| Danial Norjidi |
A COMMUNITY called Global Shapers – Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) Hub has a vision of empowering youth employability in Brunei Darussalam through engaging, educating and inspiring youth to understand their true potential.
Global Shapers is an international community network of ‘hubs’ developed and led by young people who are deemed exceptional in terms of their potential, their achievements and their drive to make a contribution to their communities. Generally, ‘shapers’ are aged under 30 and the community is made up of individuals from diverse fields, and each hub is led by a curator – globally there are 419 Hubs and 5,340 Shapers.
Global Shapers is an initiative of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to empower young people in their cities to produce positive social impact to the community.
The Global Shapers community was initiated by the WEF in 2011 as the voice of youths became increasingly important to the forum’s commitment to improving the state of the world, particularly considering the fact that more than 50 per cent of the world’s population is under 27.
The Global Shapers – BSB Hub was founded in 2015 and made up of 15 passionate young people from various fields (ranging from banking, business and education to the creative industry, among others) who collectively commit to ‘Empowering Youth Employability’ through programmes that empower young people to realise their aspirations and potential.
The WEF views the Global Shapers as active members of the forum, with the Shapers given seats at the organisation’s annual forum and other forums it organises.
The Global Shapers are actively engaged with the WEF through surveys, online discussions and regular updates on forum agendas. Beyond this, the WEF also hosts the annual curators meeting at the WEF office in Geneva for curators leading their hubs across the world.
Speaking to the Bulletin in a recent interview, the Global Shapers – BSB Hub shared that its vision “is to empower youth employability in Brunei by engaging, educating and inspiring our young people to understand their true potential”.
“We choose to make a difference by contributing to the growth and development of young people at one of the most important points of their lives – the teenage years – by supporting them to realise the right career path through providing exposure to real-world working environments and exposing them to practical skills required to be successful,” said organisation representatives.
“Since our founding, we have been actively engaging with the youth through our flagship ‘Youth Right Career Path’ programme – a six-week-long programme which we have hosted at two high schools – Rimba II Secondary School and Katok Secondary School, and we are currently planning to run two Youth Right Career Path (YRCP) programmes this year at two other schools.”
“We have also conducted the YRCP Career Day programme with Sayyidina Hasan Secondary School and Katok Secondary School,” they added. “We also hosted an ‘Inspire. Connect. Empower.’ public forum in September 2017, attended by over 60 youths.”
On their plans going forward, the Global Shapers – BSB Hub shared, “We aim to continue seeking to understand how we as youths can contribute to mitigating unemployment issues and we aspire to play a proactive role in engaging our young people with skills necessary to be successful in the 21st Century, particularly as Brunei is in the midst of economic diversification.
“We are on the lookout to grow our community and welcome passionate and dedicated young people to join our team. Anyone interested can contact us at globalshapers.bsb@gmail.com.”
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