Curaçao shines at the fifth “World Appreciative Inquiry Conference” in Ghent, Belgium.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The young foundation WE LEAD on the way towards its second anniversary on the international youth day, august 12th assures its mission to develop the role of youth as new leaders and nation builders through engagement in their community.

The WE LEAD Foundation teamed up with University of Utrecht master-student Joeri Kabalt and organized a project about the future of Curaçao based upon the theory of Appreciative Inquiry; instead of focusing on what goes ‘wrong’, people were invited to imagine the island they would like to live on and how to achieve this change.

On the symbolic date of 10-10-10 Curaçao has become an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Pais Kòrsou. This has been seen both as a promising new start as something that does not interest many people, especially not the ordinary ‘man on the street’. Nevertheless, this unique moment in history gives us the opportunity to think about the future of the nation. Fifty youngsters from Curaçao entered into conversations with their fellow inhabitants about the strengths and future of Curaçao.
This case study shows that Appreciative Inquiry can be a valuable method for community development. People reacted to the invitation to engage in a positive conversation about Curaçao and became used to hopeful and appreciative ways of talking about their island and themselves.

Last month the WE LEAD project was selected to be presented at the fifth World Appreciative Inquiry Conference as one of the three countries (South Africa, Phillipines and Curaçao) for “Appreciative Inquiry on Country Level”.

The fifth World Appreciative Inquiry Conference was held in Ghent, Belgium - a worldwide Appreciative Inquiry event that provided a context to meet, to connect, to learn and to create. Almost 600 people, coming from 45 different countries, joined for a week during the conference, focusing on scaling-up the generative power of Appreciative Inquiry.



Decision makers in business and society, AI-practitioners and scholars from all over the world shared and learned from exceptional outcomes, showcasing the generative capacity of Appreciative Inquiry towards an ‘economy’ of connecting strengths.

“Curaçao Our Nation” resulted as an highlight during the conference; this affirms the dream of the dynamic youngster former Youth Parliament President One Young World Ambassador, Chairman and Founder of WE LEAD – Gwendell Mercelina, Jr. whom received lots of appreciation and compliments for his initiative together with young consultant of Kessels & Smit Joeri Kabalt. Also the president of the conference sir Luc Verheijen had wonderful words for the project and future endeavors of the organization.  

WE LEAD,
The foundation is created to emphasize the role of the youth in constructing their ideal nation.
WE LEAD helps to construct the bridge to cross for every citizen to be united together as a nation, build new leaders that will lead their country with determination, enthusiasm, transparency, and love. This process starts from bottom to top, where you find the youth taking their responsibility as the builders of a nation.

WE LEAD focuses on the social, educational, cultural, political, artistic, sportive, health and environmental areas of a nation carried by the youth movements.

The founder envisions creating a division of WE LEAD in every nation of the world.


For further information of WE LEAD
weleadcuracao@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/weleadcuracao  
or the phone numbers +5999-513-0101 / +5999-562-0226

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Meet Miss Teenager Curaçao, Ruënna Mercelina

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Ruënna A. I Mercelina, was born in Willemstad, Curaçao on January 18th, 1992. In her earlier years she attended Johan van Walbeeck Kleuter & Basis school and then the Albert Schweitzer High School, where she entered the artistic scene by winning with eleven years old the school beauty queen title. There was also when she received her nickname “Sugar” (suku in Papiamentu) for her energetic, lovely and sweet attitude towards her fellows.
Since young she is very active, loves acting, swimming, did athletics in the Olympic team, and also karate with Sr. Henry Gougon.

She was discovered by local agent Mrs. Emilka Eustachia from A2Z Models now called  Emilka Models, and started modeling in her agency, afterwards became a model instructor for kids and pre-teens.

Later on she decided to participate in the Miss Curaçao Teenager pageant and fashion shows of the Curaçao Beauty Organization of Mr. Aubrey America. Then she also helped the Model Image division as model instructor for kids and pre-teens.

Up until this date she's the person in national pageantry history to achieve more titles as a teenage girl, and has accumulated several distinctions as of
Miss Kitatin (the most popular Antillean online media community),
Miss Curaçao Teenager Talent, Internet & Most Beautiful Legs,
Miss University & College of the Dutch Caribbean,
First Runner Up Teener Queen (national colleges and high schools competition in
carnival season), international distinctions:
Miss Caribbean Talented Teen (St. Kitts & Nevis),
Miss Ecstasy International (Anguilla) winning Miss Personality and semi-finalist,
and the Miss Caraibes Hibiscus (St. Martin) that catapulted her international career
after being a finalist and winning Best in Evening Gown (was where she got the
opportunity to go to Paris and star in the fashion show of judge-designer Jean Selim).

Now she was approached by the executive level of the international pageant to be the
representative of her country Curaçao in the biggest teenagers’ pageant in the world Miss
Teenager Universe.

She starred in many fashion shows and did lots of promotional works for big companies such as Albert Heijn, Fun Miles, MCB, Post Spaarbank and so on.

Ruënna “Sugar” was raised in a Roman-Catholic home with both parents and an older brother, which was former Youth Parliament President of Curaçao.

Currently, she is a student at the College of the Dutch Caribbean in her last college year pursuing her studies in Marketing & Public Relations. …

Her break-through as an actress was in a political satire “Fe Lusafe” as main-actress with the aspects of the revolution of the 30th of May 1969 in Curaçao, written, directed and acted by the legendary comedian Eligio Melfor.

She just finished a tour in Aruba with the humoristic play “Gainan Fini” with the
main role of a female writer transforming into a homosexual man to write a book of the “gay” life nowadays. And she‟s now starring as one of the main roles for the international production company Endemol’s new soap-series for Caribbean titled "Ki bo Ke Men?" (What do you mean?).

As a teen beauty ambassador she wants to serve as a role model to inspire other youngsters around the globe to pursue their dreams with passion, focus and respect. She wants to work on the mission to develop the role of youth as new leaders and nation builders through participation in their community through projects, and as an ambassador of the WE LEAD foundation she's currently
working on that in her native country Curaçao together with a dynamic team of
youngsters.

Her role models are her grandmothers, her mom who she thanks for her talent, perseverance and beauty, Tyra Banks, and Annemarie Braafheid (the former Miss Curaçao 1968/ Miss Universe 1969 First Runner-Up and the first dark skinned woman to attain a high position in the Miss Universe contest).

Ruënna  will be representing Curaçao at Miss Teenager Pageant 2011, in Guatemala on October 9th.

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