“DON’T FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS”

Sallyann Della Casa, founder of the Growing Leaders Foundation advises young people to

combine strength and passion to achieve success.

UAE, Dubai- The key to achieving success and living up to your fullest potential through Sallyann’s experience, is by combining personal strengths and passion. She highlights that young people will have to be financially independent at some point in their lives. Therefore, in order for them to achieve success and earn a decent living, Sallyann says, “You cannot make a living if you do not have power in the area your passion". She states in order for one to discover their true potential, an individual has to find their strengths and then identify ways in which these strengths align with their personal passion. Through this, a person can find a specific area in the career field that they can explore to identify the job they are most suited in.

Sallyann started out as a lawyer. After 10 years of practicing

law, she finally made the choice of embracing her true passion which is teaching. Her experience sparked an inspiration to

start theYoung Leaders Foundation, which enables the

younger demographic to be unearth their potential.

Her greatest passion, she explains, is to see young people to figure out their “Power and Passion and have the courage to pursue that because there so many of us who are living somebody else’s life”.

Being a product of an education system that enabled her to attain “All kinds of degrees in all kind of subjects”, led her further from her passion as she could not relate the skill she attained in the areas she had a power and passion in.

In ensuring that the young demographic find the way in to

their most suited career path, the foundation offers programs that “Design, mobilize and implement leadership and

soft skills inthe 21st Century, curriculum and programs

into schools systems, supplementing a gap.”

The ‘gap’ she refers to is the educations systems today.

She describes that the schools are still stuck in the past and

waiting on them to change may take a long time.

She emphases on the fact that the world is rapidly changing

in terms of technology and some of the current jobs

may losing their significance.

Hence, the youth should be fully equipped with skills that

will enable them to thrive in the 21st century workforce.

In terms of global outreach,the programs offered by the foundation, have reach out to a vast

number of students around the world. To mention a few, Growing Leaders Foundation have impacted lives of children in the Caribbean, some African countries, India, Pakistan

and the UAE. Sallyann points out that she cannot give a specific number of people who have

applied their programs as the materials are readily available in the official website.This means

that to anyone across the world can use the materials in teaching, hence the impact created

could be greater than anticipated.

In her final advice to the youth she highlights that the world we live in today will not be the same world we will be living in the near future. Therefore “If you are not curious, self motivated and your lifetime learner and you are not willing to explore, fall over and fail and try again, you are not willing to learn new things all the time life will be very difficult for you”. Therefore, be curious and keep practicing because from curiosity comes creativity which later leads to innovation.