Recently I found my new weekness and strength through my extra-curricular activity at ICU, Japan-Israel-Palestine Student Conference (JIPSC.) The aim of JIPSC is to promote mutual understanding between students from Israel and Paestine by inviting them to Japan and providing place for free discussion. This summer we had our main activity, the 9th Japan-Israel-Palestine Joint Student Conference at Hiroshima. At Hiroshima, we rent a traditional Japanese house nearby a forest and we stayed there for two weeks, doing everything together from cooking to sleeping. This year we had 26 participants in total, 11 students from Israel&Palestine and 15 students from unversities in Japan, in cluding ICU, Waseda, TUFS, and Tokyo university. I was representative of the group and my role was pretty much to be the face of the conference. I often gave speeches at public events and I also spoke with representatives from other organizations and student groups. Other than the official role as the representative of the conference, I also thought it was a part of my responsivility to care the participants by listening to their thoughts and sentiments. I watched everyone carefully to make sure that nobody would be left out from the group. I wanted everyone's voice to be heard by creating an environment where everyone can speak without fearing that others would not hear his or her oppinion. When we had a feedback session at the end of the conference, I was very glad and satisfied because there wasn't any claim from the participants that their oppinions were not heard. However, It was pointed out by some people that I didn't show my leadership enough by making decisions and therefore they sometimes had difficulty to know where authority resides in the organization. From the experience, I found that I am a person with a holistic point of view which enables me to see the big picture. On the other hand, I have difficuty in decision making, especially when there is not enough time to examine the pros and cons of the decision.
Being a leading figure always makes me to think of my strength and weekness as a person and there were times when I lost my confidence in being who I am. I was worried if my personal qualities were not suitable to be a leader and that made me almost to lose my trust in other members of the conference. However, they supported me to do my job through out the conference and I am really greatful for that.
It is important to know one's weekness and strength, but I think it is more important to think of the ways to work with the others with your personal qualities. Because when working with other people, your weekness can be a strength but also, something that you thought to be yout strength can turn out to be an obstacle for others and even for yourself.
>I was representative of the group and my role was pretty much to be the face of the conference.
返信削除Wow, that is a big role! This type of reflection on the challenges you face and how you can do them better is invaluable to self-development!
Nice blogging Arisa.