On Wednesday 6th August, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the first ever International Leadership Conference at Takapuna Grammar School with our younger senior students. The conference brought together international leaders from across North Shore schools to explore leadership, global citizenship and cross-cultural collaboration.

The day consisted of an inspirational speech from a Takapuna Grammar international student, discussions on the challenges international students face and how we can help them, and sharing our own international leadership journeys and experiences.

It was an insightful experience to hear different perspectives from other students, which allowed everyone to gain new ideas from each other and see how we can implement these to improve international leadership at our own schools. We also got to co-design project ideas that we can not only take back to our own schools, but collaborate with other schools to bring to life as well.

Overall, it was a very meaningful experience and I am excited to see the new friendships and collaboration these conferences will bring for international students across the North Shore.

 – Jiwon Lee, International Student Representative