Biography

September 29, 2010 — mohamedhusni

Name        : M. H. Mohamed Husni

Country     : Sri Lanka

Mohamed Husni is a passionate advocate on environment  issues and his work is specifically focused on activism, youth empowerment and mobilization. He has initiated and implemented numerous projects and campaigns with high school students, youth organizations and civil society institutions across his native Sri Lanka, including founding ‘Eco Care Sri Lanka’ in 2006, a voluntary youth movement working on promoting sustainable environmental practices among young adults.

Husni has represented Sri Lanka and the British Council at many high level meetings on Rio+20 & Post 2015 Development Agenda  and is working to create a fundamental shift in the attitudes and behaviours of the Sri Lankan community by providing opportunities to educate youth on the importance of sustainable development.

The Summary of his current affiliations/work with different organizations… 

  • Regional Coordinator – Asia – Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network (CYCN)
  • International Climate Champion 2010/2011 awarded by British Council
  • Volunteer at V-Force (National Volunteer Task-force) of UN Volunteers – Sri Lanka

In October 2011, Mohamed Husni has been selected as one of the 

‘TOP-10 Young Acheievers 2011’ in Sri Lanka 

under the category of Social Service for his immense contribution to the country as a young leader. 

Short Bio can be found @ www.britishcouncil.org/science/mohamed-husni

>>> What’s new with him?  

  • JULY - Selected as a ‘GEILI Fellow 2012’ and invited to attend GEILI Annual fellowship programme which was held in July in Hong Kong – Global Exchange In Leadership Initiatives (GEILI) is a global platform to empower aspiring global leaders and foster global exchange in culture and volunteerism through an alliance of youth organizations around the world.
  • JUNE - Represented Sri Lanka as a National Delegate at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012
  • JUNE - Selected as one of the 15 Youth Leaders/Action Partners  to attend the special 3 days residential workshop held in Brazil on ‘Food Justice’ organized by the Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (OIYP)/ Oxfam Australia. He was also part of Oxfam International Youth Partnerships Rio+20 Delegation.
  • JUNE - Represented the Official Delegation of British Council (International) for United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)/ Rio+20 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • MAY -  As per the invitation extended by the Dundee University Student Association, attended as a Guest Speaker and Discussion Leader at the “Discover to Inspire: Youth Actions on the Millennium Development Goals Conference” held in Dundee University, Scotland from 18-21 May 2012. The event was endorsed and supported by the European Commission, Youth in Action and British Council. Husni attended this conference representing British Council and delivered 2 lectures and 1 – interactive discussion session at the Dundee University, Scotland.
  • APRIL - Attended the Stockholm+40 – Partnership Forum for Sustainable Development high level meeting held from 23–25 April 2012 in Stockholm, Sweden which was organized to commemorate the 40th anniversary of UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. The event was hosted by The Swedish Minister for the Environment, Lena Ek and the Swedish Minister for Development Cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson (on behalf of the Swedish Government) and he was one of the few invited international youth participants from all over the world.
  • APRIL 17, 2012, he was appointed to the high powered jury for the ‘DATE WITH HISTORY’ international speech contest for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. http://datewithhistory.com/jury     

 The diverse jury of prominent celebrities, environmental activists and thought leaders selected one winner who traveled to Rio de Janeiro to participate in the UN conference and addressed the Heads of State gathered at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in June 2012.

This special Jury also included, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, Linkin Park & famous actor and environmentalist, Leonardo DiCaprio, UN Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth, actor and activist Hayden Panettiere, former Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva and few other selected high profile individuals in the world.

  • MARCH - He has been invited as a Guest Speaker at the UNESCO Youth Peace Ambassador Training Workshop which will be held in Hiroshima, Japan from 24-31st March 2012. This programme is jointly organized by UNESCO Bangkok, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Eubios Ethics Institute.
  • FEBRUARY - Attended UNEP Tunza Asia Pacific Regional Conference which was held in Ahmadabad, India from 6-8 February 2012
  • FEBRUARY - Represented Sri Lanka at the Regional workshop on Male declaration on Control & prevention of Air Pollution and its likely Transboundary effects for South Asia held in Centre for Environment Education, Ahmadabad, India.

    

   - Eco Care Sri Lanka’s signature campaign “Green the World Campaign” (launched in 2009), which raises awareness (through seminars & interactive sessions) amongst school communities on the importance of Solid Waste Management, and thereby assist them with the setting up of waste management systems within the school premises.

The campaign also addresses the issue of Climate Change and highlights the close relationship between Solid Waste Management and mitigation of global warming. This campaign also helps school communities to bring waste management into practice, by donating the required colour coded bins and through continuous monitoring of the set-up waste management system. The campaign has reached more than 2000 students and teachers thus far, and is expected to reach more in the future. 

As part of the first phase of the campaign, in addition to the activities on awareness raising and setting up of solid waste management systems in schools, the campaign website was launched by the Australian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Her Excellency Kathy Klugman on the 21st September, 2010 at the British Council Auditorium.

Husni is also one of the International Climate Champions (ICC) of British Council and he works as an ICC Ambassador to lead spreading awareness about climate change and conservation. The British Council’s International Climate Champions program engages young people around the world as communicators who will help to influence and educate their peers and the general public on the urgency of climate change.

He is the Past President of Rotaract Club of Colombo North, R.I. District 3220 – Sri Lanka & served as the District Director – International Services at Rotaract Sri Lanka during Rotary year 201/12 while also being selected as a Delegate/Action Partner, representing Sri Lanka, for the Fourth Sitting of the Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (2010-2013) organized by  Oxfam Australia. This is a global network of 300 youth activists from 100 countries.

In 2011, he became a “Global Changemaker” for his significant track record as a community activist and a volunteer for last 5 years. (Global Changemakers is a vibrant community of young activists, volunteers and social entrepreneurs and the programme is managed by the British Council Switzerland).

  • He is the Co-Creator of ‘YOUTH’ is the word, World Record 2011.

Five young, British Council – Global Changemakers, brought 1500 Sri Lankans together, to break a Guinness World Record in celebration of International Youth Day 2011. This has been recorded as the largest Human Mosaic in the world.

They managed to mobilize 1500 youth in Sri Lanka with just 9 days of preparation for the whole idea and recruited and trained 150 volunteers for this event. This event was organized to provide an opportunity for the Sri Lankan youth to demonstrate to the international community the unity and strength that they possess. It also promoted youth social activism and the power of volunteerism.

In terms of professional experience, Husni was working as a National Youth Facilitator tasked to conduct the youth consultations through Nationwide Youth Focus Group Discussions (FGD) in selected 16 districts in the country for the Sri Lanka National Youth Survey II in 2009/2010 which was one of the most comprehensive surveys in terms of coverage and focus on different themes on youth, such as culture, employment, development, politics /governance. This was done as a joint venture between Sri Lanka Youth Parliament, International Alert and Social Policy and Research Centre (SPARC) based at the University of Colombo to facilitate input from Sri Lankan Youth on national issues.

He wants is to become a socially responsible professional and a progressive citizen of Sri Lanka that will enable him to use his educational background, community work experience, management & teamwork skills, and the exposure through volunteer work in communities.

In October 2011, Mohamed Husni has been selected as one of the ‘TOP-10 Young Achievers 2011’ in Sri Lanka under the category of Social Service for his immense contribution to the country as a young leader. 

________

More about him…

In 2006, Husni was awarded as one of the “Most Outstanding Students of the Year” at National Level at the “Sisu Udana Wishishtayo” Annual Award Ceremony. This selection was made out of approximately 12,000 outstanding students from all parts of Sri Lanka, who have excelled in Extra-Curricular Activities at National & International Levels.

During his schooling days, Husni was well known for his oratorical and creative thinking related skills through which, among others, he won the 1st Place of the All Island Inter-School Senior Essay Competition on “Vision for Future Sri Lanka – Post Tsunami Rebuilding” with a fully-sponsored Educational Tour to the United Kingdom; organized by the Ministry of Education, Open University of Sri Lanka and Dialog Telekom which saw more than 8000 students competing in 2006. He was Interviewed by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) at their Headquarters at the Bush House in London in 2006 November, during the tour highlighting the contribution he has made as a young student by then.

He has also worked as a Team Leader/Mentor of Marketing Team and the Marketing Assistant Trainer for the Education UK International Career Guidance Exhibition held at the Colombo Hilton organised by British Council in Sri Lanka in 2009 while also assisting British Council in training new student helpers by being as an active part of the workshop conductors committee and by sharing the own experience as a student helper in previous Education UK Exhibitions. Furthermore he has worked as Marketing Assistant for Education UK International Career Guidance Exhibition held at the Colombo Hilton organized by British Council in Sri Lanka in 2008.

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HIS WORK WITH ROTARACT

Revived President 2010/11 and the Immediate Past President of Rotaract Club of Colombo North,

R.I. District 3220 – Sri Lanka

ROTARACT is a worldwide organization made up of hundreds of thousands of innovative, community-minded young professional and student volunteers aged between 18 and 30 years old.     

The Rotaract club of Colombo North was charted in 1992 under the sponsorship of the Rotary club of Colombo North. The club has been revived in year 2010 and he was privileged to lead this group making a new era with the theme of “CONNECTING YOUTH – MAKING A DIFFERENCE” and his vision was to work towards 5 key target areas, as follows;

  1. Creating opportunities for the club members to develop themselves professionally so that they are geared to take up responsibilities and work in a progressive manner
  2. Reaching out to grass-root level communities to spread the message of Rotaract and explore ways in which we could support, serve and work along with the communities as a part of Rotary family
  3. Initiating new pathways of opportunities for young people in general and to enable creating a platform for them to showcase their skills, talents and abilities
  4. Interacting with International Community, especially young people as well as professional networks, to expand international understanding on a larger scale
  5. Identifying commonly agreeable Regional, National and International issues affecting us as young change-makers and address those issues by contributing towards making a positive, equitable, sustainable change in our communities and the world as a whole

-         Won the Most outstanding Club of the year 2010/11 in revived category for the first time in 20 years of Club history.

-         Received the Special Rotary award for “Outstanding Performance” in year 2010/2011 as the revived President of the Rotaract Club of Colombo North

-         Received R.I. District 3220 citation and the Rotary International President’s citation for year 2010/2011

——-

During his presidency, Rotaract club of Colombo North signed two twinning agreements with following clubs in order to promote world understanding and increase knowledge between nations.

  1. Rotaract club of Bangalore (Rotary International District 3190)
  2. Rotaract club of Lahore (Rotary International District 3272)
  • The Rotaract club of Bangalore (Rotary International District 3190) won the Best Club Bulletin Award for the YUVA International bulletin which was a joint project of Rotaract Club of Colombo North and Rotaract club of Bangalore
  • The Rotaract club of Lahore (Rotary International District 3272) won the Best International Services Project Award for CHAIN OF PEACE, a multi district joint project with the Rotaract Club of Colombo North and another 6 international clubs.

  “Rising from the ashes – Glimpses of Our Journey” – Youtube Link-  http://youtu.be/F22ZgvCJc9g

He served as the Director – International Services  in Rotaract  Sri Lanka in Rotary year 2011/12 and currently serving as the Rotary Coordinator of his Rotaract Club. 

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