Venturing into new projects

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Newey is the head of Thailand's Youth Venture program, located in Bangkok.

Youth Venture, a global organization and partner of Ashoka, is dedicated to supporting and encouraging Ventures that benefit society, proposed and run by young people across Thailand. The vision behind the program is that everyone can take initiative and address social needs. Young people form the basis for this.

Newey will be continuing her work with the program to further the impact it is having on Bangkok society. Follow her efforts in her blogs and video diaries.

October 9, 2007
I couldn't make it to the office today. All morning I couldn't really talk -- so exhausted from yesterday's trip to a slum and marathon meetings. So I worked from home and then snuck out for a movie before the global team phone meeting around 7:30 p.m.

As it turned out, I couldn't get any work done except booking a ticket for December's trip to the U.S. and replying to emails. So there was no movie reward.

We now have 26 applications from youth, mostly from the north. We will organize a panel for these soon-to-be Youth Venture teams within the month. I almost had no time to help the team interview these applicants and help them with project development, but I couldn't help myself getting involved in two of the projects.

The first is from "Sai Jai Thai," a network of university students concerned with youth participation in politics. I am particularly interested in this group since the general election is coming up this December and I would like to see if we can support this youth movement.

The other project is called Youth not Bomb. FNG Thailand, the group proposing the project, wants to provide vegetarian food for needy people and recruit volunteers to teach poor kids. Their application is so moving.

They mentioned that they want to help out at the grassroots level and do something that really makes a difference. I'm studying their project and will set up a meeting with them next week.

Also, we just decided to move our office downstairs. So, lots of work needs to be done. Koy, Kate and Boy (my colleagues) already took care of finding out about fixing up the room and finding necessary equipment. We will spend October (our 25th hour) renovating it and then expect to move in early November.

It's almost midnight and I'm done preparing a mentor program that we will propose to the Siam Cement Group tomorrow and Microsoft Thailand next week. We would like to recruit mentors from these two companies to volunteer as consultants for youth who will soon launch projects with us. Fingers crossed. I hope I can charm people at Siam Cement tomorrow. E-mail to a friend