Learn to walk slowly through the crowd.
Try to connect as much as many people in the
crowd. Approach them and say hello. Be updated on what keeps them busy.
Move into action. Learn how to serve. You can start with your family, your church and
then with your community.
Leader Qualities # 20: [TEACHABILITY]
To keep leading, keep learning.
Guidelines to help cultivate and maintain teachable attitude:
Cure your destination disease;
Overcome your success;
Swear off shortcuts;
Trade in your pride;
Never pay the same price for the same mistake;
Teachability can be improved by doing the following:
Observe how you react to mistakes. Everybody commit mistakes. How do we react to
our own mistakes? Ask someone close to you on how you react when you commit
mistakes. Do we ask apology or are we defensive when we commit one? Accept your
mistakes and learn from it.
Try something new. Always open your world for challenges. Try things that need
mental, emotional and physical activities.
Learn in your area of strength. There is always room for improvement. New things are
being discovered every now and then. Read books, update yourself and get a harder grip
on your field.
Leader Qualities # 21: [VISION]
You can seize only what you can see.
VISION:
The act or power of seeing
A vivid imaginative conception
Things to be understood to handle vision:
Vision starts within;
Vision draws in your history;
Vision meets other‘s needs;
Vision helps you gather resources;
Vision can be improved by doing the following:
Measure yourself. Ask the opinions of people around you regarding your vision. If your
vision is coherent then you‘re living your life with your vision.
Why Focus on Adolescents?
As we move into the next millennium, some 17.5 per cent of the estimated world population of
6.09 billion in the year 2000 will be aged 15 through 24. Today, births to teenage women
account for a little over 10 per cent of all births worldwide. While the global birth rate for
women under age 20 is declining, the number of adolescents worldwide is increasing, so that the
total number of births to young women is growing. Moreover, fertility rates are declining more
rapidly among women of other age groups, which means that births to adolescents account for an
increasing proportion of overall births in many countries.
Actions taken during adolescence can affect a person's life opportunities, behavioural patterns
and health. For physical, sociocultural, economic and psychological reasons, young people are
typically poorly informed about how to protect themselves sexually and are thus particularly
susceptible to unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
Did You Know:
More than half of the world's population is under age 25.
The number of people aged 10-19 was 1.1 billion in 1995.
The United Nations estimates this number to increase to 1.25 billion in the year 2010 and to 1.3
billion by 2020--a 22 per cent increase from 1995.
17 per cent of married women aged 15-19 use contraception in less developed countries.
15 million adolescent women give birth each year, mainly in developing countries.
Infant mortality rate to adolescent mothers is 1.5 times higher than to mothers aged 20-29.
Up to 4.4 million abortions to adolescent women in developing countries take place each year.
1 in 20 adolescents contracts an STD each year.
Half of all cases of HIV infection are in people under age 25.
20 per cent of adolescents are illiterate in less developed countries.
Sources: UN, "The Sex and Age Distribution of the World Population" 1994; Population Reference
Bureau/Centre for Population Options, "The World's Youth 1994: A Special Focus on Reproductive
Health ".
In some societies, premarital pregnancy and childbearing is culturally accepted--and even
condoned--as a way for a young woman to prove her fertility. In other places, a large proportion
of teenage pregnancies is unwanted, as evidenced by the fact that the abortion ratio for teenagers
is high. It has been estimated that between 1 and 4.4 million adolescent women have abortions in
developing countries each year.
Young single women frequently seek abortions in unsafe conditions. This is partly because they
are more reluctant than adults to admit to their pregnancy at an early stage. Even where abortion
is legal, unmarried adolescents often avoid seeking help from the official health care system
since they do not want anyone to know they are pregnant. There is widespread misinformation
among adolescents about self-induced abortions; these can be fatal.
Teenage mothers face a higher-than-average risk of maternal death than mothers in their
twenties, and their children have higher levels of morbidity and mortality. Early marriage and
childbearing also impede young women's educational and employment activities. This, in turn,
impacts negatively overall on a country's development as a whole.
High levels of adolescent pregnancy, childbearing and unsafe abortions reflect--and result in--a
lack of educational and economic opportunities. Young women and girls, particularly those who
are poor, face considerable pressure to engage in sexual activity and are especially vulnerable to
sexual abuse, violence and prostitution.
"Early childbearing increases the likelihood that an adolescent mother and her children end up on the streets:
an estimated 100 million children around the world live and work on city streets, sometimes as prostitutes.
Studies have found that approximately 800,000 girls under age 20 work as prostitutes in Thailand, 500,000 in
Brazil, and 400,000 in India. " --Population Reference Bureau, 1994.
