I am so honored to be selected as one of the ECSEL 2010 delegates, a fellowship for Chinese young social entrepreneurs. Together we joined an inspiring journey in San Francisco, Stockton and Miami, networked with outstanding social entrepreneurs and shared dreams to change the world.

This eight-day journey is very important to me at my early stage of starting up a fair trade kiwi fruit social enterprise in Sichuan. It is an initiative for disaster recovery after the "512" earthquake happened and took away over 4,000 houses in the region. I spent two months at Wenchuan last summer to investigate on field and form strategic partnership with the locals. However, since the concept of social enterprise is very new to the country, I got limited support from the government to begin it despite of the promising revenue. I began to search funding and talk with different people. It is how I knew the ECSEL program... I think the best part of the fellowship is that you can meet people like me who share the same passion to build a better world at their young age. Thus, we can share the same feeling about the pain as well as the joy. I'm glad to feel that I am not alone any more and I have great potential partners from HK, Shanghai, Beijing and the State now!! 

Besides, I must share about how much inspirations I got in the summit at the University of Pacific and the Clinton Global Initiative University. Witnessing how the social entrepreneurs were recognized at the State gave me a strong momentum to continue to reach for dreams. The young leaders are so confident and willing to change the other part of the world without hestitation. Those true stories and innovative ideas inspire me to think big and act big for my project now. I am thinking over to start up a youth force for disaster relief and recovery at the next step. With my strong determination, I believe one day my dream will come true.

It is also very beneficial to get networking with the successful social entrepreneurs who can give their advices and supports to us even after the program. Personally, my favourite part of the program is the intensive training workshop on developing a social enterprise through thinking a specific service target. This powerful tool helps me to explain my project idea easily to the audience. We had a chance to practise the tool at the pitch competition. The experience provides us technical skills and solid background to support our social enterprises. Although the program ended already, I am sure those learnings and networks shall continue to support the growth of our social enterprises.  

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people and donors who make this trip happen. Without your support, I can't believe how can we meet so many influential leaders in the fellowship.

Lastly, I would like to share this quote with all of my friends and those who have the passion to make a difference to the world.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. "

Clive Ka-lun Lee (Hong Kong)