A huge success to the public speakers of our community! On January 10th and 11th of 2018, the Young Masters Gavel Club and the GIN Clubs came together for the second annual Gavel x GIN Speech Competition, yielding great results. This year, we saw participation from all 10 GIN clubs as compared to the 5 clubs that participated in the last competition, providing equal representation for all clubs. The audience this year had also vastly increased, demonstrating that our initiatives have reached the minds of many in our community. Not only this, the prize pool had increased from the $1,500 of last year, to $3,000, all with the help of CISPA. With this increase, the Young Masters Gavel Club was able to award the top three participants, giving a little bit of help towards each cause.
In this speech competition, each GIN club nominated one member to represent their cause. They then worked together with members of the Young Masters Gavel Club where nominated GIN members would either prepare their own speech and acquire feedback from Gavel members, or have a Gavel member speak on behalf of the GIN club, gaining knowledge on their cause. Speakers from both GIN clubs, and the Gavel club, prepared their speeches and delivered it to audience and judges, revealing many of our community’s passionate speakers. This was a great opportunity for our community as speakers were able to spread knowledge of many important issues, share their own experiences of these issues, and promote the art of public speaking.
After some rigorous thought by our judges, the winners of the competition were decided, with first place going to Mana Mehta of the Reading tree, second place going to Pak San Fung of the Environment Club, and third place going to Jesse Wang of the Respect club. Congratulations to all of our contestants, and look forward to the competition next year!
After being engaged with refugees, I found that there is little action taken to alleviate this issue locally and how under concerned this topic is. At the start of Grade 11, Laurence (from Grade 11) and I decided to contact one of the refugee organisation located in Wan Chai hoping to interact with kids aged from 10-15 years old for our Student-led initiative. I believe this was an opportunity to be engaged in this issue locally. We have been doing this for about 6 months now and we are hoping that more people will join us! This is an issue close to my heart, where I began to research in my own to find ways where I can possibly be engaged directly or indirectly. On October 2017, I was able to enter ‘New York Times Essay competition’ about the on-going refugee crisis. At first, my focus was on winning the prize, but as I thought about what I have been doing for past months, I realised that this was on opportunity to express my thoughts and opinions to global audiences. I was able to incorporate my personal experience in my essay which made my essay seem rich and powerful. All of these experiences showed me the willingness for change whether its locally or globally, and I can only hope to get more involved.”
UNICEF hosted two rounds of a food drive from 
After doing the Extended Essay (EE), I came to learn how under-researched this topic is, while also learning about the toxic and deadly consequences of micro plastic pollution. After finishing the EE earlier this school year, I found myself feeling frustrated with the difficulty of making a change about this issue, both from the idea of a cleanup measure and a preventative solution. Working with human rights issues and refugee rights, I found it was easier to get directly involved and campaign for institutional change. But making change for this issue has been difficult, as I felt like advocacy can only go so far when corporations continue to sell single-use plastics. It’s an issue close to my heart, where I have began to take my own personal measures such as saying “no” to single-use plastics and advocating for the issue among friends and family. Yet I still didn’t really know where I could go to advocate for this issue on a bigger platform or to make a direct difference.
Being able to speak at the conference in front of so many academics and public figures who I admire was an amazing experience. I was able to share my own experiences through my work and research I had done in the extended essay on micro-plastics in Hong Kong, while also being able to use my voice to advocate for the necessity for individual change.
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