My trip to AfroXLDS 2010 in Togo!!

AfroXLDS 2010 (Africa eXchange and Leadership Development Seminar) was a 6 day conference in Palime, the Facilitator team also had 3 days of premeeting and 2 days of postmeeting in Lome. We had around 100 delegates from countries like Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal. Then we had one lady from Kenya and some Brazil, Canadian, German and Japanese visitors.

We started off with a Community day in Lome were we learned from an NGO that deals with spreading the gospel of solar cookers in Togo. After an evening with lots of get-to-knows we had our final preparations for the conference. The Opening Ceremony was graced by a government official, after which we held a podium discussion regarding the Millenium Development Goals. In the afternoon we went to the University of Lome and held our colorful global village and impressed hundreds of university students with our diversity. The next 5 days were spent well in a nice hotel in Palime (yeeees, I am used to not having water and electricity by  now, but in over 30 degrees this reaches new dimensions of being annoyed). Part of the delegation discussed the strategic direction of our countries in Africa, the other half indulged in personal discovery, leadership discussions and practical experience of team work. Together we evaluated the Projects that are run and learned how to be as fast, savvy, smart, strong and sexy as possible in our work (see AIESEC Gen 2010). As always, fun and networking  are integral part of any AIESEC event!

I returned from my Togo trip with around 2,000 pictures and videos. This is just a small selection, but gives a good idea of what we did in the 10 days.

West Africa?? Hot, French vs. English, definitely worth another visit!

Thanks to everybody who contributed financially to making this trip happen!