Young Leaders' Forum 

Global Young Leader’s Forum:

Annika Shewan

Day 1:

On Monday, November 14, there was a pre-forum event that lasted from 9 am to 3 pm before the Victoria Young Leaders: Global Youth Forum officially began. With predominantly Australian pupils, we originally signed into Zoom. We began by formulating goals for the day, encompassing objectives for critical and creative thinking, cooperation, and content. We were given a warm welcome to the country by a guest speaker named Aunty Georgia.  Then, Jahin Tanvir, a 22-year-old advisor, speaker, writer, CEO (of an entrepreneurship school, writer, and multicultural youth advocate), had the honor of speaking to us. In his speech, he discussed his challenges with social anxiety and fears of being judged. His decision to become a person who can be themselves and is happy with who they are in year 10 was inspired by these struggles. He achieved this aim by consistently taking small steps outside of his comfort zone, which helped him significantly as he improved his communication abilities and confidence. What it means to be a good leader is to show one person that you can do it, whether you are not confident in yourself or you had a difficult upbringing, for example, and that "if there is something you are holding back on whether it is large or tiny is to simple start and do it." break out of your comfort zone and reach the realization that no one will object if you put yourself out there and are who you are. Jahin taught us a lot about leadership, the value of volunteering, and the significance of building self-confidence.

The Youth Multicultural Commission's Kano, Shadab, and Anna were our following guests. One of the speakers was Kano, an immigrant who migrated to Australia when he was 7 years old and had no English skills. Kano talked about his struggles and how he felt like he did not fit in anywhere because of the various contrasts between Indian and Australian society. His identity was shaped when he began to feel like he was in the middle and began to feel culturally at home. It may be difficult to acknowledge that you don't feel at home, but Kano said that when you start to embrace your identity and stop being so detached from the world, leadership, and the many various careers, that's when you start to feel like you are yourself and you belong. Shadabs views on identity was that it is something is constantley shifting as you mature and change how you view yourself, that our experiences shape who we are and our perspectives on those experiences. Shadab discusses how expanding our horizons and, consequently, our identity, come with becoming a global citizen. Shadab had concluded that "the things that happen to us is not in our control." But "things that shape our identity are mainly under our control"

Our next guest speakers were Kano, Shadab and Anna from the youth multicultural commission. Kano one of the guest speaker talked about how he left for Australia when he was 7 and when he got here, he did not know how to speak any English this is where his passion grew. Kano spoke about how diversity goes beyond colour. Kano had many struggles as he was stuck between being Indian and Australian and felt as if he did not belong anywhere due to the vastly different aspects of both cultures. When he felt like he was in the middle he started to feel like he culturally belonged therefore helping to shape his identity. Anna shared the same opinions about identity as the other two speakers, who saw it as a dynamic concept influenced by experiences, people, culture, values, and beliefs distilled from an early age. Being inclusive, according to Anna, is a quality of a successful leader and it relates to identity since it encourages others to embrace their unique selves.

We had the chance to speak with other schools from around the world during the pre-forum event about ourselves, how the pandemic affected our education, how our school/education was before the epidemic, and the difficulties we face both locally and worldwide in education. These discussions were very informative; we learned how schools operated in countries like India and Indonesia and spoke extensively about how the pandemic had an impact on our social and academic lives. Many students expressed feelings of isolation and a lack of time to get to know their schoolmates because of the lockdown.

We then heard from Sizol Fuyana, a young community leader and the Northern Territory's Young Australian of the Year for 2022. She was named Ron in Zimbabwe and spent between 10 and 11 years in Australia and England. She considers culture to be more of a system of rules and beliefs, while identity refers to who she is and what she thinks defines her. Sizol explained that in order to find a location where you feel a sense of identity, belonging, and culture without being judged or feeling the need to be someone, you must consider your likes and dislikes, the components of your culture that you can identify to, and the places you are.

In all the pre-forum event was very informative and widened our views and perspectives further improving our leadership skills and knowledge on global citizenship, globalization, culture, identity and belonging and their interconnectedness with eachother and what it means to be a leader. 

Day 2:

On the wednsday we started off the lesson with creating another goal for the day such as My goal is asking questions and contribute even more to conversations as well as collaborating and taking into consideration the different perspectives and different ways of doing things. Another goal to value was to value other thoughts, ideas and beleifs and make sure I am inclusive of others and think of others. We talked about our identities with other schools and what influences it. 

During te first part of the forum day we investigated identity, culture, globalization, what a global citizen is, stereotypes, and problems in education. One of the main themes in forum day was identity we came up with many good influences on our identities like where you live ( our group being Australian), culture, relationships, interests, values, beleifs, perspectives, goals/ ambitions, where you feel you belong, connections, personality, how you view yourself, like and dislikes. We identified these as all impactful parts of our life which influence how we handle situations and who we think we are. these influences also show as the speakers said in the pre-forum event that our identity grows with us and is forever changing and impacting our, hopes, dreams, family, life events, jobs etc. 

We then moved onto making a cultural iceberg showing what people see of you at first and (whats above the water) and then what you do not see straight away (whats under the water). We had to create our own icebergs with the most common top of the iceberg being people’s appearance, confidence level, gender, height, food they eat, how they act, how they greet. However, under the water there was things such as passions, manners, thought patterns, feelings, values, family, aspirations etc. This tought us the importance of not judging or just seeing people for what they appear to be but for who they really are inside.

 We then headed into breakout rooms with people from around the world where we talked about prevalent stereotypes and generalizations in our schools and how we can overcome stereotypes. In these rooms we talked about the roots of stereotypes the detrimental impacts it can have on people and solutions for stopping them. One of these solutions was that if you are having a thought which is stereotypical then think about it again and try each time to change your way of thinking and correct yourself.

During the forum we talked about what we thought globalization is and its pros and cons. We defined globalization as the growing interconnectivity between countries through trade, people, governments etc. Globalization can both negativley and positivley impact different people as it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Globalization also has many negative impacts especially on the enviroment, local businesses, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, job loss etc. There are however some positive impacts of globalization that we covered such as lower pricing in the world economy, raised output in countries, raised productivity, economic growth, increased global interconnectivity and co-operation and increased cross-border investment. 

We then moved onto what it means the be a global citizen. We learnt that being a global citizen was being someone who is interested in the world and is prepared to make a positive contribution to relationships between people and cultures, to the enviroment and economy. We even investigated the challenges in education and ideas to overcome these problems. One of which was the lack of cultural representation in schools as some only provide minimal options for languages and do not properly represent and show cultures. We found ways to fix this by making sure that students in schools are given every opportunity to investigate different cultures. 

Overall, the forum event was very interesting, and we got to listen to years 9s from all around the world from India, Indonesia etc. 

The highlight of the day was when we were talking to school overseas about vegemite. One of the people from the school group had tried vegemite however she though it was chocolate and that it was disgusting. We had a very long conversation with the other school where we talked about vegemite and how to eat it and other popular foods in their culture which they liked. Both our groups bonded over McDonald’s lack of proper maintance on their icecream machine as both of our groups talked about how every time, we go to get icecream from there they say its broken. We all though this was quite entertaining and though that it was every interesting that we had so many similarities after talking to eachother.

Day 3:

We started off the day with a guest speaker named Ahmed Hassan about what it means to be a global citizen and how identity and culture interacts with being a global citizen. Ahmed believed that being a global citizen meant standing up to people and doing the right thing for others and the community saying that its all about caring and wanting to do something. He says that being a strong voice means that you must stand up to people not about making friends but doing whats right. He also talked about that if you are a leader it is the community that put you there because you are trusted, meaning you must not deviate from the goal. Something Ahmed thought as vita to being a global citizen was having connections as he made his company by creating relationships with government and local councils and made a difference for his community because of it. 

we then heard from another guest speaker Kriti Chandri a 19-year-old university of Melbourne student about what it means to be a global citizen. She discussed the tools given to her by her culture is what helped her to become a more active member of society. She believes that no matter how small the contribution. One person can make so much change. Kriti explained that global citizenship is linked to culture and identity, but it is not something that you have to go live somewhere else it just ebing aware and looking around and seeing the people around you.

Through the duration of the forum we had to make a presentation on the issues in education we see in our schools. For this our groups chose the decline in youths exersize. We identified why there was a decline these reasons included covid stopping and changing exersize routines in and out of school, safety, sedentary life style, access to more entertainment such as Netflix and games, social media, lack of role models, habits of family and a decrease in PE time at school. the reason we though this issue was so problematic was because it can cause a decline in health, mental health, productivity, motivation, activity etc. And an increase in laziness, low mood and health problems. Because of this being such an important issue we created multiple solutions which could be implemented at our school such as creating a fitness class which is mandatory all throughout school, break between classes where students can go out and move around, promote local sporting clubs, incorporate more education about the importance of exersize, having students provided with more sports equipment, organized sports and incentives such as prices. These all could change this problem and improve this decrease in exercise in youth.