TANAI Airi, a fifth year student of the Dental School at Okayama University, and Rosina MOTHAPO, a third year student of the Discovery Program for Global Learners attended One Young World 2022, a global summit for future leaders, in Manchester, England from September 5-8 as part of the delegation from Japan (Ms. TANAI participated in person, and Ms. MOTHAPO participated online).
The University has been an official partner of the summit since it was held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015, and every year sends two student representatives and Senior Vice President for Global Engagement Strategy YOKOI Atsufumi to participate. This year marked the University’s seventh consecutive time participating in the summit, following the summits in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015, Ottawa, Canada in 2016, Bogota, Colombia in South America in 2017, the Hague, the Netherlands in 2018, London, England in 2019, and Munich, Germany in 2021.　
Before this year’s summit took place, there was a send-off party on August 5 for the Japanese delegation at BMW GROUP Tokyo Bay in Odaiba, Tokyo. The opening ceremony for the summit was held at Bridgewater Hall (Manchester, England) on September 5, spectacularly filled with music, dance and flags representing the countries of the world. The closing ceremony featured keynote speeches by the first woman President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and included a video message from Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The message of “you are not just the leaders of the future, you are the leaders the world needs right now” resonated strongly with the participants.

 

Opening ceremony (photo provided by Ms. TANAI)

Opening speech by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

Ms. TANAI with University Senior Vice President YOKOI Atsufumi (right)

 

Ms. MOTHAPO (bottom right) participating in an online workshop on health and peace (photo provided by Ms. MOTHAPO)