A new programme aimed at offering high-level training to young leaders from different faith communities
Ethiopian-born, British Indian Krish Raval believes passionately in helping young people achieve their potential. Having come to the UK at the age of six he knows how it feels to be part of a minority. And having experienced learning difficulties at school he has had to triumph over obstacles to achieve academic success. In 1995 he graduated with a law degree from Sheffield University. Before going to Cambridge University he attended an Initiatives of Change (IofC) conference in Caux, Switzerland. There he met Sheffield industrialist Richard Field who trains top management in leadership skills. Realising that such skills are not taught at school or college, Raval launched a leadership training programme for young people in 1996, now known as Learn to Lead (L2L).
Today L2L is a national educational organisation where a broad range of community leaders impart their knowledge to university students who in turn pass on their new-found skills to younger teenagers, including those who have dropped out of the education system altogether. The aim is ‘community transformation through the development of leadership in young people’. As L2L graduate Catrin May says, ‘It was one of the best experiences of my life—it gave me the motivation to pursue both career and life goals.’
A decade later L2L is still evolving. The London bombings of 7 July 2005 ‘showed something of the sheer scale of the challenges and opportunities facing our society’, says Raval. ‘I wondered how it would be possible to foster the kind of leadership required to meet these challenges.’ For many years L2L had been hoping to work within faith communities and 7/7 gave this thought ‘a new urgency’.
Raval approached IofC colleagues with the idea of working in partnership with L2L and after much brainstorming and contemplation a new project was born—Faith in Leadership (FiL). FiL, which is currently seeking to employ three interns from within the IofC network, will be launched in January 2007. With IofC’s spiritual commitment, heritage and global outreach, and with L2L’s skills and standing in the training sector, FiL will be able to offer high-level training to young leaders from different faith communities. Areas of learning will range from ‘How I live my faith’ and ‘Religion as a dimension of statecraft’ to ‘Understanding group dynamics’ and ‘Effective communication’. Raval is currently approaching politicians and religious leaders for their support and involvement. It is a huge task but the 33-year-old entrepreneur is spurred on by the vision of ‘a new generation of leadership which is able to rise above the immediate concerns of their particular community and instead work for the common good’.
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