07 DEC 2023 Connect Global Youth Forum 2023

This year, the Year 10 and 11 Student Senate members were invited to participate in the Connect Global Youth Forum, a virtual one-day event that brings together young people from a regional cluster of Victorian schools with their peers from schools across the Asia-Pacific region.

Students were able to connect and work together to examine a locally relevant issue that has both local and global impacts. During the forum, the students participated in activities that encouraged collaboration, discussion, and intercultural understanding, aiming to promote engagement and global citisenship.

Following are the experiences from two of the participants:

On Tuesday the 10th of October, my friends and I from year 10 and 11 virtually joined students from across the globe in a global youth forum. The forum consisted of a main speaker who guided us along as we entered breakout rooms with students from across many nations in locations like China, Indonesia and India. We talked about school life, where we live, and key ideas like globalisation, local and global issues and even the United Nations sustainable development goals.

Finally at the end of the day we (Kolbe students) got together and talked about local issues and brainstormed ways we could limit or outright stop these issues. We then presented our ideas to other students, and they shared their own issues, solutions and ideas.

The day was great fun and helped us develop great communication skills with people from both similar and different backgrounds/cultures.

James Petrus, Year 10

This Global Youth Forum gave Year 10 to 11 students the opportunity to experience new perspectives of the world and problems other countries may face. It was exciting for many of us to discuss the location of our schools and what was provided by them, it became even more of a shock to us when we found that students from India had the dedication to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to attend this forum. Students from across the globe had discussed with us problems that they face in their country and solutions to these problems, such as the increasing unhealthy eating habits faced in schools. We all acknowledged that we as a global community need to find solutions to these global problems.

Isabella Grech, Year 11