Creating The Voice

Yesterday was easily our earliest morning yet, as the team arose for a TV interview scheduled for 5 o’clock in the morning. The interview itself was in regards to the Voices of the Future program and what the youth delegations were doing to represent their respective economies here at the APEC Summit. This was an exceptional opportunity to elaborate more on what we as Canada’s delegation were setting out to accomplish in the view of the world’s most powerful and influential business and government leaders. This interview was a huge milestone for the team to be recognized as a very special group of young leaders doing their best to represent the interests of their economy and industry as well as creating a voice for so many Canadians back home.

The participants were then split into two groups, where one group would take part in the interactive panel sessions with eight APEC Business Advisory Council(ABAC) members and the other had an opportunity to visit the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s shore facility to learn more about what they’re doing to keep the spirit of their people alive. The second group took part in learning more about the quest for so many Hawaiians striving to preserve their culture and identity coming from a time were such ideas were suppressed and hindered for so many years.

Yesterday was a big day for the team to locate some of our targets, and to warmup to the coming days of networking we have before us. Upon concluding our midpoint stage of the mission and wrapping our last team meeting for the day, we were awe struck as we saw ourselves on television. It was a moment to reaffirm the sense of commitment we had to all those who supported us in Canada and to each other here in Hawaii.