 So, hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. We do have a participant from all over the world and I would like to welcome all of you to our IWA get together, focus on how to create an IWA Young Water Professional Chapter. My name is Isabelle Spingula. I'm the membership engagement senior officer responsible for the Young Water Professional Community. And we do have an amazing thing here today that are going to explain a little bit about the chapter community and how you can create and maintain your chapter alive. But before we jump to the presentations, I do have some information that I would like to share with all of you. So this event is going to be recorded, as you already noticed, and it's going to be available on demand with the presentation slides and other relevant information that our speakers provided. All the speakers that are presenting here, they're responsible for securing copyright permissions and all their opinions, hypotheses, conclusions and recommendations are there, so responsibility. Also, please feel free to post your questions in the chat. Also use this function to introduce yourself saying where you're from. If you're part of a chapter, if you're already part of the IWA, YWP Community, but I will kindly ask that you move yourself because you're not a speaker. So we can have all the speakers on camera and you don't need to share your screen and hands, hands, everything's going to be with us on this. So I do hope that you enjoy our events, our online event today. So, besides me as your moderator, we also have Chen Li and Shotaro Goto. Both of them are members of the Young Water Professionals Disturbing Committee, and they are responsible for the country chapters, to be committee coordination. So they are helping the IWA Secretariat in terms of understanding more about the needs from the chapters and how we can grow and connect this community that we have. And in terms of our amazing panelists, we have Anya Ailes from the South African chapter. Jacob Amengar, he's the chair of the YWP steering committee. And we also have Mohamed Anikazan, he's the chair of the YWP Paxton chapter. So our agenda, this is what we prepared today, we split this event in four parts. So really quickly this is the opening part that we are now. Then Jacob and me, we are going to present about the IWA and its Young Water Professional Community. Part three, we'll be focused on the country chapters, experiences and membership engagement. And then we have examples from Paxton, South Africa, China and Japan. And then we will have a part of discussion and conclusion. And finally, closing remarks and some updates that we have from the Secretary yet. Jacob, I hope that you're ready. Yes. Perfect. Just let me know when you want me to move your slides. Okay, next slide. Thank you very much. So the International Water Association is an association with a 70 year heritage in bringing together professionals from about 130 countries. And it serves as a international reference and source for knowledge and sustainable water solutions and support global community to pursue their ambitions and relations to the water related SDGs. There's also a catalyst for innovation, bridge and best practices for the sector, external organization and opinion leaders and provides experience and leadership in transitioning to sustainable water solutions. So the IWA runs a five year strategic cycle. And the current strategy cycle is from 2019 to 2024, which five goals. The first one is against membership. So the IWA will have an engagement membership that is globally representative of the multiple segments, actors and practice areas of the water sector. The second agenda is source for leading edge water knowledge. That is, the IWA will have strengthened its position as an authoritative source and global reference point for water knowledge, addressing and informing on emerging potentially disruptive trends within the sector and the wider world. The third one is a space for professionals to exchange water knowledge. That is the IWA have provided a broad range of professional content and programming that is relevant and widely valued by the water sector. The fourth one is a bridge between research and practice where the IWA is playing a pivotal role in bridging the gap between research and practice to accelerate the development and diffusion of innovation in the global water sector. And finally have a support to implement the SDGs. So the IWA supports and promotes sustainable development goals and strengthen the sector through professional and capacity development so that people and countries can pursue their ambitions with relation to the water related SDGs. Next slide. So engagement within the IWA comes in various stages. So when you start with the publications, the partnerships, you participate in IWA activities and online reading. Then from there you move on to engagement, participating in events, presenting at conferences, chairing some of these workshops, and becoming a member during the IWA communities. Then you move on to contribute. So you contribute to Proposals, new outputs of the IWA community, you write special content, book chapters, blogs, you organize IWA events, you're able to propose workshops, webinars. You do peer-to-peer leadership exchange. Then you move on to lead where you become an IWA thought leader or influencer. It can be part of the distinguished fellows or fellows community. So the management members of the specialist groups, then the YWP chairing community, and the YWP chapters. So you present IWP nationally or you join the congresses program committee. Or there is the IWA strategic council too. Yeah. So the network members can start with their start and engagement stages or the members are able to go on to contribute and lead. So currently the IWA has other communities, and these include the governing members, which are the organizations which represent the water professionals in the country, and their mission is to leverage IWA at the national level. So they are about 53 governing members, and they have the national meeting, the governing, they partake in the governing assembly meeting, and they also overlook the national IWP conferences. Then we have the Young Water Professionals community. That is for Young Water Professionals that are below the age of 35. And they are five regional YWP conferences that are organized. They are four to six international events. We have the distinguished fellows in the fellows community. They are about 53 distinguished fellows in IWP, and they are about 201 fellows. So they lead IWP member meetings and offer mentorship to the Young Water Professionals. Yes, the IWP believes in Young Water Professionals as one of the groups of people who can really impact the water sector. They give them the opportunity for their voices to be heard. And the vision for this is to develop a strong branded network that is highly valued and rated by the wider water sector. One that is actively engaged and empowered to contribute to the water sector solution. And the mission for the Young Water Professionals is empowerment of Young Water Professionals to contribute to sustainable water management, which is IWP is by connecting them, providing them with professional development opportunities, engagement and recognition. So the Young Water Professionals has a 13 member steering committee. We have all across the world. We have Ashton Impofu from South Africa, who is the vice chair. We have Ines Breda from Denmark, who is the secretary. We have Ludmila Odod from Ukraine and Satin Juma from Congo, who are responsible for the events and communications subcommittee. We have the, we have Cordia Prane and Kolb Nam, who are responsible for the specialist groups. We have Dilan Gokul and Agastin Landaburu from, who are also responsible for the strategic advisory group. Then we have Chelsea Hayward and Yang Vela, who are responsible for the career building group. We have Kean Lee and Shotaro Goto, who are responsible for the chapter coordination subcommittee. So the IWP steering committee represents and leads the IWP, IWP community. They provide advice to the IWP about IWP perspectives for the sector and the association strategy. It also encourages and enhances ways to lead the new generation of water leaders and support professional development of the IWP. So they are IWP chapters across the globe. And you can see from the map that they are scattered all over, thanks to all of you. Next slide. Yes, so when you go to the IWP Connect Plus, which is the platform that has all the community units for IWP, you go to the community section. Then you go to the Young Water Professional section. You are able to have an overview of all the country chapters that are available. So you just find your country chapter and you join. Then you can engage in some of the discussions that go on here. Yes. So for you to be able to have the best experience on Connect Plus, when you go to your profile, you go to the Edit Your Profile, then you will have to switch on these opt-ins so that you can receive the notification of what is going on on the platform. Without that, you will be in the dark as to the kind of interaction on engagement that is going on within the platform. So make sure that you go to your profile, you update your profile, you switch on all these notifications or opt-ins so that you can receive all the information that is going on on the platform in real time. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, yeah. There are several opportunities for you as a YWP member. So they are the YWP chapters and the government member committees that you can join and participate in. We are also able to, as I mentioned, the Connect Plus, join the YWP professional group on the Connect Plus, which gives you exclusive access to a monthly recommended professional development readings. We have the YWP steering committee and subcommittees on communication events and YWP chapters that you can join and also contribute to how we shape the future of a YWP community. Then we have the organizing committees of events, including the conferences, the workshop, the webinars. We are able to participate in all these and we have the connection with senior professionals. The community has a range of senior professionals from different backgrounds that gives you the opportunity to learn from them and also build your own professional career. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob, for presenting the International Water Association as well as the YWP community that you're the chair of the steering committee. So I will try as much as possible to present quickly, really quickly this process of creating a chapter, a counter chapter. And then we will jump with the presentation from the chapter so they can share their, their experience with this process on this. So, some of you might be asking what is a YWP chapter. It is a voluntary network of young water professionals and with a minimum of three members on its steering committee being an IWA member. So to become an IWA Brenda chapter, you must have go through this branding process. And with this branding process, you will create a network that is able to enable regional, national and local activities and it's connected with IWA and also to the other chapters that we already have. So it's an opportunity of engagement, but also inclusion of a more diverse network. And the main objective of the chapter is to attract, serve and connect with other members from IWA enhancing this international YWP community that we already have. So the rationality between starting a chapter and creating the chapter is to increase the IWA engagement locally and create a structure that is able to have better responses to specific needs of a country of a region. And then why we have an YWP chapter, so for individuals and for countries. So for individuals, you can write the agenda, you can gain skills, you can use this platform to connect with other members, you can recognize and engage with government members and other members in regional and international spheres. You can support your country sector, the water sector they have in your country, to develop next generation of water leaders. You can work together towards this empowerment of YWP professionals. And you can reach this gap that we have between a YWP professional and a senior professional. So the country chapters they help us to attract and retain YWP professionals to the sector, they connect YWP professionals, they help to create opportunities for professional development and leadership development. And they help to increase the profile and the recognition of YWP professionals that are engaged within the network. And what is needed to establish a country chapter, so motivation, definitely ideas, teamwork, support, time and enthusiasm. As I mentioned, a country chapter is a volunteer group. So we need all this, these aspects, these requirements in terms of having and forming a country chapter. So if you are interested and think about so should I create a chapter, should I find other YWP professionals in my country, my region to start a chapter. These are the main steps that we have to create a chapter. First of all, first of it, so do you have already like an inter-set group of YWP professionals that when to join you in this, in this path, if yes, you can contact me, and then I will put in contact with the WI government member in a country, and then you will develop with all these documents that we needed, a lot of paperwork in terms of creating. If we don't have a gem in our country, then I will put in contact with this case, Tian and Shotaro, so they will also help us to create the chapter. And in case you don't have a group, but you're really keen to create a chapter, you can organize an event with our peers in our region, in our country to start gathering their interest in creating the chapter. Another option is that you can always reach out to me, to the WI secretariat, and then we will try to put in contact with other members that we already have in our country. So going to the step by step, first you need to develop basic ideas and reach out to the government member to start working in a proposal. So in this proposal, you have to add information, why it is important to have the chapter in your country, what are the advantages, the objectives of having a new chapter there. As soon as you have this ready and approved by your GM, you can send it to me, I'm going to reveal, and then I will provide feedback. And we will work on this document. When you have the proposal ready, you should starting ideas in terms of a work plan and how you will engage your young water professionals within IWA structure. The third step is once the proposal is approved, you should start working on this constitution and submit it to us. So in the constitution, you're going to inform us about your proposal committee, how is the election going to work, how many meetings you're having from early, and the general activities that your country needed. And we finished the constitution and we go to this work plan. The work plan should fit all the planning activities that you have for our chapter. And then you have to submit it for us. Once we have all the three documents, so work plan, constitution and proposal ready. I'm going to create an agreement and send it to the chapter members for the church to sign it as well as the GM. So this process usually takes for four to six months, and it all depends on the interest and how fast the young water professionals are in terms of developing and writing down all the street documents. Once the chapter is approved, I'm going to create the logos, I'm going to create the page on Connect Plus, and the chapter is invited to update all the information on Connect Plus so they can share updates about events, documents and engage with other young water professionals that are keen to be part of the chapter. I told you that was really quickly because I really want to highlight the examples from chapters that passage with all this process that I mentioned, so they can provide some insights on that. Hello everyone. Good morning, good evening, good day, wherever you are joining and I really hope that you are having a great day or you had a great day. My name is Anik Azam and I am the country chair and founder for the International Water Association Young Water Professionals Pakistan chapter. And let us talk you through how has the journey been for me and my team when we were there to create a chapter. Can we move on to the next slide. I will be going briefly with how did we start. I'll try to set the scene up a bit. I'll try to explain the committees and the rationale that we that we had initially in mind to set up those committees, and then the organizational structure. And then of course, making the first team is very important because these are the people who were going to be the launchpad of your chapter. And then the system and finally, it's the process that you have to enjoy the most. Without me I lecture at public university in Pakistan I'm a PhD scholar and a researcher in atmospheric water generation, which is a decentralized killer Bay of getting portable water. So yeah you can count me in as a young water professional for sure. Next slide please. So how did we start so interestingly it was it was three eyes for us. One was the ideation, the ideation process is usually easy it all starts with just looking at the website looking at other people doing some great work or, for example joining this meeting. So, of course things don't happen overnight so we have to ideated and we should be you know planning to publish the ideas that we have. So you have to find one inspiration that is going to you know get you pumped up all pumped up and you have to go out in the world and be ready to yes I'm going to write this document yes I am. I'm willing to do it. So for for for me and for us it was the Ecuador chapter which was the latest one that was formed. So I was just going through the blog of international water associations website and I just found out okay these are some great initiatives that are being taken and if equity organ have in chapter why can't we have a chapter right now. And then you all you have to do is just send an email and then the third I comes in which is the National Water Association secretariat. And we have a national water association and we have Isabella in there and she is always there to rescue us so you just write down an email and then there is an exchange of emails and exchange of documents so that you can get a good clarity on why you want to form a chapter. And believe me this is a process that makes you learn the most even before you have started a chapter. Okay so this is something that you will this this whole picture is something that you'll find in the official documents of how to prepare the proposal. So I'm not going to go in depth over it but these are some of the key points that I that just came into my mind when I was prepping for this presentation. The first thing that you have to go is to go through the literature of the form formation of the chapter. I do not try to skip pages because of course who got time for that when you're all motivated, but that's the time to hold your horses and just try to think about at think deeply in the long term how are you going to make your chapter sustainable. You have to identify the gap whether it is going to be a chapter starting from scratch upwards such as us or is it going to be a chapter already in existence for which you need a brand name. Yeah, you are going to make country chapter and there is no chapter with one single person in it so just go out there talk to people, tell them about it and don't worry no one is going to to steal the idea from you you're the first person to pitch it so of course do not worry about that. Talk to the people and get them on board, listen to what their interests are convince negotiate and reform, and you have the first few the next slide. So for the committees you really have to foresee what you want from your chapter in Pakistan, we have one of the world's youngest pop population with around 68% people who are who are young. So there is a lot of population who is in the university so a good way is to start with the universities and we have had a very good history of wealth tablets chapters of many other think tanks and other networking bodies in the universities. So this was the reason that we had to keep the university campus chapters in our structure. So we have a steering committee in which we have the four members who are the country officers and then we have the other six members who are the country committee members both of these from the country committee, and this country and both of these committees work together to form the steering committee the steering committee is responsible for all the decisions that take place for all the activities that is going on and it's also accountable for all the, for all the numbers that you are getting at the end of the year or at the end of every four months. And then we have a unique philosophy with us called the philosophy of a boat drawer, a manji, as we say it in a local language. So we have a pool of monkeys and a pool of advisory committee where we have the people who are no more young or who have been in the steering committee and are out of the steering committee and there are new people taking up so they always need some advice, and we have the membership pool so all of these work in harmony to form a chapter in Pakistan. Next slide please. The organizational structure. Okay, so this is one thing that that I'm very proud of when it always comes up and I'm, and I'm flaunting up over here in this in the slightest bill so it. This is something that helped us find which part is going under which jurisdiction. So we somehow found out okay so we need some money to run the chapter how is that going to happen since we are starting from scratch up who are going to be in process to sponsor us who is going to talk to the sponsors who is going to talk to the secretariat, who will be talking to the university campuses. So all of this is you know summarize in this one picture and whenever there's a problem that is coming up, we are just taking out our basic documentation and telling okay this is the thing that I have to do and this is the thing that you have to do the next slide please. So this is how the first team looks like and the arrows are actually me and other people are reaching out to us. So first it was me and then I brought in another three people with with me and so there was there's always going to be one person in your team who is going to be extra vocal and he's going to or he or she is going to spread out the word for all of the people out there. There was one person two person and this started gathering people and so we made our team we found out the interests of the people. And we gave them those particular roles. We also initiated an open call on our social media pages and I cannot be more surprised and excited to see the response of the people. You just need to you just need to get out and tell the people that this is what what we're doing. Are you interested to join us and then wait for the results to pour in and the good news is that there will be results. And then this phase ends when we are trying to pull the people in there are instances and then there are phases where the people approach us to be pulled in to be in the managing positions. This is just a just a snapshot of how my team have a beautiful amazing team looks like the next slide please. Systems are very important for any any network of people to run and since you are making a chapter, you should be prepared and ready to have many people with many different backgrounds, engineering, technology, social sciences, law, governance on board with you. So just try to be open with all of these inputs and ideas. Of course, you are not picking a chapter to work in a silo. You're making a chapter to increase the talk of water to attain the SDG in your own country to make the voice of young water professionals counted. So beat and so it is very important to document the things down the line so that if there is a change if there is a shift of motivation. So the next person coming in doesn't have to do all it again, and they have sufficient time to to read the documents and start where it was left at. You have to be transparent and vocal, because you are you will be the founding committees and you should be very much clear about what you want to achieve and you have to be transparent about it. You should let the people know what they're expected to do and the outcomes the wish expectation management is an important task when you are in a leading position. So you want them that you want to want them to be at the end of their tenure and what you want the chapter to be at the end of your tenure. The next slide. And you have to enjoy the process of course and do not do not delve much deeper into the documentation. There are amazing people in the sect secretariat who are there for you to help you out they will give you feedbacks incorporate those feedbacks into the process network and preach to the network and attach yourself to a cause make up your own philosophy. And then there is no compromising once you have initiated a system because if you as the governing. Sorry, if you as the founding members will compromise on any system then you do not expect any other person to follow it religiously. So, except unsolicited unsolicited reviews and always be responsive to the people. Finally, go and start a chapter. That's what it is. The next slide. You can follow us on on many of the socials, because there are a lot of them so there's a link tree for for for those socials and here's a QR code for our yearly report. So you can see how we ran our chapter for the past year, the affiliate new chapter it's been a year and it's been an amazing year. Thank you. Thank you Nick for your amazing presentation. I would like to invite ania. Are you ready to present some of the information about the self African chapter. Yes, I am. Hi everyone. Sorry, my camera's at the bottom of my laptop which always confuses me. And thank you so much for that presentation from Pakistan chapter. So let's start a chapter I think I was going to be slightly different. I was going to be how do you keep a wide up a chapter going. And so you can go to the next slide Isabella. Thank you. So we've been around in South Africa for a long time we actually started in 2008 we were one of the first I were chapters to form in the countries. In 2008 I was 16 and I definitely was not thinking about whether I was going to be a water professional or join a professional body one day so I can't say exactly how they started it. But I know that the people that did start it are all really big names in the water sector and yeah there's been a really great kind of flow of wide WPs we've been in the committee and I've gone on to do really successful things in their careers. Currently on our eighth term as a committee, each term runs for two years, our previous committee was chaired by Ashton session on the vice lead for the Iowa emerging leaders committee. So yeah, got some really close links there. And we also have a long history in the national international water sector. I've put two parent organizations there because we do actually report to organizations. We have Iowa who represents our international, our links to the international community. And then also report to the water Institute of Southern Africa, which is the official body in South Africa so we do a lot of, we do a lot of work with both those organizations. Please. Thanks. So I just want to run through some of the things that I think I've kept our chapter going all these years. And what I think would be really useful to empower other chapters. And then I also run through some of the lessons we've learned and how you can keep a chapter active and alive. Because it does always need to be innovation and rethinking things otherwise it will eventually die out. So I'm going to take you a week call the three value ads of YWP. And before I start I just want to say, you've always got to think what will bring value to the people on your committee so bring value to people who serve on the committee as well as YWPs in your country. And that's something you should really reassess on an annual basis, you know, are we giving them what they want? Are we providing the necessary skills? Are we, you know, supporting them in the sector in the country? So constantly question the value ad and then based on that these are kind of the six value ads that we came out with. Next slide please. Okay, so the first one, which is probably the most important one is the buy annual conferences. So that's been YWP is really the kind of central event and action since 2010. So our first conference was Holden Chuane and attracted over 330 delegates. It was pretty impressive for the first YWP conference. And since then we've tried to host one every two years. You saw the photo earlier on from Jacob, we had the 2017 International Iowa YWP conference in Cape Town, which is really exciting. And we had our last conference in Durban in 2019. So this really attracts a huge amount of delegates. And it's where people get to know about Iowa and YWP. I, I found out about YWP attending the 2015 conference in Chuane. So I think as a committee, this is really something that we see brings a lot of value, not only to ourselves, also to our members and those in the country. You'll see we didn't have one in 2021. I'm going to be talking a little bit later about the impacts of COVID and what happened there but we are busy planning our next one for this year. Yeah, that's definitely our number one value adds. Next slide please. Our second value adds is the focus on our provincial and national committees. So we're a very large committee, I know that not all YWP branches are like this, but we have our national committee, which consists of various roles including lead, bias lead, marketing lead, finance lead and coordination lead, but sitting up on our national committee we also have the provincial leads. So a big focus of YWP in South Africa is to really grow the provinces and each of the provinces have their own committees that follow the same structure as the national committee. And it depends year by year at the moment we have with the arrows are shown in blue. Those are the provinces that I have active YWP chapters and it changes based on where people want to start it up and whether there's enthusiasm but those provinces that I've shown there have kind of been the ones that have really been going strong since 2008 and I've always had activities going. So I think that is a really big value and for us is being able to do activities on the ground and to also then give more leadership opportunities to the provinces. So instead of just having a national committee, we also then have opportunities to grow the provincial committees where people can get opportunities to practice their leadership skills and finance skills etc. So really would recommend trying to transform your chapter into one where it focuses also on the provinces or on a local level. Okay, so our third value and I put these two together have two slides but as you know a really our focus on personal and technical development. And this again links back to a strong focus that we have on on the provincial teams and the work that they do. So up until 2020. Most of our activities actually happened in person in the different provinces for the national committee was actually really just supporting the provincial committees to roll out their actions only when COVID hits and everything moved online that we started moving towards more of a national side. But this was just an example of some of the kind of personal development activities that we've offered over the years. Career fairs have been a really big thing, both at universities and high schools. And that's been a, we've tried to do that and it's really helped also kind of grow the water sector. So just how to saw yourself, how to develop a CV, another program that we started in partnership with GreenMatter and a few other, a few other companies was in Belize, which is the environmental programs are encouraging development and, you know, fostering environmental careers in the country. So, in the same line with that, our focus is both on the technical development side but also, sorry, personal development side which I just showed, but also the technical development side so a big focus of ours has always been doing technical tours to waste for the treatment plants, water treatment works. We actually last, was it last year, the year before we did a hike up Table Mountain, do a look at the dams, that's the use of supply water to the city of Cape Town and hear about the history of water supply in the city of Cape Town. So anything that allows you to go out and actually see, you know, on the ground what, what the situation is and that's been really, really valuable for our YWPs. So a lot of YWPs sitting in the office and won't always get to see, you know, watering actions so I'll kind of our technical tours and our hikes and whatever we do has been really important. We also then, in terms of technical development cover I want to say the softer technical side so, you know, encouraging YWPs to look at sustainability goals and this example I gave here on the right at the WISA conference was a group of engineers, who had never heard about the STGs or weren't interested in them. And it was actually a really great opportunity to also bring that technical kind of expertise inside out to a very technical group and show them know the importance of sustainable development. Okay, so our fourth value and is on creating a community and network. So a lot of photos from all of our provinces again, we, we don't keep it too serious we also have fun. We sometimes get together and don't even talk about water and just get to know each other. There at the bottom you'll see Ashton and myself, and Lloyd who was chair of the 2019 Iowa conference in Cape Town. We all based in Cape Town so that was just, that was us just getting together for a drink when you need to catch up. So we really put a big focus on ensuring that one of you feel like they're part of a community and part of a network. We have a very active social media page we have a very active LinkedIn page. And we, you know, put out regular publications with the WASA magazine just the water and sanitation magazine of WISA, and we really encourage in person meeting whether it's for, you know, to discuss water related aspects of just to get to know each other. So the photo on the top left was, they did a tour to a brewery, looking at the use of waste or the use of water for beer making, and then they finished that off with a social event. I really, really want to create a community and space where people can feel like friends and family, and Ashton actually got me into the habit of, of starting my emails with DIY WP family, just to kind of highlight the importance that we're not just colleagues we're not just working together we're actually a very strong net family and network. Anya, sorry, your time's up. Okay. Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry. Sorry, go on. Okay, giving back to the community I won't. I'm going to detail I'll go on to the way forward section. Lessons learned. We had a really presented with a really interesting time during COVID that we didn't need to rethink how we ran wide open how it looked like. And so I think, you know, we really realized then that there is important to have in person collaboration and networking and that we needed to grow our provincial chapters. We also realized that just because our organization had been around for a very long time. It didn't mean that we all always had the same shared vision and aim and it was really important for us as a committee to kind of start from the bottom again and say, Why are we here? What do we actually want to achieve what are our focus areas of change so just because you've been around for a long time doesn't mean that you, you shouldn't start thinking of it from the start. And then finally, just the need to empower a new generation of leaders so my committee that I am part of now we're brand new committee very few people actually know about Iowa and why WP. And that was because we didn't manage to bring a lot of the old committee over so it's really important while you're in your committee to really start empowering the next generation of leaders who will take over. I'm from your Iowa wide open committee. Okay. Next slide. I think that's it for me. Thank you, Anya. So, once we had this overview about the process of creating a chapter and also maintaining the chapter. I would like to invite Chen Li to present some of the examples that we have for membership engagement with the China chapter. Thank you, Isabella. My name is Chen Li, one of the members of IWA by WP steering committee and also vice chair of China chapter. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about the membership engagement and give some examples from China chapter. So next. So, first of all, I would like to start with how the China chapter starts. You can see this photo. It was taken in 2012. Yeah, 11 years ago in Nanjing, you can see the man in the middle of the photo. He's our first chair, the first chair of China chapter. At that time, he wanted to create an influential platform for the young people in China. Then he contacted with the regional director of Greater China region of IWA, Dr. Tully. And he just talked with Tully and talked his idea about to create IWA branded chapter. And he got great support from Tully. Then he invited another 10 people to be the management committee. They have a meeting to discuss the goals and the work plan of China chapter. Then after that meeting, they took this memorable photo. From that time, they are committed to creating a network for young water professionals to exchange water knowledge nationally and internationally and build bridge among young people from academia and industry and stimulating professional growth of young water professionals. Okay, next. Then after 11 years growth of China chapter, the member has increased from 11 members to 170. Every year, we recruit 20 to 40 new members to maintain membership of around 170. Every year, we receive more than 50 applications. So it's a big challenge for us to determine who will be more qualified because we think they are all very excellent. Of course, we encourage the female and the members from industry to join us in China chapter. 30% of the members are female and 13 members are from industry. Okay, please next slide. Okay, you can see this is the overview of the management committee 2022 to 2024. We work in different working groups and that's responsible responsibility for each event, each activity, and we meet each other online two to four weeks and to have our regular meeting to discuss the recent work plan to ensure, okay, everything is running smoothly. Then I will share some influential activities we held in recent years. So the first one that we do believe is a very important one is our annual meeting. We started our annual meeting from 2013 and we have successfully held nine times last year. It marks our 10th year anniversary, but unfortunately, you know, due to the COVID, we had to host this annual meeting online. But it's also a chance for us to invite the IWA Executive Director Kala and our Chair of IWA by WP, the committee, Jacob, to join us and give us an opening address to celebrate our anniversary at that meeting. And we also invite some top experts in China, including the former chair and vice chair of China chapter to deliver one to four speeches with the title of carbon emission reduction and young water professionals development. And the next one is the recent Star Award, powered by Capital EcoPro Group, initiated by our chapter in 2017. Until now, 48 young water professionals have received this award in recognition of their outstanding contributions to China's water sector. Now the nominations are open for the Rising Star Award 2023. This year, nine young water professionals will be awarded and the final winner will be announced during our annual meeting, will be held in Beijing this August. Okay, next. The next one is the YWP Seminar Series on Campers. As I mentioned, many of our former members has grown into the senior, outstanding senior water professionals. So we want to build a bridge between them and the young people, especially the master students and doctor students. So we initiate this activity from three years ago, and we have successfully organized in several universities. And for each seminar, we invite four or five senior water professionals to share their experience and engage with young students. Yeah, so I think it's a good way to strengthen the communication between senior and YWPs. Okay, next. Okay, this is the Industry Academia Corporation. We have organized four workshops to provide opportunities for the communication and collaboration among the members from both industry and academia to promote the closer integration of the industry and university research. The next one is the International Webinar on Content Sharing of the IWA World Congress in Copenhagen. We initiated this activity last year. You know, the IWA Congress was successfully held in Copenhagen last year, but due to the COVID, our Chinese member almost got no chance to attend in person. So we think maybe we can do something to enable them to know what happened in Copenhagen. So we contacted with an IWA board member, also he's a professor in my university. He got some video record from IWA and including the opening and closing ceremony and the keynote speech. And we worked together to edit these videos in proper form and add Chinese subtitles. Then we shared these videos with Chinese water professionals. And we organized a total of 10 webinars. All webinars are live streamed on 10 online channels and attracting more than 8,000 audience for each webinar. And I showed webinar seven. The theme is Uniting Use for Water. So I invite Jacob and Ines to join us because Ines is the keynote speaker of the plenary in Copenhagen. And Jacob is the moderator of the panel discussion. We invite them to join us and share the experience of people on the use engagement. And it has, I don't believe it has great impact in China's water sector. So we think if possible this year we would like to organize that kind of webinars to let more young water professionals to know what is happening in the global water sector. Okay, let's all what I want to share today. Thank you. Thank you, Tian for your presentation about the YWP China chapter. So without further delay, I will hand over to Shotaro. He will be explaining about some of the examples of membership engagement in the Japan chapter. Shotaro. Okay, thank you very much for Isabella to introducing me. And hello everyone, my name is Shotaro Goto from Japan chapter member. And as well as the bombs IWC telling committee. For amazing four speakers have already explained how to create chapter and what kind of events each chapter is doing. So in my presentation, I want to focus on not only the activities on Japanese chapter, but also what are the benefits you create new chapter for us. So firstly, I want to explain the IWA YWP Japan chapter itself. In our chapter have about five active, no, five members. And in more detail, 50% come from the private sector, like water industry company or pipe maker, etc. But 30% from educational institutions and 20% from the public sector. And last year fiscal 2021, we have five online events. However, before COVID-19, we had more face to face event and also workshop. And as you can see this picture, Japan YWP established in March 2010 with the support of IWA Japan National Committee. As same as South African chapter, Japan chapter is also one of the oldest chapter in my understanding. And we have been active for more than 10 years. And comparing to the past, I hear that the number of members of our chapter is increasing now. For the next slide. And this slide explained one of the biggest events implemented by Japan YWP. In 2020, before the COVID, Japan YWP chapter organized a face to face event with more than 100 participants to celebrate its 10th anniversary. And it was a great opportunity for networking across generations. This is very important point I think. I mean that, so some of the participants were high school students. On the other hand, some of them were famous professor. So we have created a unique opportunity for people who are difficult to interact with each other in general. Also this slide explained that one of the unique events organized by both YWP Philippines and YWP Japan. We held three exchange online events in 2022. And in this event, we discussed that, for example, water related issues such as the water regulations and flood management. And through this event, we were able to learn about each other's case studies, which was a valuable opportunity for me, for example, because I'm really interested in the water sanitation situation in other countries. Because the IWA community, I think this opportunity will not have been possible. This is my last slide. So I'd like to explain why this community is attractive for us. In my sense, the one of the best point is that to be able to make connections within the water industry, nationally and internationally. As I explained in Japan YWP, we can get relationship across generations in national level. And also we can make relationships with other countries such as Philippines. These connections will help an important role for our future career. In particular, I think since the community has chapters all over the world, we can get relationships around the world. So if you have a new chapter in your country, I'd like to connect with your chapter as well as a Japan chapter. Thank you very much and hope your country makes the chapter successful. Thank you so much for your presentation on this. Since we concluded with all the presentations, I would like to invite all the speakers to be on camera so we can go over with this Q&A session. And for the participants feel free to post your question in the chat. I will be collecting all of them. Let me stop sharing my screen so we can see each other. Yes, perfect. So I believe that we already have received a question in the chat for Aniki. Aniki, Ayuba mentioned how do you mobilize resources to function your operations. Thank you so much Ayuba. Thank you Isabella for extending the question to me. So this is a very, I mean the trickiest part for any chapter that how do you mobilize the resources to function the chapter and of course this certainly means getting enough finances to make the chapter running and all of these things. So we opted for a very in kind model for our resources. In our steering committee we held meetings where we sat and we thought what are the resources we need the money for. For example, we need to have zoom meetings longer than 40 minutes of time so we need a zoom. That is longer than 40 minutes and a premium version so we need the money for this. So why not ask for the zoom itself. So we reached out to the people, the sponsors and one of the sponsors got it for us and we shared it with them. We said that okay, you have bought us this premium version but for any meetings that you want to hold you can do that too on the same platform. So we have to find out the gaps that we have in terms of finances. Being a new chapter it is very difficult to create trust among the people right away that they trust you with the money. So of course it is important to first set the ball rolling, get the in kind resources and try to work with the minimum resources you have social media is free, you can use it. It's absolutely fun to use it and that's how we are up until now mobilizing our resources. And since this question about resources is really interesting, I would like also to pass to Anya if she can share some input from the chapter. So we get a lot of our resources through our local partners. So we partner with for example the Department of Water and Sanitation, which is our national water provider. We've been building up really strong relationships so it's not just EWS, it's Randwater, it's a city of Cape Town, it's any of the government agencies and they've been a really big fund and supporter of what we do, especially for the conference. Throughout the year our operational costs are quite low. There are some things we need to cover and that does come out of a kind of budget that we have been growing over the years, but for the bigger events like the conferences and any technical tours we work with sponsors. And I think it does take a while, I think we have spent many years nurturing those relationships. And so we do have very good contacts, we are known in the water sector, but I have full trust that Pakistan will also get there. It just takes a bit of time and a bit of networking and conversations, but yeah, it's definitely achievable. Thank you, Anya, on this. Tian and Shotaro, do you have any information that you'd like to add regarding this financial support with the chapter? Yeah, I just want to say something, you know, in China chapter, 30% of our members are from industry and even in our management committee there are three members from industry. So to be honest, I want to say, yeah, they make great contributions to the financial support. Yeah, and for example, when we organize our annual meeting every year, they will give some financial support and in another way, if we cooperate with your university, the university will also give some financial support. We just need at least the university as a co-organizer. Yeah. Thank you, Tian. Shotaro, do you have something to add for this in relation to this question? Shotaro, I think that you're frozen, but I see that Anya has her hands up. Thanks. That was a really important point that was raised that I didn't mention. You know, in terms of support, it doesn't always have to be financial. It's great to get financial contribution, but like we saw with the other example, it's just the in-kind contribution. So if you are hosting a conference or a workshop, you know, partnering with the university, you can give you the location or the you know, the building for free. It's a great way to kind of get sponsorship but not actually involve money. So try and explore also ways that you can partner with other organizations, public or private, for this in-kind sponsorship. Thank you Anya. And for those that were asking about chapters, please feel free to reach out to me so I can put them in contact with the chapter shares that we have. As I saw a message about Bolivia and India in the chat, so yes, we already have chapters established there. Also, we have a chapter in Sri Lanka. So feel free to drop me a message and I will put it in contact with the chair. We received a question from Talia from the Morocco YWP chapter. What is the best advice could you give to us since we are just members and our resources are quite limited. So there are the babies in terms of the chapters. Maybe any can take this one. Yeah, sure. I'm just trying to find out where the question is. It is from Thalha, right? Yes, from the Morocco chapter, our newest. Yeah, congratulations for the Morocco chapter for farming and said the ball rolling and our resources are quite limited. So that is very much relatable. I can see myself in your shoes back then for sure. You're just three members and that's the best part because you guys can reach decisions very quickly. First of all, the second thing is that those are the three people that do not want to leave throughout your time because these three people trusted you in making the chapter and these are the three people who actually got into the idea of making and documenting the whole chapter. The resources are always quite limited for any chapter that is new for anything that is new. The International Motor Association was not something that I heard from my university itself, even though my public university is more over 100 years old. So we need to make the noise right now. And once the people get to know that, okay, there is something like this, then the resources will start coming themselves. I want to share an example of how I got one of the resource of right after Mike, the Copenhagen World Water Congress, last September. When I was in Denmark is still I received a call that there is a conference happening and I really wanted to be a part of that conference, and there's a conference happening and they have seen the post that that I went and my team had shared on LinkedIn and social media and they had one slot empty for the conference. So they gave us the venue and they wanted to bring the young people onto the podium and talk about how to bring the dialogues of water into Pakistani context. So these are the resources that you do not want to let go. So right after I landed back to Pakistan, I went for a meeting, I signed the deal off, I said, okay, we'll do this chapter, we'll do this, we'll do this, we'll do this. And we, we, we stretched out a first event without any any money in our pockets to be very honest. So this is how we actually got it up. Sometimes it's like you see an opportunity for investment so you might want to to treat your three people with some lunch sometime, but that's that's how it you usually is going to work out. Thank you for explanation for this. Anya we received a question regarding setting provincial provincial representatives in a YWA chapter. Since the South African chapter they have this provincial representatives. Would you be able to provide any insights on this. So is that insights if I read it correctly in the importance of having provincial. Yes, exactly. So I skipped the last two slides my presentation but most of these happen in the provinces. And to really make that happen we do need teams on the ground who who run those activities so our provinces each, and they each probably have about six or seven committees, six or seven people in their own committee. I think that's really where you know the strength of those have operations happen because it wouldn't be able to happen from the national level we just don't have the capacity to organize those kind of events and that level of events. I mean if I look at, you know, because I mean a tile they've already done three events this year and outreach program a technical toy, you know so there's a lot happening you really need people on the ground to be able to drive that so it's very important to have strong teams and, like I said what we do is we have the provincial chairs all the instant on the national committee. So we make sure that whatever is decided the national committee, you know it gets fed through to the provincial committees through the chairs so I would really emphasize the importance of having local provincial committees. Thank you and mute. Thank you and now on this and you can shut out or do you have any information that you want to add for this question. I can add something onto it, because in our organizational structure we don't have provincial committees so it is very important that you see your country, the demographics of your own country, and see where is the big chunk line if it is very much spread out if it's a big country, then of course you have to have people you have to have people given authority to do something on their own. But if the, there is a disproportionate distribution of young professionals and people in general inside your own country then, of course it is more important to, to seek a strategic way to find out how you can engage more and more So that was the case in, in, in our country and we've just found out that university chapters could be a great way to able to enable the students on bachelor's level and the postgraduate level to form a chapter in their campuses and to spread the word that way. So yeah, in our case as it was the university chapter that we are focusing more on rather than the geographical representation of the chapter itself. Thank you, Nick. Shotaro, do you have something to add? From my side, so I don't have any comments. Thank you, Shotaro. Let me see if we have received more, more questions in the chat. So again, for those that are interested in joining a chapter, please drop me a message and my email. So I can put you in contact with the chapter. We do have chapters in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Bolivia. These are the ones that I'm seeing in Nepal. Let me see if we received another question. I think that's, that's all that I can see here. If you have any questions, please feel free to, to post it here in the chat. We do have time for another question on this. Let me see if I missed something. Qian and Shotaro, do you have any comments, final comments? Yeah, from my side, I just want to say thank you to the speakers. Thank you for sharing your experience on how to create an IWIW chapter and to the participants. I want to say if you have any questions, feel free to contact with us and send an email. Okay, you can fan our email address on the IWI website. Feel free to send an email to us. Okay. And thank you, Qian. I can see that we received two questions. A general question from the Yuba was this meeting extended to all chapters. Yes, it was, it was widely disseminated among the IWA network. And then we received a question regarding two chapters from different neighborhoods, countries collaborate. Shotaro, I think that this one is, is good for you about collaboration among chapters. Yeah, thank you very much. Actually, I'm really interested in the collaboration. And in Japan chapter, so we actually discuss among chapters, among chapter committee members, how we collaborate with other chapters like Philippines and also we are thinking to Germany or any other European chapters. Finally, we decided to collaborate with the Philippine chapter. This is because it's the geographically near and in the more practical level, Japan and Japan, we have a lot of collaborations. For example, Japanese organization gives some the knowledge of the infrastructure and also university student from Philippine is learning in the Japanese university. And for practical reason, finally we decided to connect more to the Philippine chapter. But hopefully we want to make more and more connections. So if you want to, if you have the interest to collaborate with Japan chapter, please let me, please let me know. I want to collaborate as much as possible. Thank you Shotaro. So thank you everyone for your questions, unless we are running out of time. Sorry, I have the one question. Okay. Okay, so I have a question to the Pakistan chapter. And actually the Pakistan understanding Pakistan chapter is one of the newest chapter. And my question is, what is the future career in the Pakistan chapter like, because just now you make the chapter. So one or two year later, what kind of activity you want to do for five years later, what kind of activity you want to do. I'm really interested because you are very active. Thank you Shotaro. I guess I can answer this Isabella. Okay, so that is a very difficult question, of course, where do you ask someone to forecast what they are seeing for themselves in the future. Yeah, we are currently looking forward, since we have gathered a network so we have gathered enough people to make an impact on the communities. Now we are transferring a focus towards communities and we are trying to functionalize the very university ambassadors and campus chapters to find out certain call to actions that they need in their own local spaces. So for example, the problem in my city might not be the problem in the capital of a country course. So we are just nudging them to this end that they bring us the problems. And we try to talk about it and we try to see how can we solve that problem. And what is the level of activism of youth that is required in good because most of the problems do not even require financial intervention. They require activities. So we are trying to make community impact from now on and we are trying to talk to our governments and what one of our highest aim of the chapter is to is to make a space in our country that is completely circular and we want to create a model for other people to see and look at it that this can be done as well. And by the people who are 35 years and younger. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's very interesting. Actually, so Japan chapter also collaborate to the more likely government. Oh, but as currently it's very difficult for me but if you are successfully doing. I want to, I want to know how to do that. Thank you and you can show title and I see that you have a hands up so this has to be the final comment because we are totally out of time and I have to wrap up. Actually, a hand from a while ago was just on the other with other chapters. But I think it's really important so we've had engagements for example with Zambia, Mozambique and the suit to all who are interested in starting their own chapters and it's really important to not only collaborate with existing chapters, which is also great. But to also really reach out to other countries that you know of and I'm glad to see there's been a question about Zambia so I'd like to take the conversation forward so please reach out to neighboring countries and help them set up their own chapters. Thank you. So, let me quickly share my screen again. And then we are all interested in getting to know more young water professionals and getting involved with the community I would like to invite you to attend our next to get together. The first will be focused on some of the key message from the UN water conference. It will be highlighting perspective from Latin American the Caribbean. The next one should be hosted in English. Sorry, in Portuguese and Spanish, and there will be no translation for English. The next one will be the engagement of YWP using IWA specialist groups. And this one is going to be on English. The other opportunity for you to engage with IWA is to attend the meeting in partnership with Primewater that will be focused on and users will look to her for our observations. And finally, I would like to to remind about our upcoming Water and Development Congress and exhibition that will be hosted in Kigali and when December this year, and the call for workshops and paper submission is open until the end of this month. So you have the care code do scan it because this is another good opportunity to connect with other YWPs and be part of this amazing community that we have it. And if you want to join our network, please use a discount code that you can see in our slide. You can receive 20% off in discount for a new membership. And again, if you have any questions regarding the community or if you want to connect with other members in other chapters, I have shared my email address feel free to reach out to me. I do reply to my emails and I'm no, I'm no someone that sends a lot of messages to all of the members. And again, thank you for joining. And thank you for the speakers for being part of this.