Youth look to entrepreneurship for community improvement
Transcript
Youth leaders from around the Pacific have met in Auckland to discuss how socially-minded businesses can improve their communities.
Over 40 delegates attended the third 'Future Leaders of the Pacific' conference, organised by the US State Department and the East-West Center in Hawaii.
Koro Vaka'uta reports.
The East-West Center's Jerry Finin says the theme of the conference was 'social entrepreneurship and leadership.Mr Finin says each delegate was involved in social entrepreneur projects addressing the challenges and issues that are of greatest priority to their communities. He says they were selected based on leadership qualities, community involvement and future aspirations.
JERRY FININ: It certainly is inspiring to me to see the ways in which they are committed to their home nations. Some of them, for example, may have studied here in the past but have gone home to places like Samoa or the Kingdom of Tonga. They're people who are change agents, people who are really doing things that are going to create stronger Pacific societies and communities.
Mr Finin says delegates spent a lot of time discussing the idea of creating employment opportunities through self-initiated activities that address challenges of importance to Pacific communities. He says areas like climate change, non-communicable disease and tradition and culture were all represented at the conference. Gloria Sevua came from Papua New Guinea to attend. She operates a youth and business programme.
GLORIA SEVUA: We offer training, mentoring, management support and funding to youth who like to start enterprises, so being here has really motivated me to go back and encourage the youth in the programme that my organisation runs to not only focus on enterprises and starting business but social enterprises. Projects that will make a difference in our community.
James Arriola from the Northern Marianas says he appreciated the opportunities the conference provided.
JAMES ARRIOLA: We don't have access to each other. We're limited to the discussion from people from within the region, with each other. Often at times the discussions are dictated by either other countries or other entities. Having been able to talk to each other face to face as people from the Pacific about Pacific issues really helps to provide a lot of the solutions that we spend a lot of time trying to find but are actually available to us in each other.
Mr Arriola says his interaction with New Zealand's indigenous Maori community was a highlight.
JAMES ARRIOLA: One of the things I got most out of the experience is to really network with our brothers and sisters in the region about the idea that they're doing to promote particularly indigenous processes and really learn from the people too of New Zealand who are pioneering a lot of these wonderful activities that we can learn from and bring back to our home countries.
Mr Arriola says the lessons of social entrepreneurship would provide a way to sustain past knowledge while adapting to current systems of change without compromising that knowledge. 15 Pacific islands were represented at the conference, along with Australia and New Zealand.
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