February 8: ISFIT Day 4!

Enjoy every seconds, every minutes, every hours, every moments. We learn, we play, we reflect, we share our thoughts and ideas. Everything goes in balance. Salute with friends who are able to balance things out, party, dancing, but they're very great and clever in discussion.

The discussion today we learn about the shape of government systems. We were divided into groups and has to explain about theocracy, technocracy, democracy, oligarchy, timocracy, dictators, and so on. This topic is very interesting. We enjoyed our session. For me, it is such a precious time to know, a lot of systems of governments. It opened my mind because each forms of system has its own strength and weakness.  Maybe you can find the best one, maybe not, because we’re learning it, we’re looking for some advantages and disadvatages if a country applied this system. 

my group explained about theocracy and technocracy

Slava, Hazal, Anja, Louise, me 

in the break time with Karla, Lupe, and Dala

 buenas tardes ISFITers *Latin America mode on

I totally forgot today is  Sunday. Fortunately, Michael, our workshop leader showed me the church (not really far from StudenterSamfundet) Firstly, I’m afraid to ask because I didn’t want people know that.  And luckily,  we’ll go together for the mass! What a beautiful night! Even though I was very far away from my parents and my family, there’s still someone who accompany me. Thanks so much God:)

The mass was great, we’re together with Trondheim Catholic community. I met kak Aloy, Indonesian delegates who study in Finland. We’re together in mass. She's very nice. Grateful. The homily makes us "warm" this night. Michael became servant for this mass. This is my first time going outside NTNU (because we’re only in class and Studentersamfundet :) I was a little bit late for the plenary session today. But, no problem, I’m surrounded by great people.

Plenary Session: Good Governance

The Speaker today: Jonathan Saphiro, Richard J Battaglia, Sony Kapoor.  

John Saphiro from World Bank opened with his sentences:

“Good governance is about people and systems – the systems that allow people to participate in their societies according to their abilities”

He explained World Bank program in fighting corruption. His explanation makes me think, I was wrong. Sometimes, I thought in my mind that WB didn’t concern with developing countries, they only make some programs which had advantages for them. But, I was totally wrong. WB has some programs related to anti corruption action.

“Do not expect it to be done by the end of ISFiT, but you have the energy and the wherewithal to make a change”, he continued.

Richard J Battaglia, the second speaker, said “Kids learn what's good and what's bad by the age of 5, why do leaders of multinationals companies forget it?” He related his words to what’s usually happened about cases of corruption with multinational companies.

Sony Kapoor, the last speaker, started his explanation,

“20 percent of us are inclined to cheat, and 20 percent are not. 60 percent of the people will cheat if they think others are cheating.”

Absolutely true!

We sometimes justify ourselves if we are cheating because we see other people are doing that way.

He put his hope for us, for our generation. “We hope that tomorrow’s society is less corrupt, and better governed. Everybody will benefit from that”, he said.

“With development of technology, with cameras and cellphones - everyone can be a police man who can help tackle corruption.” – Sony Kapoor closed the session. Questions and answers with  ISFIT participants.

What an inspiring session!

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door.-Marla Gibbs