youth

Unfortunately, the media missed an important and impressive story about leadership in Oakland. Last week a jury in Los Angeles delivered an involuntary manslaughter verdict in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, a BART police officer on trial for shooting Oscar Grant, a young, African American, unarmed passenger who died on New Year’s Day. Many media outlets reported rioting in Oakland in response to the verdict. First, let’s set the record straight. Between 5PM and 9PM over 1000 people gathered peacefully in different locations around the city. After dark, 5 storefront windows were broken and Footlocker was looted. (An unreported aside, community members placed themselves in front of the store to stop the looting.) No one was hurt, 83 people were arrested, and most were young, white anarchists who did not live in Oakland. Hardly a riot, thanks to the preparation and leadership of youth organizations.
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I recently had the opportunity to attend a Global Youth Leadership Summit in Salzburg, Austria. The customs agent laughed when I said I was going to a “youth” summit so I had to explain that I was invited to attend as faculty. I was asked to bring a leadership lens to support 42 young people from all over the world who were coming together to engage in scenario planning for the year 2030. (The Salzburg Seminars are an amazing opportunity if you are not familiar with them, www.salzburgseminar.org). The scenario model process facilitated by Lawrence Wilkenson, Global Business Networks, looked at four quadrants of potential scenarios along 2 dimensions, the human divide and the future of the planet. I was humbled by the sense of urgency with which the group of 20- to 30-year-old leaders tackled the global issues of human divide and the environment, developing action plans that connected their own work in ministries, as journalists, as community organizers, and as academics to these issues. read more »