Student Reflections
One key takeaway from the GISS is that the future is in our hands and that if our generation doesn’t
get its act together then we could really mess things up for the next generation. The other key
takeaway is to see the potential for change in a bad situation and take action. For example, the
speakers, who made a speech titled, “Every Living Thing”, saw animal abuse and identified it as
an issue. Then, instead of ignoring it, she decided to take action and make a change, and ended
up creating a very successful business. One final thing that I took away from this summit, is the
butterfly effect. If you stick to a project, it will ripple out into different communities and make a big
difference, even if it started small scale. This further supports the idea of determination, which I
found present in every speaker’s story. (Yusuf, Grade 9)
The biggest takeaway, I would say, was seeing how influential one person’s actions can be. Most
of the keynote speakers started their projects on their own, and this showed me that I can make a
difference in my community too.
I would say meeting people from different schools and seeing what they do in their schools
has also given me ideas on how to improve the clubs we have here and what more we can do.
(Eyerusalem, Grade 11)
*Additional reference, Global Issues Network.
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