I wrote most of the below in response to this post by Nisha, but I realized I wasn't quite done with the topic and wanted to expand on it some more. So, here goes:

Nisha points out that despite the fact that the experience AIESECers in the U.S. is different from that of people in the rest of the world, it is still a worthwhile experience that has affected hundreds of people. But to me, this only highlights the incredible power of the AIESEC Experience: even stepped on, oppressed, and downtrodden as it is in the U.S., there are thousands of members who have felt their lives impacted by the power of the organization.

But my experience has also shown me that there are hundreds of members who aren't getting that experience--ones who aren't benefiting from AIESEC in anything resembling the way you and I and most of the people who read this have.  It's apparent from conversations with newer members who told me the conference they paid over $400 for was worthless, from the feedback I've heard from AIESECers abroad who received interns from the U.S. with no preparation or understanding of the organisation (and summarily would hesitate to take another American trainee), and from the poor trainees coming to the U.S. without any sort of support network because the leadership of AIESEC U.S. chose to follow the course it has. These people are fed up, and they are leaving, and in many cases they are telling all their friends to not make the same mistake.

The fact of the matter is that yes, some people are still managing to fight their way to get an amazing AIESEC experience. But there is no question in my mind that throughout my involvement in AIESEC U.S. I've had to fight to stay motivated, to stay involved, to find new opportunities to apply my skills and talents. The most heart-breaking thing for me about my experience in the U.S. is the utter lack of meaningful involvement opportunities for members as more and more work gets centralized in the hands of fewer and fewer people. I've had conversations with many who, thanks to the lack of leadership development in the U.S., felt like they no longer had anywhere to go in AIESEC, and nothing to accomplish.

My experience with other AIESEC nations has made two things painfully apparent:

1. There is a better way to do AIESEC than what exists in the U.S. That revolves around following the AIESEC Way, and truly becoming the platform for young people to discover and develop their potential.

Saying that the market in the U.S. makes such a mission impractical is utter crap--the mission is powerful and impactful to the right target audience, and developing 10 future leaders is better than sending 100 people to have a summer vacation in Brazil or Egypt (like every other program). The countries that follow the international mission certainly have problems of their own, but most importantly they have engaged members who are actively benefiting from their involvement in AIESEC because their organizations are focused on serving members, not "customers" (students we send abroad; companies who take trainees).

2. The major positive impact on my life has been made at the local and international levels of the organization. When I think back to my most impactful experiences within AIESEC, these are the international conferences, my meetings with AIESECers from abroad that I wouldn't have been able to have otherwise, my traineeship, etc, etc, etc.

These are also the shared experiences I have had with my first team (the Fearsome Foursome + Friends), the members I've seen taking their first steps in AIESEC and going on to accomplish awesome things, the conversations I've had and the connections I've made.

Certainly, I value the network I've built on the national level as well, but that has largely been facilitated without the help of the national structure, and most of my interaction on the national level has been a history of negatives and demotivational events. Indeed, I would say that all of my (not insignificant) involvement on the national level has been a net negative for both my sanity and my AIESEC productivity.

So the point of the action that the LCPs have taken is not about power. The point is that we could be doing much more to provide AIESEC experiences if we weren't getting our hands chained together by either conscious decisions or incompetence at every step of the way. The point is that we haven't been able to do what we felt was necessary in order to participate in an AIESEC we could believe in. The point is fixing the problem of having an AIESEC U.S. that holds us back instead of encouraging us to do more, to get more involved, to continue to move forward. The point is to make sure that the AIESEC Experiences we have had, the ones that have been cut short, filled with frustration, and that we have had to fight tooth and nail to pull out of the entrails of a rotting organization, pale before what the members who follow us will have.

And that ability, to give people the AIESEC experiences they deserve, is one worth fighting for.

Labels: revolution

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