Michelle Obama's Southern Africa Trip to Focus on Youth Leadership

According to the White House, Michelle Obama will set off on a week long trip to South Africa and Botswana tomorrow. Amongst other things, she will be focusing on youth leadership. If you're on Twitter, I encourage you to use the hashtag #YoungAfrica to join the conversation, get the latest updates of her trip and more. You can also get more information via Facebook on the US Bureau of African Affairs page.

Here's what Michelle had to say about the trip:

You can read more from James Butty of Voice of America after the jump (click here to read original article).

6 Tips to set effective goals

In the video below, Jesse Stoner gives six steps to set effective goals that will get you where you want to go. She is a business consultant who runs a blog particularly for those who want to make a contribution as a leader.

You can find a text version of this presentation on her blog.

You are what you think

Brian Tracy is, among other things, a motivational speaker and self-help author. After travelling around the world as a young man, Tracy was only able to get a job in sales. He struggled, and so took it upon himself to ask successful sales men for advice. Two years later, he was made Vice President of the company he worked for. He was 25 years old. Today he chairs his own world renowned human resources company, Brian Tracy International. Here's a short video on how your thoughts can make you successful:

Video: Patrick Awuah's TEDTalk

This is an old video (from back in 2007) but as they say, like all good ideas it's still largely relevant today. Here's a little about TED from their webiste:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 700 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress, and you're an important part of it.

Click here to go to the TED page for this video.

Video: Fighting illiteracy with innovation*

An innovative $25 projector by Design the Matters in collaboration with three universities makes it easier for several adults and children to learn to read, especially those limited to learning by night. To date, the Kinkajou^® Microfilm Projector has supported the learning of over 3000 adults. More details in the video:

Literacy can be the difference between life and death. Using an example from the video, being able to read means mothers are able to read prescriptions and administer medicine correctly to their children. It's that simple and that profound. In the fight against poverty, it is essential that we are able to combat illiteracy. It was recently announced that the Ghanaian government is planning on spending about a third of its budget on education. This is a huge step (provided it's managed properly), and hopefully we'll soon be able to stamp out illiteracy completely.

*Flash player required.

Mini Seminar: Discovering and fulfilling your life mission

Last Friday (the 12^th of November), we had our first Mini Seminar of the year. It was, as you know, hosted by Harry McNinson who spoke on 'Discovering and Fulfilling your Life Mission'. Here's a sort clip (Note - the video will not show unless you have the latest version of Flash installed. Download it here):

Harry emphasised that although there are books that aim to help you discover your role/purpose/mission in life, these serve as only pointers. The only one who can really give you an insight as to why you are here on earth is the One who crated you. There is no real way around it. Like Harry said; the only way you'll know what a new invention is supposed to be used for is to hear from its inventor.

As he rightly pointed out, there are things you can do that will help you identify your life mission. Most important (after seeking spiritual answers) is to be open to opportunities. Never pass us the opportunity to try or learn something new because you never know where it will take you.

Finally, after having discovered your life mission, the next step is to fulfill it. Live it out. This, Harry explained, should not be difficult. Of course in life there are challenges and nothing is ever going to be simple from start to finish. But in fulfilling your life mission, you should find that things generally come easy. You are able to overcome challenges and you are filled with joy. If this is not the case, you might want to go back and ensure you're still on the right path. For more information, see the Discovering and Fulfilling Your Life Mission Cheat Sheet (your mentors should have a copy). Hit continue to see pictures. And don't forget to check out our Twitter page!

Leadership & Communication Pt. 3

Some time back in August, I shared a couple of eBooks by Aled Davies; one on working your way around difficult conversations and the other on making a good first impression. Both these books have been getting positive feedback from people all over the world attesting to how simple tips yield powerful results.

Davies has recently completed a video series to go with his Difficult Conversation eBook (you can view/download it here if you haven't already seen it). Regardless of whether you've read the book or not, these videos will almost certainly be helpful in some way.

Video 1 - Introduction (What is a difficult conversation? What problems can avoiding a difficult conversation cause?)
Video 2 - Preparation (How to prepare yourself to have a difficult conversation)
Video 3 - Emotions (how to use emotions as a tool rather than a drawback while having a difficult conversation)
Video 4 - The conversation (How to structure your difficult conversation)

Hope you find them useful!

A closer look at the 8 P's of mentoring

As many of you will already know, the main speaker at out our mentor training session was Dr Adadevoh (founder and president of the International Leadership Foundation - ILF). Dr Adadevoh has extensive knowledge on the subject of leadership, mentoring and development (as development spins off good leadership). You can find a short clip of a speech he gave at a UN Breakfast Summit after the cut (from the ILF website). He kindly agreed to host this session for the second year running. Both times, he spoke extensively on the 8 P's of mentoring, and I want to draw a little attention to them. First of all, I will give you a brief recap on what the 8 P's are:

• Purpose
• Personal assessment
• Potential
• Problem formulation
  
• Principles for change
• Plan of action
  
• Partnerships
  
• Progress tracking

All these things are central to the YLMP mentoring process, and indeed to any mentor-mentee relationship. At Databank Foundation, we believe in giving our mentors the freedom to decide how their mentoring is going to run. There are, however, a few things that we ask that you all do. I will take each in turn to illustrate this.

Purpose can refer to two things - the purpose (or destiny) of your mentee or the purpose of your mentoring relationship. We believe that every individual is made with a God-given purpose, and truly successful mentoring will help mentees uncover this purpose. The purpose of the mentoring relationship is broadly to develop leadership qualities, but of course you are free to engage in other objectives as well. These can be documented in the YLMP Progress Appraisal Form.

Personal assessment is an ongoing process that focuses on discovering gifts, talents, strengths and weaknesses. These are bound to come up in many discussions you have, so I will not go into them now.

Potential is based on purpose and personal assessment. A life mission can be formulated from these two things. All mentors are required to have some sort of discussion about this with their mentees - a cheat sheet will be provided for this.

Problem formulation and Principles for change deal with identifying the things that prevent mentees from achieving their potential, and working out what needs to change in order to overcome these barriers. Both are central to the Appraisal Form.

A Plan of action will also be formulated in the Appraisal Form in the form of specific, time based deliverables.

Partnerships are formed as soon as you enter the mentoring relationship (senior mentor, Junior mentors, mentees, Databank Foundation), and Progress tracking is engaged in throughout the year.

Mini Seminar: The Power of Positive Thinking

As you might know, we had a mini seminar for mentees today (Friday 7th May) on the Power of Positive Thinking. The seminar was led by Mr K. B. Nyantekyi Owusu, a business consultant with a passion for the youth and youth development.

Unfortunately, we were unable to start at the allocated time, and many mentees left before we had a chance to speak with them. It was nonetheless a great seminar. Mr Owusu spoke with enthusiasm and purpose, first engaging the mentees by asking for their take on the words 'power', 'positive', and 'thinking'. From the answers he was given, you could tell Mr Owusu had already set his audience thinking. He went on to give an enlightening overview of how the power of thought affects our lives. The heart of the message was based around the idea "as a man thinketh, so is he".

After the seminar was over, we had a brief session for mentors to have a chat with their mentees.

As promised, you can find a short clip from the seminar below. For photos, see the previous post (or click here).