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If you're not used to online discussions, it's easy to take something as a personal attack when it wasn't really meant to be. I also find that the older I get, the less defensive I am. I'm happy with where I'm at in life and don’t really feel like I need to prove much to anyone.
CG: So how did you come to join the Board of Directors?
TW: The Board err.... Jen asked me? Seriously though, I was very honoured when I was asked to join. I have a lot of respect for the TIG management team. The whole team in Toronto works so hard quietly behind the scenes to fundraise for and develop useful tools and content. Being on the Board gives me a chance to give back for everything I've gained from TIG. Ideas... contacts... reflections on how the community is evolving. It happens less now, but I always used to laugh when someone would start a TIG thread that dealt with the need to manage the community. The team in Toronto plays such a key role in guiding the community that many people don't know you're there.
CG: As the VP of the Board of Directors, what do you think are the biggest challenges for TIG in the future?
TW: I think the biggest challenge is staying relevant and vibrant to the community as a whole. Achieving this will require a combination of continuously staying on the cutting edge of accessible technology and finding ways to engage the community around specific topics. The bi-monthly themes have worked pretty well for the last year or so, but I think partnering on major campaigns for longer periods of time will achieve even more. TIG has come a long way in learning how to partner with other organizations/networks that bring subject expertise. It's not an easy process though.
TIG moves very fast, faster than many of its partners are able to. This can create conflicts if other partners feel like TIG is trying to take control. Not everyone is willing to work the 20 hour days that TIG staff seem to…
CG: Where do you want to see TIG in five years?
TW: It's a big challenge for TIG to manage its organizational culture in such a way that it is true to its enthusiastic youth roots, without burning people out. I'd like to see TIG involved with more long-term partnerships as the youth-platform provider with major development initiatives, whether run by youth, the UN, whoever.
This means it has to have a good general understanding of development and be constantly scanning the horizon for the next big topics and opportunities to emerge. Underlying all of this is my sense that the current generation of youth is being (and will continue to be) asked to assume leadership roles in their societies and to develop solutions to global problems.
This is particularly true in AIDS-devastated regions of the world where an entire older generation has been lost. One of the consequences is that there is simply no time for many young people to go through an extended period of education and low-level jobs. They are needed as leaders today, not leaders for tomorrow.
TIG can play an important role in backstopping these youth leaders - providing free information, community, and context for the issues they are struggling with locally, nationally and internationally. Also, there is an emerging generational divide between the North and the South. The North is getting older while the South is getting younger.
CG: Good point.
TW: TIG is an interesting neutral forum where young people from the North and South can meet up. The challenge is then one for Northern youth. How do they feed the innovations of their Southern counterparts up to the aging Northern leaders... and make sure that these leaders are listening to the young Southern leaders (and to pass information/resources from the North along to the South).
CG: Yeah, and what happens when the core membership grows up?
TW: Good question.
CG: What will they do with their activism - will they move on or relate it back?
TW: It's a hard challenge for all youth organizations. I guess there are two questions on the table. Will TIG survive beyond the current core membership or can it continue to attract the next generation of young people? Will the core current TIG members forget about all this "when they grow up"?
On the first question, I think TIG can continue to be relevant to new generations, but in the next five years it's going to need to make sure to avoid "founder's syndrome." Mike and Jen have been such forces in TIG, it will be hard for them to let go at some point, and even harder for others to feel comfortable taking over. You always need new leaders but making the transition is never easy. It's easier to start something new when you're 18 than it is to take over a complex organization with a long institutional history.
On the second question, I think that the lessons learned and friendships made through TIG are having a permanent impact on member's attitudes and goals in life. Once global issues have a human face, there's no turning back from caring. The form of activism may change, but the concern does not.
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Encouraging catherine Akubueze | Sep 20th, 2005
You got the right words!
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