28 young leaders graduate from Leadership Fiji

It was an exciting night for the 28 new graduates of Leadership Fiji last night as they received their graduation certificates.

ANZ Fiji's Ada Krishnan says she learnt about national issues and how to connect to the world.

She says the program also pushed her out of her comfort zone.

Krishnan says leadership is all about action and giving back to Fiji.

She adds the biggest challenge for her was working with other people outside her organization to achieve a goal and planning their advocacy programs.

Founder and Leadership Fiji Chairman, William Parkinson says the crowning achievement this year is the Koroipita project where the graduates went as a community group to help and build houses in the community.

Parkinson says a total of 10 houses were built for Koroipita of which 3 were built by this years graduates, and 7 by the Leadership Fiji Alumni from previous years.

He adds the graduates have been on advocacy challenges which is a new feature of Leadership Fiji where each group has to go out and take on a new project in the community.

He adds it is an example of them saying to their leaders, and future leaders, that it is not just about them sitting in an environment listening to other people speak but about getting out there and experimenting and trying out things and finding out what it takes to have to advocate for a particular course.

He says this year's group had 18 sessions from March to November, three of which were through zoom.

New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Charlotte Darlow says leaders are going to have times where they are making theory imperfect decisions with very imperfect information and sometimes the important thing to do is make the decision and fix that later.

She adds with uncertainty comes a really clear idea that you're not going to succeed all the time.

She says it is about operating in a co-design information scenario where they are co-designing with other partners who have different ideas, different perspectives, and different needs.