The International Gold Event (IGE) was held in Mauritius this past October for two weeks. The purpose of the event is to bring together young people between the ages of 20 and 30 who have achieved the Gold level of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or The International Award for Young People. Throughout the two weeks, as you will read from my previous posts, we participated in many activities reflective of the Award programme. The last three days were spent preparing and involved in the Youth Forum.
Throughout our time in Mauritius we spent much time discussing the Award programme – it’s goals, improvements, differences in each country, and ideas for the future. For the Youth Forum we had to come up with our top 5 ideas for the future of what we could do to improve the Award programme around the world. After much deliberation we came up with the following 5 topics:
1. Extending the Award
2. Award Promotion and Awareness
3. Online Community
4. Global Award Holders Network
5. Gap Years and Exchanges
From these 5 topics we divided up in 5 working groups. Then we had two days to put together a workshop/presentation for the actual Youth Forum event. I was a part of the Award Promotion and Awareness group. We decided to do a quick power point presentation sharing our ideas about what Award Promotion could be and also sharing a video of the Award programme in Australia. After the presentation part we decided to invite the attendees to circulate throughout the room to the various tables that each had a slightly different topic. Some of these topics included videos, slogans, and other media. One of the main messages we wanted to get across was that the Award programme is not that well known by people around the world and so we feel more methods are needed to get the message out.
It was an incredibly busy time for all the groups as we had such a short time to prepare. Everyone was especially anxious about these workshops as the attendees for the event were the International Council and Executive members including His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, The Earl of Wessex, who is the Chairman of the Award programme as he has taken on this responsibility from his father His Royal Highness, Prince Phillip, The Duke of Edinburgh.
The Youth Forum was a great experience for all involved. The International Council was very open to our ideas and I believe they enjoyed hearing from young people who have come through the programme. HRH Prince Edward was especially wonderful and really took an interest in all the workshops. That evening we had a lovely dinner at our campus with all the International Council members. It was a great opportunity to get to know these people from all over the world and for them to get to know us. We also had the task of selecting 3 people from each of the regions to be our representatives at the International Council meetings the following day, and to be our Youth Reps for the next three years. This was not a difficult task for the Americas Region as there are only 3 countries present and in the end we had 2 Canadian delegates and 1 from Guyana.
The next day the Youth Reps went to the International Council meetings and they were given certain tasks to coordinate. The five tasks were an Online Community, a Promotional Video, a Global Award Holders Network, Award Week, and Exchanges and Gap Years. The rest of us then got to join on to the project of our choice. We will work on these projects over the next three years to come up with some actual products. I am very excited as I believe all of these tasks will lead to a Global connection for the Award as well as more publicity and more opportunities for all participants in the future.
That evening we had a lovely formal dinner at a gorgeous estate-like restaurant. All of the International Council, the IGE delegates, and friends of the Award programme were present. Everyone was dressed up and we enjoyed a spectacular dinner. It was a great way to end our time in Mauritius.
The next day we had time to do some exploring around Mauritius and we went to the Sugar Cane Factory and the Northern part of the island for the day. It was fun to actually get some shopping done. That evening was the last night, unfortunately I was the first to leave as I booked my flight to leave that evening at 10pm so I missed the Toga Party that evening. However, I had an absolutely fabulous time in Mauritius and it was a great honour to be selected to attend. It was sad to say good bye to all of these new found friends as we now had to return to our respective countries all over the world knowing that we may never see each other again.
The next International Gold Event will be held in Kenya in 2011.
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- IGE delegates at the Youth Forum
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- Youth Forum Workshop
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- Dinner at the restaurant
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- Toga Party
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- Dinner
Tags: IGE, International Gold Event, mauritius, The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, The International Award, Youth Forum
