By: Ibrahim Nawaf

The London Study Tour from the 13th to 23rd March 2012 was led by Democracy House Maldives and funded by the British High Commission in Colombo. In the 10 days, we explored many different areas, from Politics to Technology to Graffiti. Unlike most other trainings, this was not only about identifying the problems but also about finding solutions for them. Everyone knows what is wrong, but only a handful knows what needs to be done and more importantly, what can be done.

James Edlston, Susanna Darch, Alex Farrow, Lisa Davis, Derek Oakley, Liam Barrington, from BYC were very helpful at every step of tour, they did not only chaperone us but also gave us every bit of knowledge that could be delivered in such a short period of time.

We reached London around 18 30 hours on the 13th of March, it was the first experience of real cold for almost all the participants (the average daily temperature is about 30 degree Celsius throughout the year!) so it was very new yet fun experience for us all.

On the 14th, we went to a Commonwealth Youth Exchange Event at Royal Commonwealth Society. The day included round table discussions of topics from Commonwealth Values, Human Rights, Youth Voice, Education, Sports and Environment amongst some. The speaker of the day was FCO Minister Lord Howell and the day came to an end with a Question panel.

James Edleston, Head of International, British Youth Council started the day on 15th with a introduction into BYC and some projects and campaigns BYC is involved with such as Vote at 16, Young Mayors and Youth Parliament amongst some. We had lunch at China Town and then went to Trafalgar Square where we questioned some members of the public on what they think Democracy is. After a beautiful walk through Hyde Park we stopped at the Speakers Corner before heading to meet one of the most vibrant and colorful group of people we met during the stay, Refugee Youth. We discussed on the different hurdles faced when starting an organization and how to avoid or get past them and on what makes a organization sustainable.

Day 3 started with meeting the Jean Lambert, London’s Green Party Member of the European Parliament. The session included very politically correct answers to many questions we had and Jean talked to us about what a MEP does and what democracy means to her and where the boundaries of Democracy lies in her view. After the session we met with Unlock Democracy, they are one of UKs leading campaigns for Democracy, Rights, and Freedom. One of the most interesting projects by Unlock Democracy is their online tool, which is used to identify which candidate in an election holds the views that you support by answering some multiple answer questions. In the evening Derek Oakley took a session on what Democracy is and where we go from now. The conclusion of the session was that Democracy has no single look, no single taste, no single sound, no single smell nor a specific feel, democracy is what we make of it, democracy is what we want, democracy means different things to different people, but the core idea remains the same. We also reached a decision amongst us to go back to Maldives and start build a platform to give the Youth a voice.

Saturday and Sunday were our free days, Lisa Davis took us sightseeing on Saturday, and two Maldivian students studying in UK went with us on Sunday. We went to see the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral, and almost every other points of interest. We also watched John Carter in IMAX 3D, did some shopping at the Camden Market and Old Spitalfields Market. We also joined a Fundraiser dinner at the East London Mosque by the Nida Foundation.

On 19th March Liam Barrington-Bush joined us for the visit to the Parliament, we had some interactive sessions before seeing the sittings of both House of Lords and House of Commons. The style the parliament works is very different from Maldives and this made the visit even more interesting.

On 20th March 3 of the participants, including me shadowed three MPS, Nigel Evans, Helen Grant and Rosy Cooper. The Queen was meeting both Houses of the Parliament after almost 10 years and so everyone was on their toes and the atmosphere was very vibrant. I saw the Queen for the first time and that was one of the highlights of the tour, we also snapped some photos with the Queens Diamond Jubilee stained glass window. I was very interested to know that the MPs reply to each and every mail, post or letter they receive, because in Maldivians most constituents have no means of reaching the MPs and the MPs tend to not reply to most issues raised by the public. While the three of us spent the day at Parliament, the others were meeting many new people and having a lot of fun at Bristol.

The last two days of the tour was packed with events by Young Muslim Advisory Group, Saad Butt made sure everything was going smoothly and he barely rested the entire day. The first day started with a fictional counter terrorism exercise called ACT NOW. It was followed by a session with MADE in Europe where we looked into how equal we actually are and the reasons why we haven’t reached the equality promised to us, also Millennium Development Goals were discussed. We visited a local high school where we participated in a class discussing Racism, after the class Saad chaired a debate by Debate Mate on whether military intervention should be used to current crisis going on in Syria. Seeing 13 year old debate on such a topic with such maturity and knowledge was very interesting and to a point unexpected. In the evening we had a social gathering with food, music and a lot of people. Many different organizations were present in the evening and it was a good opportunity to socialize and make valuable contacts. The night involved songs, drums, poetry and rapping by very talented people.

The next day started with a graffiti workshop where we got to make our own personal T-shirt. Love Life Generation ran a workshop on capacity building, personal development and raising aspirations at noon. Be the change you want to see was the lesson of the session. After that we met a girls group at the Youth Centre about their current intergenerational project with an elderly peoples home. It was followed by us participating in a local radio program and discussed topics of knife and gun violence and also about music. After that we met a Global Exchange volunteer from Nigeria who has been in UK for the past 3 months. After the very last session we went to a Chinese restaurant before wrapping up for the day.

My favorite part of the tour was that the program was designed not only to deliver us the knowledge but get the best in us out and deliver what we know. The people who worked with us made the trip even more worthwhile, they not only took great care of us but also made sure that every moment was a learning experience one or the other, while keeping it fun at the same time.

It’s not every day that we meet people who makes us want to change the world, change the world for the better, make it a happier place, a place where everyone, black or white, short or tall, rich or poor can live side by side, during this trip we met many such people and organizations from different areas of work who have made the idea of change something possible. You don’t need a lot of money to bring a change. You don’t need a political power to change the society. All you need is determination and courage to be part of the change. To be the change. And to lead by example.