St. Lawrence Students Volunteer at One Young World Summit
Last week, from September 18th to 21st, the One Young World Summit took place in Montreal. This event, which is held in a different city each year, brings together youth aged 18-30 from around the world for a few days of inspiring talks and networking events. Its mission is to foster leadership and create positive change.
This year, St. Lawrence students Hana Adra and Bon Pham volunteered at the event. They greeted attendees and helped the summit run smoothly, but they also had the opportunity to attend some sessions and presentations. Seeing people from all over the world come together was “just wonderful”, says Adra.
Bon Pham and Hana Adra volunteering at the event.
This year’s summit placed particular focus on the Indigenous communities in Canada and around the world. This theme was felt throughout the event, Adra and Pham report. There was also an Indigenous Youth Day, which took place the day prior to the start of the conference.
The students were particularly thrilled to attend the Opening Ceremony, which took place in the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal. There, they joined 196 representatives from different countries and 2000 delegates from around the world as the summit kicked off with a bang. There were performances, a flag-bearing ceremony, and speeches from notable Canadians David Suzuki and Margaret Atwood.
The Centre Bell during the One Young World Summit's Opening Ceremony.
Throughout the summit, our student volunteers had the chance to learn about local and regional projects from all over the world, many of which had not made headlines in Canada. One panel, for example, focused on providing education to youth, and highlighted a project that had involved the building of new schools in South Africa.
Attendees and volunteers heard from a diverse variety of speakers and panelists, ranging from Jane Goodall to Queen Rania of Jordan to Cher. For Pham, the event was “surprising and empowering because [the speakers] spoke with action. They walked the talk.”
A view of the stage during the event.
A special moment for Adra was when she volunteered at a panel about Artificial Intelligence as a force for good, held by Valérie Pisano, Professor Yoshua Bengio, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Prime Minister spoke about how Canada has stood out from the crowd in its adoption of AI. Offstage, he spoke briefly with volunteers, and Adra had a chance to say hello.
Attending the summit had a big impact on both Adra and Pham, who were very pleased to have taken part. But simply volunteering wasn’t enough for Pham: “I want to be invited by them one day to be a speaker”, she shares.
Hearing from summit speakers, Adra felt the importance of taking action. “It was a reminder to not be exhausted; that there’s still lots of work to do and that hope can only take us so far,” she said. “It’s not only saying, it’s doing… to actually create impact. They showed us the various ways and the various possibilities that we can do that. It opened the door for opportunities.”
To learn more about the One Young World Summit, and to see a full list of speakers, visit the organization’s web page, here.
