'Education is our countries' greatest defense spending against war and terror'

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Sarah Abushaar delivers a speech during the World Youth Forum

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Sarah Abushaar, a politician and social activist in education, youth and women from Kuwait, delivered a speech during the World Youth Forum; a major event that took place recently in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in presence of Egyptian President Abdulfatah Al-Sisi and other senior officials. The following is a transcript of the speech:

"Mr President, Presidents with us, Members of Parliament, Honorable Ministers, fellow youth of the World Youth Forum.

"At the outset, I want to congratulate you Mr President and the youth of Egypt for what has been an incredible initiative for global youth. It's the first time that I've seen a President dedicate full time and focus to a forum on youth, sitting through every session, taking notes and engaging us in a real dialogue. That shows me as a young person that our voices matter and our issues matter. So I thank you.

"I'd also like to thank Loyac-Kuwait, a regional youth empowerment platform, for nominating me to take part in this powerful experience with you all. I've been energized and inspired by the sense of purpose I've found here among young people from all around the world. I am Sarah Abushaar and it is my great honor to be speaking with you all.

"I want to start with a story. As a 7-year-old, I found myself standing in front of a tall, suited man, looking up at the towering structure that stood before me. I did not really understand what this man did, but I was told he was the president of a very powerful country.

"This did not really make a lot of sense to the 7-year-old version of me, but what I was very concerned about was how the power center of the earth had moved away from me and toward him as everyone focused their attention on him. He looked at me and he said: 'Young lady, what would you like to be when you grow up?' 'President of the United States of America!' I declared. It turns out I was speaking to President George Bush Senior.

"Now, I had no idea what I meant, of course, nor did I know then that I would end up interning at the White House several years later for some months. All I knew as a 7-year-old was that the job looked like it was working great for him. President Bush responded: 'Well, young lady, if I'm alive then, you have my vote when you run.'

"The details of that moment have long faded, but I know that that story, that response, replaying itself in my mind, empowered in me a sense of possibility to think big and dream big, not confined by constraint, that even as a young girl, I, too, could be him.

"As I grew older and became increasingly conscious of the realities of my surrounding world, its conflict and its challenges, that childhood aspiration, that thoughtless response grew into a more concrete and grounded desire to take part in changing my world, in shaping its future.

"And I remember speaking with my grandmother about my growing aims to join government and work on political progress and peace. And her response was slightly different-she said, 'Allah yustur, la'eelik 7ilim tanee.' Basically, 'God forbid. Find yourself another dream, better not you end up in trouble for your big dreams.' And I think that so many of us young people have some version of my grandmother and hear some version of this language of the impossible. We are told to dream a little smaller to fit our contexts. But we tell young people to dream a little smaller not just directly, but in their opportunities, where many don't have the ability to even see the possibilities in the first place.

"As the news grabs our attention with headlines of 'oil' and 'turmoil', we lose sight of what is far more decisive to determining our prosperity and our peace. Our youth, not our oil, are our greatest power reserves, if we can unlock its potential. Our education, as young people, is our countries' greatest defense spending against war and terror if we invest what we waste on war and weapons today across our countries in empowering the problem-solvers and the peace-builders of the future.

"As I look within my life at what had had been most transformative for me-I had the opportunity to gain a strong education in Kuwait where I grew up which, in turn, enabled my education at Harvard and which empowered my desire to take part in building up my world and to drive this possibility for so many other young people.

"Beyond education, the other critical piece is empowerment and a voice-so many young people across the world today are eager to participate in building up their countries, in shaping their futures... I am among them as I know that many of you young people here today are, but this desire finds itself at odds with an environment where the opportunity for young people to participate is often limited.

"Very often I find myself in conferences on youth and yet the youngest person representing the voice of youth is 57 or 60 years old. And yes he was a youth -- 30 years ago. We need to create the space for young people to participate in a future they are very much at the heart of, to take part in building a world that we will live.

"And that brings me to an important point-I was truly delighted to see at the start of this forum discussions on empowering young people with disabilities. To capture the potential that young people represent, we must also capture and engage the diversity of our youth. If we are going to build a future that works for everyone, then we need everyone working on that future.

"When we are working on policies that affect people with disabilities, young people with disabilities have to be working on them. When we are speaking on questions or policies that affect women, young women need to be represented at the table working on them-people who are best positioned to understand the problems are in the best position to be working on the solutions. But driving progress cannot be the role of our governments alone. As young people we need to take the initiative and be the change where we can't see it.

"And recognize that there will be challenges but that change is not the work of a night; it is the constant commitment to a cause over the course of a life. Whatever you do, don't grow discouraged, don't grow disillusioned.

"Dream big. Believe in what you're working toward and work toward it every day, through challenge after challenge and failure after failure, persist and persevere and you will find that probabilities start to mean very little. Persist in what you believe in and work toward it every day."

During Abushaar's presentation, a video was played in which a young girl is heard saying: "Why should these innocent people be punished for praying to God in their own way? War has proven to us that all men bleed and that the blood is always red whatever the color of their skin... I have a dream, as Martin Luther King, once did, that one day, all of us humans are able to hold hands and unite and walk together as brothers and sisters."

Abushaar then commented on the video, saying: "That young girl and what she stood for is why I'm standing here. And from the Land of Peace, I insist and persist on my big dream of peace. Persist in what you believe in and work toward it every day. And as we do so, across our 163 countries, across our thousands of efforts, that amounts to something powerful."

"Persist in what you believe in. The world needs our big dreams. It needs our action," Abushaar concluded.