JCI City Plus-City Buzz Newsletter-November 2019-Issue 23

ISSUE 23 - EDITION 3-NOVEMBER 2019

CITY BUZZ The Official Newsletter of JCI City Plus

Movement of Young Leaders Shaping the Future of Mauritius

Editor-in-Chief's Message Dear Readers of City Buzz,

Warm greetings.

Community work and impact require commitment, energy and teamwork. We have seen the commitment of our aspiring members as they took on the mantle of project director, the energy of our Local President and members to move forward and we have seen the teamwork of our winning debate team.

This newsletter is an ode to our members' dedication and achievements.

Thank you to Local President Geetanjali for her support and contributors for their input to the newsletter.

Finally, as we prepare for 2020, let us not

things worth doing may take time. This is why we are Active Citizens. Step forget that

by step, we keep going. Together.

Chrisinta Chavrimootoo, Editor-in-Chief.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their

Eleanor Roosevelt

dreams"-

2019 Motto: Together for One World 2019 Local President: Geetanjali Ramkishore Editorial Team: Chrisinta Chavrimootoo Elveena Yessoo

Table of Contents Page 1:

Message from City Buzz Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, Chrisinta Chavrimootoo

Page 2:

Table of contents

Page 3:

Message from 2019 JCI City Plus Local President, Geetanjali Ramkishore

Page 4:

Message from 2019 JCI Mauritius National President, Heveen Sharma Keijou

Page 5:

Message from 2019 JCI Quatre Bornes Local President, Trishya Mukool

Page 6:

Your Local Board of Directors

Page 7:

Aspiring Members' Corner: Meet Sivanee Saminaden

Page 8:

Support to Youngsters' Association

Page 9:

Half Year Review and Strategic Plan session

Page 10-11: Orientation and Project Management Session held at Curtin Mauritius Page 12-13: 2019 JCI Mauritius Debating Championship Page 14-16: Tips to be an engaging speaker, By L'Doumben Venkatakisten Page 17:

Inspire and Connect Sessions 'Inner Engineering; Technologies for well-being'

Page 18-19: Top Chef Training Page 20-21: 12th Anniversary Celebrations: Back To Life Repainting Project Page 22-23: A conversation with Dr Heman Mohabeer, AI expert Page 24-25: The experience of 2016 JCI President Paschal Dike Page 26-27: Other highlights Page 28:

Upcoming projects/Save the Dates

Page 29:

About JCI

Page 30:

Our partners

2019 JCI City Plus Local President's Message It gives me great pleasure to address to you as the 2019 Local President of JCI City Plus for the third and last edition of the City Buzz Newsletter.

We are coming to the end of the 2019 and it is time to reflect on what legacy we are leaving behind for the next year's members and aspiring members. The greatest asset of JCI City Plus has always been our members and as such, this year, our focus has been on recruitment of new members and I believe that we have been successful in that respect.

Our new aspiring members are all working on projects and some are even leading projects as Project Director.

It has been a challenging year but at the same time, a unique year. "Rough seas make stronger sailors" and as such, as Local President, tough times has groomed me as a leader.

One thing which I was told during this time and which made me stay on course is "as long as you feel and believe what you are doing is right, stay on course".

Thank you Board Members, Members, Aspiring Members and Past Presidents who have supported me during the year. Thank you to my friends from JCI International who have been supporting me and who have guided during moments of confusion and moments when I thought I would not survive the storm.

Our next plan of action is succession planning for the 2020 Local Board and knowledge transfer.

I seize this opportunity to thank Editor-In-Chief Chrisinta Chavrimootoo for the wonderful job done throughout the year and I wish her continued learning and success in her JCI career.

Geetanjali Ramkishore 2019 Local President JCI City Plus (Mauritius)

2019 JCI Mauritius National President's Message Dear JCI City Plus Local President, eetanjali Ramkishore.

Dear Local Board Members.

Dear Members, Senators and Aspiring Members.

Greetings.

It gives me immense pleasure to address a few words to you in your 3rd newsletter.

We have already reached the end of 2019, and I am very glad to see the great impact you have created in your community and among your members.

JCI City Plus has successfully hosted the collaboration project with the Indian Ocean Commission during the 2019 JCI Africa & The Middle East Conference.

This project has given the right skills to the members such that they are now more prepared to handle complex projects. This is a great achievement for JCI City Plus.

I would also request the continuous support of JCI City Plus in the National Flagship project “Neighbourhood Watch” for a drug-free Mauritius. This project is a very good way to contribute to the betterment of our society.

In order to end 2019 in an even better way, JCI City Plus may lay more focus on ACF projects at local level. I strongly believe in JCI City Plus’s ability to bring together all stakeholders to work together to create a project under the Active Citizen Framework. A project that will bring sustainable impact towards the betterment of the society of Mauritius.

Let us be guided by our JCI mission and vision. And let us be an exemplary Active Citizen.

As National President, I wish JCI City Plus an amazing end of 2019.

Yours In JCI Spirit Heveen Sharma KEJIOU 2019 National President JCI Mauritius

#InspireChange #InspireYouth #InspireLeaders #RiseInHarmony

2019 JCI Quatre Bornes Local President's Message The journey so far as Local President has been very challenging and exciting throughout the year. The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall as we all know that leadership requires enormous sacrifices and perseverance.

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight"; a very famous Proverb. This proverb relates to our attitude towards failure, meaning not to let ourselves be bogged down by it but to welcome it and re-try until all objectives have been achieved.

I am forever grateful to my Local Board Members, Members and Senators who supported me in one way or another.

Trishya Mukool 2019 Local President JCI Quatre Bornes

Your 2019 Local Board of Directors

Geetanjali Ramkishore Local President

Vijayen Govinden Local Secretary

Nitin Collappen Local Treasurer

Pavan Gopal Immediate Past President

Alisha Hingun Vice President Skills and Development

Dr Vanisha Rajaysur Vice President Community Development

Jevina Comaren Vice President Business

Chrisinta Chavrimootoo Vice President Public Relations and International

Meet the Aspiring Members: Sivanee SAMINADEN

I am Sivanee Saminaden, Financial Executive at MUA Assurance. I am an ex-student of Maurice Cure College and a graduate of the University of Mauritius. After being awarded my BSc (Hons) in Accounting & Finance.

I began my career at MUA Assurance as Financial Advisor. Having skills in Pension Corporate, Stock exchange, Financial Planning, Public Speaking, I continued gaining experience with MUA and I am proud to work for them. I was nominated as Best New Recruit in 2017 by ex La Prudence Life and in 2018 I was awarded 'Best Employee' of MUA life. I've recently taken a pledge at ICAC to promote anti-corruption practices.

Being a member of Lions of Ebene, Tamil league and Aspiring member at Rotaract Pheonix, one may wonder how I handle such a busy schedule. The answer is passion and determination towards my community. My next target is to become a part - time lecturer and help youngsters achieve their goals and become responsible and independent. After all, we are the future of this country so we need to equip ourselves.

I have joined JCI City Plus mostly for self development and to become a responsible citizen so as to serve my country for a better future.

Support to Youngsters' Association of Montagne Blanche JCI City Plus showed its support at the Health Day organised by Youngsters Association in collaboration with the Mauritius Heart Foundation on 04 August 2019 and held at Montagne Blanche Community Centre.

Free health checks were carried out for the benefit of the inhabitants of Montagne Blanche. Local Vice Presidents Vanisha Rajaysur and Chrisinta Chavrimootoo attended the event.

Half Year Review and Strategic Planning Session The Local Board reported on the past 6 months and shared the plan for the rest of the year.

Great feedback and brainstorming session during the half year review meeting, organised under the supervision of Immediate Past President Pavan Gopal

Orientation and Project Management Session Energising orientation session with our aspiring members and students of Curtin Mauritius , co-hosted with JCI Mauritius, on 17 August 2019.

Local Vice President Chrisinta Chavrimootoo gave an overview of JCI and Local Vice President Alisha Hingun gave a presentation of project management for NGOs.

Orientation and Project Management Session Many thanks to Senators Ashveena Mewa, Asha Aukloo, Yudhish Rama, Roumesh Oomah and Deputy National President Franchette Emilien for sharing their experience.

#thinkbigandmakeithappen

2019 JCI Mauritius Debating Championship Well done to all the participants of the 2019 JCI Mauritius Debating Championship, held on 24 August 2019!

And the winners are Vreeshini Raojee , Chrisinta Chavrimootoo and L’Doumben Venkatakistnen of JCI City Plus.

Congrats to aspiring member L’Doumben who won the ‘Best speaker’ trophy.

Well Done to JCI Beau Bassin/Rose Hill who won the second runner up trophy.

2019 JCI Mauritius Debating Championship Heartfelt thanks to Project Director Anishah Aujayeb Gopal for organising the Championship, Deputy National President Franchette Emilien and Jury Chairperson Senator Asha Aukloo.

Tips to be an engaging speaker, By L'Doumben Venkatakisten Aspiring Member Ben, winner of the 'Best Speaker' Trophy for the 2019 JCI Mauritius Debating Championship and also a Toastmasters member shares his tips to be an engaging speaker.

HOW TO BE A MORE ENGAGING SPEAKER? In a world full of distractions, keeping your audience engaged is never an easy task. How do you then deliver a speech that captures the attention of your audience and keeps them hooked?

Here are 5 quick tips to assist you: 1. Eliminate speech anxiety Sweating or forgetting the words or shaking…you name it. Speech nervousness is something we all hate. You know the best part of it? All speakers have gone through it: from Donald Trump to famous speakers like Robin Sharma, they all were faced with some type of speech anxiety when they first started.

Hence Practice, Practice and Practice…would be your guru here. Start by speaking in front of 2 persons and then gradually increase to 10, 20, 100 and 1,000. Start speaking at family functions, classroom presentations and then you would see that you would want to experience a bigger audience. If you are looking for places to speak, it is recommended that you join clubs that promote public speaking such as Toastmasters. We currently have 12 clubs in Mauritius – hence better late than never.

Tips to be an engaging speaker, By L'Doumben Venkatakisten 2. Engage your audience by using effective listening According to a study published in 2019 by Taboola-Nielsen, the human attention span dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2018.

Hence you know that you have a tough task ahead to keep your audience engaged with you especially if you are delivering a 20-minute talk. The solution - Use effective listening. Whenever delivering a speech, always remember to ask small questions to the public during the speech to keep them on their feet. In case asking questions is not possible, you can always get them to do some exercise with you or to repeat after you if you are telling a positive affirmation for example.

3. Project confidence through strong eye contact There is nothing more boring than listening to someone reading from a piece of paper. It is true that you will have butterflies in your stomach when locking eyes with your audience. We find it more comfortable looking in the paper or at the ground. Imagine your better half speaking to you but he is not looking at you - what would be your first thoughts?

He is either lying or is not interested in speaking to you when in fact it may not be true. When you do not look at your audience, you send the wrong non-verbal message and they disconnect from you.

How do you ensure that you are not depriving your audience of sufficient eye contact when you are stressed? Solution: Choose three distinct points across the room in the audience which you can gaze at.

Tips to be an engaging speaker, By L'Doumben Venkatakisten 4. Use Body language According to Professor Mehrabian, 93% of your communication will come from the non-verbal signs namely your body language. Three spheres you should lay focus here: (i) Tone of your voice – always alter the pitch and tone of your voice based on the message you are trying to convey as this will prevent you from delivering a monotonous speech; (ii) move across the stage with purpose – staying idle in the middle is an indicator of stress to your audience. However, avoid erratic movements as this would rather distract your audience and hinder your message; (iii) other parts of your body – always try to see how you can use parts of your body to make you message more effective. For example: Look at world leaders such as Macron, Putin or Trump – they use their hands to project their message and make it more effective.

5. Engage the emotions of your audience through story telling Have you ever asked yourself why are Bollywood films so popular despite being 3 hours long? The reason: Emotional engagement. When you tell stories or facts in your speeches that engage the emotions of your audience be it laughter, sadness, anger or frustration, you keep your audience engaged.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” – Peter Drucker

Inspire and Connect Sessions 'Inner Engineering; Technologies for wellbeing' ‘Inner engineering: technologies for well-being’ by Marie Christine Jabr of the Isha Sadhguru Foundation in September 2019.

Top Chef Training For its second edition, held on 19 October 2019, the Top Chef training provided development opportunities to our members and their guests to hone their culinary skills.

Participants learned to prepare a 3 course gastronomic meal, as well as proper table-setting. See you next year for another edition.

Top Chef Training

Thank you to Chef Angelique and her team of the Ecole Hoteliere Gaetan Duval, for sharing their top tips. Congrats to the 2019 Edition of JCI City Plus Top Chef team for their outstanding efforts, especially Project Director Gooshma Kissoondoyal, Aspiring Member.

12th Anniversary Celebrations: Back To Life Repainting Project Back to school for our members! We repainted the classrooms of the Minikeums pre-primary school, Chemin Grenier, as part of our 12th anniversary celebrations Thank you to Project Director Vreeshini Raojee, National Board Members, Past Presidents and to the JCI family who contributed monetarily or in kind.

12th Anniversary Celebrations: Back To Life Repainting Project

JCI values: “Service to humanity is the best work of life“

Conversation with Dr Heman Mohabeer, AI expert Aged 33 years old only, this gentleman is one of the finest experts in Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and “Machine Learning” in the world.

Read more about our conversation with the 2018 JCI Mauritius The Outstanding Young Person (TOYP) winner, Dr Heman Mohabeer.

Q. You are one of the rare persons to hold a PhD in AI. Knowing that the scope was limited in Mauritius, what were the determining factors which made you choose this path?

During my undergraduate studies, I was fascinated by how we could use a machine to show human emotions and I started reading about Alan Turing’s work on Thinking Machine. I was interested in knowing how our brain worked but my studies were in the field of computing. I wanted to know how I could link the two.

Conversation with Dr Heman Mohabeer, AI expert Back then, AI was not even a term. I wanted to decode the reason why no Mauritians were pursuing studies involving the human brain and computing and took it as a challenge. I wanted to break the code. I was lucky enough to be guided by Dr Clarel Catherine and Professor Kenneth Stanley (University of Central Florida). When I first spoke with the latter, he was not even aware of the existence of Mauritius!

The difficulties back then were the slow internet connection and the absence of any specialist in Mauritius who I could turn to. I never once imagined that AI would become such a buzz term and today I am still fascinated about what AI can do to help us in our everyday lives. AI is my passion.

Q. Your biggest role models?

1. “AI�nstein (Einstein): He always thought outside the box and never limited himself to his environment, despite many challenges such as the treatment meted out from his own country.

2. My Father: He always supports me even if he does not understand 90% of the things I tell him about AI! He always has, together with my mum, the right words. He is with me in this journey. And his biggest pride is his son and he made many sacrifices for me, even though he never pursued further studies.

3. Alan Turing: His ability to think differently from others back then.

He went beyond the normal limits in order to make things move forward.

Read the full interview in our upcoming Souvenir Magazine!

My experience as 2016 JCI President, by Paschal Dike MY EXPERIENCE AS JCI PRESIDENT Having the privilege and honour to serve JCI as World President in 2016 is one that I am most grateful for. I am grateful to my family, friends, mentors and indeed JCI. Given my background as someone from a very humble home with very challenging early childhood years, rising through the ranks in JCI from my University days, to local, national and international was a very necessary learning curve.

Prior to becoming JCI President, there were a few uncertainties, particularly about how many countries I would be able to visit, given that I have a passport with a few limitations. With determination however, I visited 58 countries, some as many as four and three times.

The Presidency had its challenges and opportunities, bad and good times. But all in all, I chose to remember the good ones and the memories they continue to bring.

My travels brought me face to face with the mighty and the low, the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the privileged and the under privileged, rulers and leaders, the vociferous and the voiceless. As JCI World President, I chose my theme: “Just Act� which challenged people to stop talking and start doing, stop complaining and start contributing, stop thinking too much but start feeling

The most important decision that I took was to initiate the PEACE IS POSSIBLE CAMPAIGN. When the thought first came to me, I was not very sure if I should proceed.

However, after a deep thought about the situations around the world; wars, conflicts, hunger, diseases, environmental issues, suicides; I realised that even among countries, cities, communities and families, there are conflicts and injustices. Based on this, I found the courage to go on with the campaign.

I was therefore very happy to see how far the campaign went in terms of acceptability, penetration, collaboration, projects and recognition.

I am even happier to see that the campaign is still on going and gaining momentum.

My experience as 2016 JCI President, by Paschal Dike MY VISION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Every human is created for a purpose. For there to be sustainable development, each one of us must strive to live our potential to the fullest, collaborating with others in addressing the world’s biggest challenges one step at a time.

There is a saying that no man or woman has any right to be born into this world and after enjoying all its beauties, departs without justifying the reason to have been born in the first place. This simply means if you cannot be remembered for something good when you are gone, it was better you were never born in the first place.

#JustAct

MY CHALLENGE My challenge to the members of JCI City Plus and all young people indeed is to never despise days of small beginnings. The circumstance of your birth, your country of origin, your level of education, your sex, where you were born and all other life’s challenges should never determine who you become. You must not indulge in all kinds of excuses as to why you cannot succeed.

Learn from the experiences of people who were written off but turned out to great, inspiring and beacons of hope and faith. The most recent example being Tiger Woods.

He lost his wife, lost his career, lost over $500m in divorce settlement. He lost his family, friends and fans. He also lost brand endorsements, lost his sanity and was admitted in rehab. He lost his fitness due to countless injuries. Everyone said he was finished.

After 11 years of numerous setback & backlash, Tiger Woods just won the 2019 Masters.

You could be next. keep going.

Paschal Dike 2016 JCI President

Other Highlights

Members attending the National Convention, 5 October 2019, Maritim

Me

Other Highlights

Members' Meeting, Flying Dodo, and Stress Management talk

Upcoming Projects and Save the Dates JCI City Plus Projects Until 05 November 2019: #anoualvote online campaign 14 November 2019: JCI City Plus EGM 30 November 2019: Wine and Cheese Event (TBC) 30 November 2019: JCI City Plus 12th Anniversary celebrations

facebook.com/jcicityplus

Other Projects/Events 6 December 2019: Active Citizens' Day

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” -Martin Luther King

About JCI What is JCI? JCI (Junior Chamber International) is a network of young active citizens aged 18-40 years old, with 175,000 active JCI members and millions of JCI alumni participating in projects, meetings, learning programs and events. JCI members contribute to the advancement of the global community by creating positive changes in approximately 6,000 communities in more than 115 nations worldwide.

Why become a member?

JCI City Plus is a branch of JCI Mauritius and an NGO. Contact us to become an aspiring member-it is a free trial period of 1-6 mionths during which you get to work on various projects, including community projects which aim to fulfil the Global Goals, attend legendary parties as well as develop your leadership skills though various affordable skills development trainings. Members of the local organisation meet every last Wednesday of the month in the Conference room, Flying Dodo, Bagatelle.

How to join our organisation: 53 B, Avenue des Goyaviers, Quatre Bornes

Website: www.jcicityplus.org Social Media: facebook.com/jcicityplus Phone: 52594242/57015152 Email: secretary.jcicityplus@gmail.com 2019 Motto: Together for One World 2019 Local President: Geetanjali Ramkishore

Thank you!

OUR PARTNERS WHO MAKE IT ALL POSSIBLE

Multikom Ltd