María Rodríguez's blog

Are you a big fan of any band? I love music and I like some bands a lot, but to actually be a “big fan” is a different thing. One of the bands I’m a huge fan of is U2, and the reason is that they actually use music as a means to achieve great impact in our world. 

I had listened to their music for many years before I became a fan. My sister used to play their famous songs all the time and of course I learned them by heart, but it wasn’t until 2004 that I really fell in love with their music and what they’re all about.

I don’t know if any of you heard about the public protests that took place on September 4th in diverse cities in Colombia, Venezuela and even in Spain, Belgium, Canada, Argentina and Honduras, among other countries. I personally didn’t participate in them but I had the opportunity to witness them and they revived memories of the manifestations that I’ve seen in the last years in Colombia and Venezuela. It also made me remember the “Peace without frontiers concert” that was organized by leading artists to bring consciousness to the political leaders of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador about the need to stop the attacks between our countries and focus on the fact the we are sibling-countries.

The other day I was studying with a couple of friends and, while we were on a break, one of them offered me a beer that had entered the Colombian market a couple of years ago. This beer’s marketing strategy is based on the idea of it being “the beer for women.” I said that I wasn’t going to try it, because I think that products that are promoted using ideas of a “macho” culture are not compatible with my way of thinking. And hence we started a very interesting debate that motivated me to write this post.

Aren’t you amazed at how many networking opportunities the Internet offers? Today I started to think about it when I received a Facebook invitation from a friend from Romania that I haven’t seen in over 6 years! How else would I have heard from him again if not through the Internet? This made me realize that nowadays people all around the world, and most of all young people, have very international networks of friends thanks to the Internet and to how easy it is now to communicate and travel. In my case, I know people in almost every continent! That’s crazy for an average youth… or at least it was crazy in the past, but now we’re just used to it.

Lately I have been regaining the pleasure to read. I don’t know about you, but I had to read so much in high school and college that it slowly became just a task, not something I enjoyed anymore. Thank God that’s changing! Now I am specially enjoying historic novels, chronicles and biographies of people who have achieved great impact on humankind, and personal growth books.

The last of my trips around Colombia (at least for now) took place in Santander, a department located in Central Colombia. This department is one of the most important regions of the country from an economic point of view (4th biggest) and its capital city, Bucaramanga--commonly known as the “city of parks”--is the urban area with the lowest unemployment rate in the country (and yes, the lowest unemployment rate in Colombia is actually high for international standards: 8.8%!).

I think this is one of the most common questions among the world’s youth. Graduation, from high school or university, is one of those moments when we are faced with making decisions about where our life should go or what we should do from that moment onward. In fact, those decisions are a fundamental part of how our societies and economies work, but in general we don’t pay much attention to their importance for development. I bet even you haven’t really thought about it!

In my last post I mentioned a consulting project, and the second trip I took for this project was to Pasto, Colombia. This city is located in Nariño, a region blessed by nature and its people’s vocation for the arts. On the other hand, it also faces a complex social situation that is deepened by its society’s cultural traits.
Pasto is a medium size city (close to 400,000 inhabitants) located at 2,527 meters above the sea level. Its cold weather contrasts with the warmth and kindness of its people. It is located at the foot of Galeras, the most active volcano in Colombia, which reigns in Pasto landscape. People say the city is going to disappear one day because it’s not a  matter of whether the volcano is going to have a big eruption or not, but when. In fact, the volcano has been erupting a lot lately. Nonetheless, the city has been there for over 470 years, and even though it has been affected by a lot of eruptions and earthquakes, they have never made the city disappear.

I spent the 8 first days of May traveling around Valle del Cauca, western Colombia, as part of the project I am coordinating right now at the consulting firm I work for. This project aims to support the Ministry of Education of Colombia to follow up on 45 projects that are being undertaken by universities around the country with two ultimate objectives: to strengthen Colombia’s higher education retention rates and to connect our higher education programs with the real and ongoing needs of the country.

One of the things I have been doing for the past year and a half is working on my business skills. The reason? Well, I feel that skills like leadership, team-work, orientation to goals, financial intelligence and time management, among others, are part of what we need if we want to achieve those great things we dream of, even if they’re not business related. If you’re an assiduous reader of Youthink! blog, chances are that you have great dreams about our world becoming a better place to live, so business skills may also be important for you.