 Good morning. I've traveled with props. I always like to have props whenever I go to do a speech somewhere. So this is not ad hoc. I'm not just lugging around my handbag for the sake of it. This is actually some props. Okay. We were pleasantly surprised over and over and over again during our 10 years living in Asia and Africa. Oh, by we, I mean myself. I'm Nadia Manning Thomas. Hello. And also my husband, David Thomas, who I've left back in London. But I have to give him some credit as part of this story as well. And I'm happy to be here today in Warsaw at this youth session that's part of the Global Landscapes Forum to tell you my story, which is also the story of other young people. But actually, maybe it's to tell you more of my story, because if you happen to have read my blog piece that was on the blog before, I charted previous chapters of my River of Life. So hopefully many of you have read that already. So this is a continuation of my story. And if you haven't and you want to get the backstory, make sure you go to the website and read not only my blog piece, but also the blog pieces of a number of these speakers that was meant to tease you into coming to this event. So if I'm to sum up my story, a story of only 34 years, I've already put it out there, then it would be one characterized by changing course to keep with my River of Life theme. Changing course when needed, changing course when I saw the opportunity, and changing course when I wanted to do or achieve something better. But this changing of course along my River of Life has not at all been frivolous or ad hoc, but rather has been characterized by my goals, passions, and dreams, and supported by equipping myself with strong but diverse set of skills, knowledge, and experiences, and having the courage and belief in myself and in what I'm doing to make the changes when the time came. So after many twists and turns in my River of Life that took me from Barbados, which is where I'm from, to an archaeological dig as part of my studies in the middle of a drought in Tanzania, which influenced me to make a decision to pursue development studies instead of archaeology and to work in Namibia, to then realizing the need for good research, getting good knowledge to influence actions, to then throwing my efforts into finding and encouraging good knowledge sharing. I found myself most recently working on knowledge sharing to support agricultural research for development in the CGIR in Africa and Asia. During this time, we did an interesting project through one of the programs I worked on, looking at finding inspiring youth working within the agricultural sector. This was called Growing Talents, and we highlighted 10 youth with interesting roles in agriculture. And I'm really happy to see that one of our speakers today, Stephen Kovet, who we'll be speaking later, was one of our Growing Talents. And across all of these Growing Talents, there was one overarching theme, the way that all of these young people adapted to change, they adapted to their surroundings and made themselves into something different to adapt to their situations. And it was during this time, while stationed in Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, that my river was to change its course yet again. So back to my original story, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of materials, innovative design, and wonderful stories behind the many beautiful products that we encountered in various countries in Africa and Asia, countries most often known for poverty, degradation, war, and natural disasters. Both as shoppers ourselves, particularly me, more so than my husband, but also through our work in agricultural research and development and in business development and microfinance. We got to know a number of producers, many of them women, many of them young, and their good handmade and skilled processes. And we were exposed to the value chain from raw materials to production to market that they were all part of with its great challenges and opportunities. Our pleasant surprise turned into passion, which was soon followed up, luckily, with market research, writing of a business plan with many iterations and consulting others, to finding investment, asking friends and family to support our idea, and the development of an initial set of supply chains. And soon, a business and a brand were born, Danica, which means to be pleasantly surprised, a derivative from a word in an Ethiopian language. Danica is a business focused on ethically produced personal and household accessories, some examples here, which are retailed through a boutique in the trendy Portobello Road in Notting Hill area in London, an online shop and also through other businesses. Danica Will's Chic, our longer name, combines a unique commercial approach to sustainable development that links quality products made in developing countries with customers, particularly in Europe, but also increasingly further afield. Drawing customers in with luxury products with simply striking designs, the Danica brand offers an opportunity for others also to be pleasantly surprised by the intriguing stories of where and how the products were made, which accompany every piece in the Danica ranges. Our brand is built on a foundation of three things, ethical principles, quality and design and fair prices. Firstly, ethical principles run throughout the whole of the Danica business, from products to services to overall design. For example, our logo and branding were designed by a young Tamil artist in Sri Lanka. Danica works with small scale, mostly women led enterprises in developing countries that take pride in raw materials and their own processing skills, providing them with fair payments and ongoing supportive relationships. Quality and design of Danica products comes from using good and locally important raw materials and inputs. Strong craftsmanship and creative design to produce beautiful and functional pieces. Quality inputs like leather, so I brought a couple of examples here, silver and silk are backbone of every product, which makes them beautiful, strong and supportive of local industries. Our leather items, for example, play a key role in the Ethiopian context with its heavy reliance on agriculture and 85% of the population involved in agriculture, but with small markets and industries for making use of the byproducts, for example, from cattle and sheep, which is leather. Striking unique design elements using iconic cultural artifacts help to distinguish our products. And finally, fair prices to both the producers and customers allow us to achieve the ethical principles, high quality and design, while making products accessible and keeping the business sustainable. Supporting these three key elements is our attentiveness to innovation, trends and user experience, which helps to continuously shape and strengthen the brand. We work very closely with our suppliers, all of whom are women led enterprises and some of whom are also young people trying to manage resource responsible and ethically principled production processes. We support them in their efforts by embracing their ideas, especially around design and new products, but also through mentoring, especially on business matters. Take Heimannut and Tagist, for example, two young Ethiopian twins who, after a rough start in life, run their own business, sourcing local beads, leather and woven cotton, which they make into some of the most striking jewelry you have ever seen. Their talent and vision are matched by their passion and dedication to their own business. Danica sources jewelry from them, which provides them with an international outlet for their products, broadens the reach of their business, and creates reputational value for them and for Ethiopia. Many people are pleasantly surprised when they come into our shop and see a piece of jewelry and say, yes, that was made in Ethiopia. Now they run their own shop in Addis Ababa with their business on track to offer further employment opportunities for other young people, but already creates a positive role model. Through Danica, we are trying to do our part to support sustainable environmental and economic development in a climate changing world. We saw a need and decided to adapt our skills, our ideas and our way of working to it. We changed our course to follow this. So as the global landscape forum and COP 19 continue, I see an overarching theme of change and adaptation, making changes in community, making changes in practices and changing knowledge. In my river of life, there's also been an overarching theme of change. In my experience for the changes to be positive, for my change to have been good, I've relied on three things. Being equipped with strong but diverse skills, knowledge and experiences, or being prepared to get the right ones when necessary. Being open to opportunities and being creative and flexible in addressing challenges and obstacles. And finally, being brave and confident enough and having the convictions to make the changes in course that have been required or desired. And when we go to business meetings, trade fairs, even London fashion week, or to meet the Ethiopian ambassador or trade ministers, they are pleasantly surprised to see that it is young people that are behind the face of Danica. So I hope you were pleasantly surprised by my story. And as a final word, we've created a promotional code. So anybody who's interested in sourcing any of our products can go onto our website at www.danica.com. And if you put into the discount box, COP 19, all in small letters, we're offering a discount on all of our beautiful products. Thank you very much.