AYUDH PORTRAITS: FAELLE DUBOIS
My name is Faelle. I am 29 and I am working for the World Economic Forum to bring companies and other major stakeholders to discuss pressing issues, and I specialize in forest conservation and restoration. I have worked for the UN and have been working in international organizations. I've been working on food systems, humanitarian help, and nature conservation. I'm currently working for the WEF on big companies, engaging with them, and trying to convince them to invest in forests.
I am a big nature lover and a big fan of the outdoors that's why I chose to live in Switzerland, where I am pretty much in the mountains every weekend!
How did you realize that you wanted to be in and what encouraged you to do this?
It's been a search for impact. It was actually AYUDH that inspired me to get into this thing. someone from the UN came to talk in AYUDH and it was so inspiring that I decided to get into this international development and sustainability. At first I worked in the headquarters of the UN, always in environment and green development, finance, something related to sustainability. But it felt like it was too ‘high’ and I wanted to see what's happening on the ground, I want to feel and see my impact, so I worked for the World Food Program developing food security programs in urban areas. Despite doing it during COVID, I could still go on the ground and give food out, and see the impact of what I was doing but it was still frustrating for me because we were constrained by international policies, by things that were decided at the headquarters. So I went back to thinking that this was not it, I wanted to make bigger decisions and I went to Geneva and worked for the World Economic Forum. It’s quite concrete because I am working on specific topics, inviting experts to make sure that knowledge is shared and they are empowered to do the work that they do. I also feel like this impact is high-level, policy level, where we can kind of influence their agenda. It's tedious, but I need to remind myself that when I was working on the ground that I felt like the impact was not sufficient. This work made me realize that things are not as easy as it seems.
What were the obstacles you’ve encountered?
I guess it's this drive for impact that I and many people have, that's never completely fulfilled, I don't know if it's because you grow up and become more realistic. It’s constant and I still have it now so I don't think it completely went away. It's like I aspire for something bigger, make a change and all these big ideas and then you think you can do it in your job but you realize it's a lot harder and more complex that what you’ve imagined.
I guess this drive for impact that we all share gets very personal. It's always this search for what you can do to make a big change and it got me to realize you need to strike the right balance, how big you want it, and how fast you want it. I am an impatient person, and I need to accept that (impact in this work) it takes a lot of time, and what you do is gonna take years to trickle down to where you want it to be. Right now, all of my goals are more personal than work related.
What advice can you give to the youth who are just realizing their dream?
When you were asking me this question, I was thinking of all these sentences that used to resonate with me that people would tell me when I was younger, ‘pursue your dreams’ etc. I kind of wish someone just told me to just trust that everything that you do will take you where you need to be.
I always thought I needed to pursue my dreams, this very ‘western’ (conventional) motivational way of doing things.That I needed to think and sit down every year. Now I realized that there is another way to do it that’s as good, it's better for me to just go with the flow and trust the process. You need to make a decision and you'll know you'll make the right one. It will happen naturally and life will just bring you where you need to be. Trust that eventually, you’ll get there.
