Nobody's born a leader: Meriem's first step into Cultural Connect Camp

As part of our Youth Convo Series: Leadership Glow Up, guest speakers from Generation Global Youth Advisory Group joined a live peer roundtable to share the leadership moments that shaped them. Meriem, from Algeria, spoke about the fear of being taken seriously as a 16 year old, and the project that changed her mind. Here’s her story:

I’m Meriem, and I’m from Algeria. I like to talk about sustainability, leadership, business, and climate change, and I’ve led a lot of projects - but the one I want to tell you about is Cultural Connect Camp, something I started about a year ago to bring people from different countries, cultures, and languages together.

At first, it was only an idea. And for a while, I didn’t take it seriously -not because I didn’t believe in it, but because I was scared other people wouldn’t. I remember thinking, I’m only 16 years old, who’s going to take my project seriously? A lot of doubts came to my mind before I ever said the idea out loud.

Eventually, I decided to take the first step and explain the project to my teachers. Cultural Connect Camp became a four-week program - one week on music, one on food, one on tradition, and the last on dialogue, empathy, and negotiation. When I first shared it, I got some pushback and a few corrections, which I understood - I was young, and the people giving feedback had more experience. I took the next step anyway: building the structure, making the plan, and sending it to organisations and my language school. They accepted it, and they really supported me.

That didn’t mean it was easy. It was my graduation year from middle school, so I was juggling regular schoolwork, competitions, emails, and coordinating with participants - a lot for a first-time project at 16. What changed things was building a team. I brought in friends, teachers, and people from partner organisations - seven from my school, ten from organisations, seventeen in total - and they carried a lot of the weight with me. I wasn’t only the leader the whole time either. Sometimes I led, and sometimes I was just a participant, learning alongside everyone else.

Looking back, here’s what I’d say leadership is: nobody is born with leadership skills. Nobody is born knowing how to negotiate or speak up - it’s something you build. And a lot of it comes from your environment. When you’re in a supportive school, a supportive family, a place where people listen instead of judging you, you can take that first step without much fear. I was lucky to be in that kind of environment, and it made a real difference.

If you’re waiting for the “right” moment to start something, my advice is: don’t wait. Nobody knows what tomorrow holds, and someone else might do the thing you’ve been thinking about before you do. Go ahead and take the first step, even if it’s hard - and it will be hard. When I was struggling with mine, I leaned on motivation podcasts to remind myself that if other people could do it, I could too.

And if you make mistakes along the way - you will, and that’s fine. If I had to name the most important quality a leader can have, it’s accepting your mistakes. Being a leader doesn’t mean you hold all the power and nobody can talk to you. It means listening, sharing your opinions, letting others share theirs, and treating each other with respect.