United Youth Conference 2010 - A Review

The UYC ’10 Islamabad was a very wonderful experience for me, and I am sure for everybody else who attended it too. It comprised of 3 sessions, and by the end of the 3rd and the last day, the renewed motivation among the participants to bring a change in their lives as well as inspire others could clearly be seen.

The lectures by Nadeem Chauhan, -a renowned motivational speaker- were really thought provoking and informative. On the first day, he talked about the importance of split-second, long and short term decision making, and about how we can use our positive energies to have a positive impact on our lives. Also, we did a few exercises with him in the following sessions. Then, Waleed Anwer and Adeel were great too. Waleed [with his walking-back&forth-while-speaking style] told us about faith and how it can help us thinking about and achieving things beyond the norms and known standards of practicality. Moreover, he talked about the need of tolerance, acceptance of others as equals inspite of any apparent physical/mental disabilities, and better ways to interact with others.

Also, how can I ever forget to mention the most inspiring oration by Umer Saleem, who spoke about the obstacles he went through in the pursuit of his passion i.e. auto racing. He emphasized that everyone should follow their passions, learn from life and not just school. He has also organized some 4x4 rallies in Baluchistan and Sindh, and so is the pioneer to ever organize any legal racing event in Pakistan.  Besides that, he talked about the universality of things, alluding to the point that everything in their entirety consists of atoms as the smallest denomination. 

The creativity session with Adeel Ahmad was one of the important parts of the event too.[shakka!] On the 3rd day, we were given some lemons and  were asked to come up with an idea of a product, containing those lemons and then market it, like an entrepreneur. For that we were divided into teams. The teams were judged on the basis of feasibility of the product and the presentation by the team. And then last but definitely not the least, the wooden slabs we had to break with our bare hands. It seems like a big deal but as it turned out it wasn’t that hard, almost everybody managed to break them. The wooden slabs were visualized as barriers/obstacles in life and then breaking the slabs symbolized that we can deal with such barriers or limiting factors in our life too.
Thereby, we vowed to work as a unit towards a prosperous nation where we could all live together as one regardless of ethnic or social structures of society and help eradicate all problems like poverty, terrorism and corruption, out of our beloved country! Pakistan Zindabad!