Life

There has been some time since I last wrote an update here. I have been working pretty hard and otherwise been busy on re-wiring my brain. This whole year has been rather challenging for me, first the months in Brussels, working as president of that european student association, and then preparing myself for moving to Hong Kong, then realising I just Could not do that at this moment, moving back to Norway, and now been working here since august. No, not interesting work for some international organisation dealing with WTO or development issues, but rather working as a clerk in a local 7-Eleven franchise shop. Pretty mundane work, but I guess that was and is what I needed for some time.

Besides work, tho, I have become active in other fields too. Whereas I earlier despised anything which had to do with youth party politics, I have now become board member of Bergen Liberal Youths, as well as a member of the International Committee of Norway's Liberal Youths.

In the latter position I am currently working on finding documentation on "who owes what" to Norway, in terms of developing countries owing us from loans delivered mostly in the 1970's and 80's.

In the international committee we will the coming year be focusing on three main issues: Development, Europe, and Human Rights. We are 7 young people in the committee, all of us coming from Bergen (due to lack of travelling funds for meetings), and we will all be dealing with international issues.

Refugee guide
Besides this, I have volunteered for the "Project Refugee Guide", which is being run by the local branch of the Red Cross. I am a refugee guide for a 23-year old Palestinian who just got the right of living and working in Norway. I just met him last week, but will be his guide for about 10 months, so I hope that we can do some real work in that period.

Sometimes I regret not being involved with massive projects which touches hundreds, if not thousand of people. To do a work which really Means something to my society. But I have come to realise that often it is through the small things, the small changes, that the world becomes to be a better place.

Think global - act local
I think that the best way to encourage Real Change in the world is to start by working locally. I have realised this after having tried for some years to work on things from a national or international perspective. Rather, I now think, it should be opposite. The basis of change comes from OUR own environment, this is where most of the focus is to be set, and then one should also focus on getting impulses from other places. Taking IT Global is a good networking place for meeting people from other countries who are, in different ways, involved in their local society. Of course, there are also a lot of people who mainly function within the international arena, and who, instead of focusing on their own neighbourhood, focus more on whatever is going on in the UN or other organs. Of course, everything has its place, but for myself I have realised my need to put things down on a very concrete, work-able level.

Global consciousness is very important, and what we need is the linking between the global and the local. In short, the networking aspect is crucial.

I will now go meet the Palestinian refugee, we will go to the library and look for some books on how to learn Norwegian ;) One of our primary goals is that he should be able to function well within the Norwegian society before our period is over. Integration, but not meaning that he will lose his identity. He will still be who he is, but he will be more able to function within the society which he now has moved to.



Some links:
Jubilee 2000

Bergen Liberal Youths

Norwegian Liberal Youths