Be the catalyst of change! | Veronica Colondam | TEDxYouth@SPH
business school without further Ado let's give a huge round of applause to miss [Applause] Veronica hello good afternoon everyone so many things in my hands okay so everybody happy everybody comfortable yeah okay so I I definitely cannot recite like that guy I think that guyy is a genius isn't it I don't know how he did it it's like he's really memorizing those or he's really you know reading it from a prompter or something I don't know but he's genius I'm not like that so you're going to bear with me so uh okay the topic of today is catalyst for change of change or for change I guess when you talk about change you need to first know uh what do you want to change right so who do you want to change and how it is to actually um where do I sorry I I don't know how to make it work somebody have to do it um yeah sorry for that I guess when when you want to create change you need to know who you want to change what to change right and how to break the status quo um yeah okay so um um there's a movement of people you know I got this link from a friend sitting over there uh drivers of change I think that's that's something amazing it's a movement created by this group of people they have drivers of change in Korea in Japan and everywhere in the world and what they did is actually they're thinking about the liever to create that change right if you want to create change you need to know what is to ask ask so asking the right question is the LI of change so just some samples of we want to create change in poverty for example they say the kind of questions you want to ask yourself uh to this community of people is like these people will be asking today to whom can I you know start borrowing money if that's the kind of community that you're dealing with then you know that they have problem with money and questions like what is it that I can sell today that make a difference that I can actually you know make things end or uh questions like how do I feed my family today do I have enough water or toilet you know to to at home now in Indonesia it's easy the idea of this talk is to give you an idea of what you can do right to create that change if you want to create change in Indonesia you talk about m nutrition there's a lot of subject extending from malnutrition to Poverty to education and all Global rate you can see one in 25 kids under five is having this problem Mal Nores but Indonesia is one in four which is what four times was when you talk about education the whole world UNESCO is 115 million dropouts per year in Indonesia for every four kids who Gra graduated from SD from primary school only one can actually go to college not even University sometimes it's not even ASAT not even undergrad it's just diploma or vocational so every four only one can go for every graduates of high school only half seats are actually available so the chance of going into higher education is almost really difficult so if you are here All My Children studied in espa to I've graduated and now in UC Berkeley that is a blessing that is something that you should be grateful about because a lot of kids I speak here 20 minutes there will be 80 kids drop out of school every minute four to five kids drop out of school so if you're still in school that's something to be grateful about and we're talking about access to water yeah only Health population can access water and I think this is my favorite part it's a terrible terrible problem but only 1% can you imagine that only 1% of all Indonesians have access to pipe switch Services isn't that staggering to see that only 1% of us could actually have if you have toilet with pipes then you are on the top of the pyramid you're under the 1% 99% do not have that and we talk about child bride uh half of registered marriages in Indonesia with Brides under 19 years old I already mentioned that every five minutes uh that's actually wrong every one minute five kids drop out somebody have to fix that slide and uh we're talking about what is environment 2 kilometers million kilometers of forest destroyed every day that is equals to 40 football fields now those who have calling in education do something in education right those who have calling in poverty help the poor you want to talk about environment save the forest let's do that it's not just desire to change but you got to think about asking the right question how to change it and who where do you want to work you know your change Yap was born in 1999 that was I don't know 17 years ago the uh premise of our organization is book it looks like some say like bird but it's not it's book so that's the foundation of what we do we believe in education and if you invest it wholeheartedly and it will change turn into a prosperous home which is I don't know the proper English for that is a better welfare households that's what we believe that's our premise and it's called now Yap as a brand name because we open Yap all over the you know few other countries outside of Indonesia so Yap become a brand but Yap is a yayasan yayasan is foundation Chinta is the word for love and because of love for me the thesis is very simple God love me I love the world and what is your thesis what is your mission in life that's a question that you have to answer so creating change is not just asking the right question to the community that you want to change but ask yourself the right question what is my mission of life so yap's mission is to love of course right you love someone you do your best you want to love and you want to enable underprivileged youth through hope and opportunity Mother Teresa says this he said there's no greater or the uh worse kind of poverty than those who who you know then those who do not have water or or sanitation or or money or shelter or or clothing then you know compared to those who do not have opportunity in life I've seen young people bright smart fighting Spirit but have no money to go to school you know they're not given the opportunity to go to school but when they actually did they rose up to the leadership they rose up as a star but because that little thing called opportunity is given to them so Yap when we began a Yap in 1999 the premise is clear is education we're in agreement with Nelson Mandela he said that education is the most powerful weapon in which you can use to change the world see there you have that word again to change the world because we don't believe in creating uh for example one of our our our program is economic empowerment okay number one we do is promoting healthy lifestyle that's very important you need to be healthy to be productive number two we're giving uh youth under privilege and dropouts opportunity to go to school that's through rum and then the last part because we are working with the people at the bottom of the pyramid then we're thinking it's slow retention where's my students you know this rum is like a dollar a month kind of education but why do people still come and go they're not committed what's the problem see that's another question so what's the problem why are they not coming to school we're giving this opportunity it's affordable but why I do not hear the problem is these folks these young people working in the streets or in the market to help their family income so what is the the the the the uh I don't have my my premise of change but that's what that's how we do it we started with the with the micro Finance you know to help the mothers to stable stabilize the income of the family so that they can support their kids to school so that's our thesis of change we're using the micro Finance the microloan or micro Capital so that they can enable their children to school again for us education is the Catalyst for change it's it's not the micr finance per se it's never is the business but it's using micr Finance as the means to an end the end is education for all because education is the only thing that we believe to break that poverty cycle so Mara again quoted the second time said that no one can do great things but all of us can do small things with great love so hence Yap is appropriate our names comes together with love and intention to create a certain change and do it well and it will create a great love so I want to leave you behind with a few thinking with the story of this guy called monaka at the end of the day when you want to create a change you don't just do an activity it is not activity you are investing in the life of one person monaka was a a scavenger what he does he collects trash and then he found our Ruma which is a Ruma mechanic for uh mechanical uh motorcycle which is monteer uh in one of uh between his where he lives and where he works so he found aruma Blazer and he decided to join I remember he came the first class the first day I was there because that was the also the the the the what's that the the press conference I guess with the sponsor HSBC sponsor that that that and monaka came with his uh with his back on his shoulder like Santa Claus you know but that that's a trash and then he put his stress on the on outside of the classroom and he did that class and I tried to make a conversation with him I tried to ask him you know when you drop out of school what do you do now obviously what he did but then uh I was just making small talks but then he was not not looking at me back you know there are people when you talk to them they're like not not not that they have a mental abil uh disability but this is something that you feel so damaged and broken and you don't feel that you're equal now that's the biggest problem the biggest challenge in education is to change that mindset to change that self-confidence in him and I thought gosh my heart crashed like this boy I tried to talk to you but you're not talking back like a normal human being okay so fast forward three months down the road um I was talking to a group of 2,000 young people in the entrepreneurship training class so this class was sponsored by Microsoft and uh we're training young people as M like a vocational school um entrepreneurship and then at the end of the day to give them seat Capital to start business if you don't okay education is great right but then education is not everything after you be educated what are you going to do at least if you want to work you work with someone become an employee or if you don't want to work or you can't find jobs then you do something you sell something this is entrepreneurship so it's important entrepreneurship is as as important as employment so we give them uh this kind of training and then I found monaka was one of the uh participant and uh I was telling the audience about his story and he was like waving his hand and I thought you know 2,000 people you know the crowd 2,000 people you don't actually see who that is but then he was there and he was waving and I said like my oh gosh you're Maka so I was like hey uh and then he was I I I I had a like a Q&A like a few seconds of Q&A and I could see change in his attitude in his behavior he was responding like a human he looked me in the eye he spoke in front of 20 people can you imagine that that was just three four months down the road and that is kind of change that makes me still you know goosebumps every time I see that but that's addicting when you see change you see transformation you see hope and that's what is important so that's mtaka so he graduated as the as the best student of our R but then at that point of time uh we were approached by asra Honda and then they said like you know what we're going to give you five free spots and you can send top of your top classes uh top students in the classes to go to study further with Astra so he did and then in Astra he also graduated top of his class can you imagine that did you actually ever imagine that the pong can actually bit 200 other people who pay Astra like I think I don't know 10 million 15 million to get in because this is highly competitive Honda if anybody knows this Honda training it's very competitive they only open two classes a year 50 Max per per class 100 a year and they pay for this and we get five uh free spots so mutaka was one of the students and then he graduated top of his class and then to his surprise to our surprise too asra gave him a price money 5 million he never saw 5 million in his life you know and he said like oh wow I can do so much I'm rich you know uh and he's thinking okay what I going to do oh I want to go to school imagine that he's investing all his 5 million into his education it's just making me cry isn't it and he said like but I come short the tuition is 11 million so somebody have to top up six million by then he was already working graduating working in in one of the Honda uh store as a mechanic so I guess the boss and us we top it up and then he's now on the way in college and we asked him again what do you want to be I want to be the owner of Honda shop I want to be an entrepreneur and that is something that I want to say all the time from someone that you think it's nothing you don't even think that they have future but they given the opportunity now they have hope not only hope they become ambitious that I like ambitious is huge because that is the driving force that make them want want to change you are the facilitator of change you cannot make that change they have to make that change for themsel right we Tred 18 years in Yap we can only be facilitator of change we can never move people if they did they don't want to be moved we cannot make them change if they did not want to change so hope opportunity hope ambition that's the whole transformation of somebody like mtaka we have because this is a gender equality you know Society right so we have another story which is Christan Christan was a babysitter uh domestic helper she dropped out of school at SM SMP level middle class and Middle School sorry middle school and then he asked permission from her boss right to go to rumar which is just next door to where he she worked and then you know mothers here I you know if your pantu or babysitter drop out of school would you want to send them back to school at the risk of losing them that's a risk but then her boss let her go and then she continued to in P which is equivalent to high school then by the time she graduated we launched a program with Samsung on electronic um what is that um repair so she did she was the only girl can you imagine electronic repair who does that right so she's the only girl but she graduated top of her class top 20 who was actually recruited by Samsung now she works at Samsung it's amazing story pulong now mechanic and aspire to be uh an entrepreneur owning a Honda no association with asra not bad you know and christanti domestic helper Nanny slash now technician at Samsung so what is it those two story that I think I'm going to leave it with you and challenge yourself ask yourself you can Embrace difficulties in this world by creating change but ask the right questions as they scale as they grow ask the right question at every corner and this is what you are called to do for me the the most frequently Asked question is why do you do the things you do why did you want to do it for me I said it in a in a in a in in the beginning God Lov me I love the world yeah sounds great but but what is it that really tickles me for me at that point of time I was a young mother of two and four years old now they are in college um I was asking the very question of meaning and purpose of life all world view are faced with four big question number one where do I come from that's a question of origin question of exential number two by how you know my life operate that is a morality framework number three meaning and purpose number four Destiny where do I go every world view I'm not talking about Christianity I'm not talking about just Islam I'm not talking about particular worldview this is all worldview for or magic big questions so I was a bit struggled with the meaning and purpose so there Yap was born the question was how do you want to be remembered what is the kind of Legacy you want to leave behind if you see a problem you see that you have the ability to change you know do something about it infest your heart in it and you can create a meaningful change not only for that people not only for mtaka not only for christanti but for yourself as well as you will answer to God one day and God will welcome you home good and humble servant come and share my glory thank you [Applause]