There is something quite inspiring about meeting someone who has at one point walked in your shoes. It is remarkable not for the fact that you have done the same thing but rather that you have faced the same challenges. So you can imagine how excited I was to connect with YPSA an organization whose mighty will and persistence brought them the respected status they hold now as a mid sized local NGO inBangladesh. Much like Recrear, they began as 14 students in theirChittagongarea who had an idea to mobilize youth for social community projects. Also much like us they had to balance the responsibilities of a full time student with the commitment to getting their organization on its feet. Some 26 years later they have developed progressive forward thinking projects through the collaboration with reputable national and international organizations and an honourable relationship with their beneficiaries. Their success is testament to the fact that young people are well able to take ownership of their own initiatives and really go beyond people’s expectations.
I hope my lovely Recrear colleagues and friends are reading this so that they too can believe that our story is not an oddity. What we are trying to do is challenging but so worth all the effort we put in. We have repeatedly made a point of telling the participants here that if they just commit to their idea they will be astounded with what they realize. This is just as much true for us – we are in the hardest part of organizational growth story and yet I have never felt a day of work that didn’t go a long way for this organization. Nor do I feel that this is work in the traditional sense of the word.
To YPSA thank you for your inspiring story of growth and for having stood by your open door policy to collaborating with organizations all these years. The open door you offered us is what made this workshop possible for these individuals and every other opportunity that I hope will follow.
– kirsten
