One of an international community’s motivational speakers, Mark Stone Laitflang is leading a team that believes in developing alternate skills toward respecting diversity
SIX MONTHS ago, Shillong-based Avenues Academy for empowering youth, government and the teaching fraternity undertook an initiative not just to teach communication skills but alternative skills such as sign language and Braille.
This, said Mark Stone Laitflang, teaches a person respect for diversity and be humble because there are people who are less fortunate, with lesser abilities who should not be sidelined. “This is called mainstreaming disability, and it is something we are working towards,” he said at the first TEDx conclave at IIM-Shillong.
TEDx is an international community of speakers numbering some 24,000 that provides platforms across the world for people to share unique ideas from the inspired. “Being asked to speak at a TEDx event is a privilege. Traditionally, post approval from the TED community, all TEDx talks are uploaded on TEDx’s International YouTube channel, accessible online to anyone across the globe. As a north-easterner it is especially significant, when you consider the global audience that these talks reach out to,” Mark said.
The IIM-Shillong do was incidentally the first talk on the Northeast presented on a TEDx stage globally.
Mark is the founding chief executive and managing director of Group Avenues that specializes in communication skills towards breaking barriers. Conceived in 2003, the academy runs courses designed around the key elements of effective communication – the structure and speech of communicative English, and contemporary communication skills usually referred to as soft skills. Each course focuses on just one of these skills or combines them in one comprehensive package, allowing participants to harness and hone their communicative abilities.
The courses, the academy profile says, are aimed at facilitating employment opportunities for the youth and student community and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of government servants and civil personnel through transformational training exercises.
In his talk on ‘Unconventional Inspiration’ at IIM-S, Mark highlighted the forces that break, bind and build the Northeast and the desperate need for inspired youth capable of leading change in the region. The passionate end to this speech was intended to surprise, inspire and pull at the heart strings of the listeners.
Mark began his speech with a series of photographs capturing the essence of Shillong and what it means to those who call it home. “I started working when I was 15… My first job in Kolkata was selling flowers and delivering them to people, I played lead guitar for a band in Kolkata… I thought I would be the next Bill Gates; loved programming, wrote software for a while, assembled computers for a living… I also sold pool and snooker tables for a whole year in my life, did animation, taught design, compered and managed events, and I taught for most of my young life… all of these before I was 18,” he said.
What has his group done? “Over the last 10 years we have reached out to schools and college students. I teach communication and soft skills to children and young adults, working adults, illiterate adults, educated, unemployed adults, teachers, educators and parents who want to be better, government servants who believe in the standards of efficiency that we want to set out for, corporate teams who are exploring the opportunities in the Northeast, politicians who want to understand the values of standing out there and delivering a great oration and entrepreneurs who believe in a vision much larger than our cities and towns in the Northeast. My team and the group that we work for has trained over 10,000 participants in these 10 years.”
According to Mark, music, faith, tradition, celebration of life and death, active civil society, opinionated youth, fashion, beauty, aesthetics, nature, weather and warm sentimental people bind the Northeast. But many factors break it to; these include brain drain, pockets of terrorism, corruption and politicos who try to win at any cost, illiteracy and unemployment, environmental degradation, unchecked mining practices, geographic inaccessibility and yes, crimes against women. “It is very sad that in matrilineal Meghalaya, 66 crimes were reported in 2012,” he said.
Mark believes there are many things that would build the Northeast. “Education and human resources development, tourism and hospitality, sports and sport management, IT and IT enabled services, SHG/MSE venture funding – lot of great ideas lack linkage – fashion and design, handicraft and handloom besides opportunities along 2,000 km international border,” he said.
What does he consider to be the most important investment of our generation? Wealth and value, for one, requires four generations to be diluted. “According to the UN, the definition of inclusive wealth includes natural resources (produce of our land), human assets (our intellectual property), physical assets (manufactured assets of the investments and capital). But what we need to explore is youth, the next great untapped potential of wealth and nation building,” Mark said.
Mark and his team find pleasure in making a difference in the lives of children they train. “They comprise a generation that will stand up, stand out, make the difference, and will actually take the lead in delivering things with passion, sensitivity and initiative,” he said.
Like the children, the empowered youth too are future’s wealth. “As educators, encourage respect for diversity, learn to identify role models, teach patience by example, lead with passion, show courtesy at home, celebrate individuality – there is no need to make someone feel less special because each has something unique inside him or her – entertain to educate, break the rules, take your teaching outside the classroom, motivate, delegate, empower,” he said.
Mark’s school of thought has eight unconventional lessons that “I have learnt on my journey here”. These are:
~ Start young, as you learn to connect the dots
~ There are no short cuts and no substitute for hard work
~ If something is too good to be true, it normally is
~ Surround yourself with people who challenge you
~ Respect everyone, period (humility is what builds success)
~ Don’t rest on your laurels, people forget things (so keep improving)
~ Grass will always be greener elsewhere
~ Opportunity is in the road not taken, not following the herd
There’s more from Mark. “The bridge between you and your higher self is inspiration. Do something that echoes passion, success. Inspiration is actually passion, be passionate and believe in something with all your heart, give it your best and you’ll make sure you start strong and finish strong. Be persistent in what you do, and you’ll know that your journey will reach a logical end, that it was marked by a sense of respect of people around you and their opinions and the way they feel about you,” he said.
For seeking inspiration, the award winning youth entrepreneur committed to social enterprise cites Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do.”
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