“How I wiggled my way into an International UN Conference in Brazil” – Chris Bashinelli
June 8th, 2011
Hello Amigos and Rafikis. Th
is will be the first blog post of countless to come. I look forward to connecting directly with each of you for years to come…
This is a blog I wrote about 1 year ago and thought it might be fitting to open 
with…
2 weeks ago I was sitting in my room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for an email that never came through. It was an email from the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations confirming that I’d been invited to present Bridge the Gap in front of 2,000 diplomats, foundations & corporations at a UN Peace Forum in Rio De Janeirio, Brazil. The forum, titled “Bridging Cultures: Building Peace”, was 100% in line with our organization’s mission, so I thought, “There’s no way we can’t get in”. At 5:01pm on the deadline date, I called the Alliance and found out the news: we’d been rejected. Refusing to take no for an answer, I followed up every day for the next week. Maybe the Alliance thought I was crazy, maybe they felt bad, regardless, I was somehow given the mammoth task of organizing and moderating one of the largest events of the forum. That same day I bought a ticket (on my own dime) and 4 days later I was on a plane to Brazil.
I arrived in Brazil in the backpack (not literally) of my close friend, who managed to sneak me into his hotel room. Hey, when you’re running a startup sometimes you’ve got to bootstrap. The first night I almost managed to be kicked out on the street and it was entirely my fault. Tip One: When you are snuck into a hotel room in a foreign country, don’t go down to the concierge and ask for more towels for your room. So, it was the first night in Rio and we took a car to a Royal Palace where the UN had set up shop. I went to my contact who debriefed me on my responsibilities for the week: I would host the “Marketplace of Ideas”, consisting of 9 media projects dealing with cross-cultural and cross-religious relations. I was responsible for creating a video, coordinating lights, cameras and sound, and organizing the stage in a 2,000-room amphitheater at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). When I asked, “Well this is great, I can definitely handle the creative aspects, who’s doing all the other work?”, the reply was “I don’t know, and nobody speaks English, but you can talk to people, so just get it done. Good luck!”. That was a Wednesday at 11pm. On Friday morning we were scheduled to have our presentation. I hadn’t met any of the participants, hadn’t begun to write my speech, and didn’t even know where the museum was.
The next morning I arrived at the forum first thing in the morning to make sure I had as much time as possible to prepare for the event. Luckily, I had registered for the Forum as a “participant” and not a “moderator” which meant I had access to nowhere accept the front lawn. I managed to sneak my way into the general press area and was greeted by a 300 pound, 6-foot Brazilian bodyguard whose only English words were “Blue Badge Only”. Fortunately for me, my badge was Green! I managed to impress him by referencing the size of his muscles and found a translator to explain to him how much I admired his excellent physique and how one day I hoped to be as strong as he was. Great, I was in. I made it into the Alliance’s office and was able to start working for the day. I met with each of the 9 participants and we spent the next 10 hours collaborating to create an event that we weren’t even sure was going to happen.
The following day we were able to hear speeches by President Lula De-Silva of Brazil and Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the UN. We also had the opportunity to speak with the Partners for the Marketplace, including heavy hitters from the British Council, Deloitte, Vivendi and the Global Dialogue Foundation. We thought everything was going great, until we found out our 1 hour presentation had to be condensed to 25 minutes, max! After that, I found out of all the techies responsible for the lights and sound during our event spoke no English! (I know. We’re in another country. I don’t expect everyone to speak English; I’m just citing facts).
We broke for lunch, I did some mediating and 2 amazing things happened:
1) A Portuguese translator by the name of Jean showed up and immediately coordinated the logistics with the techies
2) Our presentation was moved one day forward, which gave us time to prepare.
When it was all said and done the Marketplace of Ideas was raved as the best presentation of the entire forum. In diplomatic sessions people tend to walk around and be beat around the bush and events can go on for hours. In ours, people actually listened. We began our presentation by shutting the house lights off so everyone had to stop and listen, or trip over themselves. At the end of the ceremony President Sampaio from Portugal was so excited that he came on stage, shook our hands, and thanked each of the participants individually. After the Marketplace we capped off our trip to Brazil sailing around Rio, drinking Shirley Temples with Ambassadors and absorbing the hard work we’d put in to create perfection.
You can find out more about the forum on their website: http://www.rioforum.org/
- Chris Bashinelli
