During week 5 of Term 2, select Year 7 and 8 Biretta and Sports Academy students joined forces to represent Salesian College Chadstone at the 2025 Emerging Leaders Forum (Junior Secondary). Run by Asialink Education (AE) in partnership with The University of Melbourne, the virtual forum brought together nearly 400 students from 8 countries around the world: Indonesia, Cambodia, China, South Korea, India, Malaysia and of course Australia. It was held over 3 days: the 19th, 20th and 23rd of May.
On day 1, we were introduced to intercultural communication. We were told of the importance of this. We learnt that in some cultures and religions it is rude to say certain words or act in certain ways, which helped us in our final project.
On day 2, we were introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We compared issues that were relevant to our school and, as leaders, we can help fix in the future. Lauren Munday, motivational advocate and founder of the company “Think, Set, Go”, came to speak to everyone in the call about being more motivated to become a successful person and leader. Many students, not just at Salesian, thought that Lauren’s speech was inspiring and interesting while deeply connecting to them. At the end of the day, we began our final projects, which was to find an issue within the school, based on the focus SDGs and find the root cause and solution.
On the final day of the forum, we began with the topic of stereotypes and assumptions. We learned that sometimes it is not okay to assume that all people are the same and that we are all different in our own ways. We later heard from youth advocate Chloe Rheinberger, who was the 2024 President of the UN Youth Australia, who seek to educate young Australians about the biggest issues that face the world and assist them in understanding what the UN is doing about it. She spoke of the importance of leadership and being an advocate for young people. We then learnt how to be good global citizens. This means showing good values to people and being kind to not only people in Australia but around the world. Lastly, we presented our final projects. Our boys presented innovative ideas inspired by the forum’s focus areas, sharing their work with schools from Victoria and around the world. Their contributions were well received, and the feedback they gained will support their growth as confident, future-ready leaders.
Overall, we had lots of fun together and got to know about others in our year level and the boys older/younger than us. We especially loved the dance breaks which got everyone moving and grooving. The boys also enjoyed contributing to the conversations in the breakout rooms and in the wider meeting in front of everyone.
Finally, we would like to congratulate our students from Year 7 & 8 who participated in the forum. But we cannot end this blog without thanking the amazing Mr. Talukder. He brought the entire group together while coordinating all the admin, in order for the program to run as smoothly as possible. We hope that the students who complete this program in the future will enjoy it just as much as we did over the week.
– Sahan Diyagama and Josh Pandey – 7B
