we engage and develop every young person?
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