Hello. My name is Felicia Sobhani.
I'm 15, and where am I from?
Good question.
I'm German, American, Persian
but I was born in Switzerland, moved to Slovakia
and now I'm currently living in Italy.
So, to answer the question
I simply consider myself a world citizen.
Today I would like to share with you
a question that has been on my mind for a long time.
Who is writing the future?
This past summer I attended
a youth conference in Washington DC.
The subject of the conference was
the role of youth in today's society.
I really didn't know what to expect from this conference
I did have my own opinions of what youth can achieve.
But what I experienced at this conference
just totally changed my mindset and views
on what youth can actually do and have the power to do.
This wasn't a conference of lectures talk talk talk listen listen.
It was more of an opportunity for youth to come together
to discuss and to create plans of social actions
and immediately implementing them.
And what I found amazing was
how the arts were really stressed
and how they were integrated
in practically every activity we did.
I vividly remember
I was walking down the hallway
and I saw a bunch of youth starting to jam out
and they started to drum spontaneously
and then a bunch of other youth started to improvise
and sang along to their rhythm while others started to dance
and in no time we were all involved in one way or another.
It was just amazing seeing the different creative expressions
and diverse ways that we had.
But above all if I had to choose one thing
that I loved most about the conference
were the people.
It was from them that
I just gained so much knowledge, inspiration, and skills.
And what I really loved about the conference
was how my friends and I, we had a common vision
a unified vision
to effect positive and lasting change
the kind of change that starts with the self
spreads to the family and community
and finally engulfs the entire globe.
By the end of the conference I could visualize
the potential of the world that we live in
a world characterized by collaboration, not competition
by justice, not corruption and by love, not hatred.
So why were all these conferences held for youth?
What makes youth so special?
The world that we live in today obviously has many problems.
I think we can all agree on that.
and we need to remember that these problems
were not caused by youth.
They were rather caused by the action
or should I say inaction of the older generations.
And yet ironically it is us youth that have to take the responsibility
to first stop these problems from growing further
and second to find solutions
to remedy the damages that they have a ready done.
So what I also would like to stress is
what really blows my mind, is that I was only one
out of the seven hundred youth at that event
and that I only attended one conference
out of the 114 youth conferences.
Some of these conferences were held in places I've never heard of
such as Antananarivo
or Kadugannawa. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right.
So back to what I was saying...
How are we going to get to these solutions?
Us youth have to solve these problems that were caused by the older generations.
Well, global issues require global solutions
and global solutions require global thinking and guess what?
The past generations have been shaped by local, national
or at best regional level thinking.
They considered something solved
as long as it was in someone else's backyard.
Let's shift the nuclear waste to another country.
Problem solved. But this was the thinking of the past.
Today we live in a generation where we have our cell phones,
laptops, technology just surrounding us.
I'm sure some of you in the audience
have checked your phone at least once while I was talking.
And that's because we are globally connected.
Who understands this global connectivity the best? It is youth.
We youth are globally connected all the time
and we are the global thinkers of the future.
We can solve these problems that weren't caused by us
and the world challenges.
Now having said all this I would like to tell you a story.
This past summer I went to Baltimore where I go often
and a bunch of us youth
we decided to do a service project for our community.
What we really wanted to do, we decided to choose,
we chose this run-down neighborhood of Baltimore
which has a high rate of drug abuse and what we wanted to do is
we wanted to take the piece of land in their community
and change it into a community garden.
And our main focus was to involve the children of that time.
And that's exactly what we did.
We started this project and these kids would come every Saturday and Sunday
and they were just so excited with big smiles on their faces.
They were ready to get their hands dirty and plant seeds.
They were super excited for this, because it wasn't just a garden for anyone.
It was their garden. It was their community garden.
And it was amazing.
So what was great, it was a great success
because not only did they learn the importance of gardening
they also learned the importance of working together as a community.
The harvest time was coming closer and closer
and the excitement of these kids was just rising and increasing
and it was just uncontrollable. It was amazing.
But a week before the harvest day something unexpected happened.
The city workers had mowed down our entire community garden by accident
along with like the rest of the land.
I really didn't know how they could do that
because we had watermelons and sunflowers growing
but somehow they did manage to mow down the entire thing.
Us and the kids, we were just so devastated.
What were we going to do? All our work was just basically wasted.
What were we supposed to do?
Well, I'll tell you what we did.
We put down our shovels and hoses
and we reached for our cell phones instead and we started calling everyone we knew.
We started emailing our friends. We started calling our colleagues
and we started texting our family members and told them about this garden
and told them what had happened.
And the news was just spreading everywhere
that even the local TV station of Baltimore decided to air a segment on it.
They came to the demolished guarden. They interviewed the kids
and it was an amazing experience.
So what had happened, so many people heard about it that one day they all came
this large group came and gathered on the garden grounds
and we all together ensured the continuation of this project
and we started replanting the garden.
One of the people that came to this event
was the deputy mayor, which I found amazing
because not only did he apologize for the mistake, he himself
rolled up his sleeves and started replanting the garden.
He's a better gardener than myself.
So what had started as a small initiative by a small group of youth
had scaled up into a large community project.
It was a great experience, an example of showing you
how much youth and we can achieve as long as we keep believing
and as long as our power and energy is put into good use.
So at the same time I would like to stress
that society needs to reevaluate its perception of youth.
Society considers the youth as materialistic,
lazy, solely fun-seeking and irresponsible.
And yes, we can be that sometimes,
but that's because society stresses and encourages this.
Through the film industry, music industry and the media at large
we see the stereotypical image of the youth.
We need to fundamentally change that image.
We need to fundamentally change our estimation of youth,
because the youth are the global thinkers of our future
and they can solve the world's challenges.
So to conclude I would like to revisit the question in the title:
Who's writing our future?
I think by now we can all agree and confidently answer
that the future, its shape, its quality,
its potentials and promises
lie in the power of youth.
And today's youth --
I would like to send you a message.
Please, youth of today, and future youth,
like children that are going to become youth, please remember,
value the energy that rests inside of you,
because its amazing and it can be used for such good things.
But you have to be aware, because it can also cause a lot of damages.
And to the adults, I would like to say,
the next time when you see a youth,
please look again, but with different eyes,
because that youth standing in front of you
is potentially the light of the world.
Thank you