大象传媒

Meeting the right people

• Tim Weber
• 24 Jan 08, 12:03 AM

Davos is all about meeting people.

The best meetings, though, are not necessarily with the rich and powerful.

Tonight I met two young men who are inspiring.

Johann Olav Koss is the chief executive of , an organisation based in Canada. His organisation is active in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the region devastated by the Tsunami three years ago. His teams go into these countries and help traumatised children to learn to play.

Adults teaching a child how to play? It may sound daft, but it is vital work.

Child soldiers in Africa that have laid down their weapons have gone through hell - and once they are back in civil society, many of them are aggressive, don't know how to play, are deeply disturbed.

Right to Play sends in trainers that help local volunteers learn the right skills, so that they can get traumatised children involved in team sports. Aggression is channelled, the rules of sport help the children to learn boundaries, a society is helped on the road to recovery.

Or take Van Jones. He is the founder of .

He lobbied for and helped to draw up legislation that has just been passed by the US Congress and signed by President Bush.

A section of the law provides $125m of funding to create what Van calls "green collar jobs".

"Urban youths" - in the UK we would call them inner city youths - will be taught the skills they need to work in green industries. That should help them get secure jobs that can't be outsourced.

It helps to fight poverty and drugs, and saves the environment.

The WEF has given Van the title "Young Global Leader" (the young global leaders, by the way, are themselves an interesting bunch; many of them run multimillion dollar operations with thousands of employees).

If Van can pull off his vision, he definitely deserves the title.

Both are participants here at the Forum, and talking to them is just as (or even more) inspiring as being able to walk up to Michael Dell and ask him a question.

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