The National Federation of Filipino American Associations’ (NaFFAA) E2010 program focuses on “Building the Next Generation of Community Advocates.”
PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE
Simply defined, “Advocacy” means “active support.”
Advocacy is an integral part of being an effective leader.
Advocacy increases and enhances the leadership process because it speaks for the improvement in the quality of life and speaks for others who are underserved. It becomes part of the leader’s lifestyle.
After 12 years of its “raison d’être” or reason for being, this is what NaFFAA has transformed itself into: to be leaders of advocates.
Advocacy encompasses everything that a leader does: to represent people (constituents), causes, and dreams.
- Here’s one dream: “We want to build a community center.”
- What about “fighting for a cause?” There are prime examples such as taking care of our veterans or protecting the Philippine textile industry.
- Who are our constituents? It could be people close to us, such as our children, who need our protection.
The next generation of community advocates is consciously being given a distinctive acronym: YP.
These are the young Pinoys, young Pinays, and young professionals — and any future designation our intergenerational leaders consensually want, for instance, “Young Pilipinos,” for an online or digital campaign “to take back” the keyword “Pilipino” from any derogatory implications in cyber-space.
In co-creating a blueprint for the future, this paradigm could be useful for our intergenerational leaders:
“We don’t want to be paper tigers, i.e. leaders “in title only” by virtue of a piece of paper that has no teeth. Leaders who appear to be strong but are actually weak or ineffectual. Leaders of only “the top,” the organizations that label themselves as leaders. Leaders who only talk but don’t walk. Leaders who think aloud without a plan.
We can party as long as we plan for the party — and that there is an end-result after the party is over. We don’t want to get into an accident or put ourselves at unnecessary risk.”
If leaders really want to create a community, they plan — and plan many years before the “if” and “when” happen.
Leaders plan to reduce the liabilities and risks in achieving a cause, the dream, or a better quality of life for others. That’s why leaders go to “school,” to be educated on how to recognize these liabilities and risks. There is no age limit for a leader’s education.
We’re here at Empowerment-2010. E-2010. This is what we have translated among the many hours we, NaFFAA leaders and affiliates, have spent together — 12 years of personal contact in teleconferences, online chats, emails, empowerment conferences every even year, regional summits, forums, and gatherings.
NaFFAA is coming of age.
We are getting there, completing a full cycle of leadership in NaFFAA’s first 12 years of existence.
NaFFAA was “technically” founded in August of 1997 in an unprecedented gathering in Washington DC.
We’ve achieved our goal of igniting the “flames of consciousness” within our Filipino communities in America.
At E-2010, we are celebrating the continuum of Filipino leadership — intergenerational in culture and approach. We want to establish our advocates to be effective volunteers of the process.
We’re “on track” for the next 12 years — and beyond.
Explanation of Theme: We’re building leaders who work in an intergenerational environment.
Process of Volunteerism as a Delegate-Participant: contributor
This is the definition of a “volunteer” for E-2010: The conference is designed wherein delegates are fully engaged in the total experience of understanding and knowing how to implement the tools that they will receive from each workshop/session. Therefore, each delegate is looked upon as a volunteer of the conference. Thus, the volunteer will contribute to the outcome of the conference. There are many volunteer positions available throughout the conference. All volunteers are given a discounted registration fee of $165 for the conference which includes two lunches and the Isang Diwa evening event. The regular conference registration fee is $275 starting November 1, 2010. Please email Lorna Dietz at NaFFAANorcal@gmail.com, or Genevieve Jopanda at GVJopanda@hotmail.com, or Ben Menor at BMenor2010@gmail.com for more information. http://bit.ly/b52SpJ
See CONFERENCE SCHEDULE page for details.
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