Selwyn Times: October 17, 2018

14 Wednesday October 17 2018
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi
Our People
SELWYN TIMES
Taylin Smith
China trip a chance to put language
Dunsandel’s Taylin
Smith is a head student
at Lincoln High School
and is secretary for the
Selwyn Youth Council.
Emily O’Connell talks to
the 18-year-old about
meeting Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern and
what she’s most looking
forward to about studying
in China next year
You’re a head student and
the Selwyn Youth Council
secretary – what else are you
involved in?
In school I’m part of the
UNICEF group, so I’ve been part
of that for the past few years now.
We work doing these events every
term to raise money for UNICEF
and just promote what the group
does and try get people involved
in helping people . . . at school I
study Chinese, so the last four
years I’ve been doing the Chinese
bridge speech competition and
last year I managed to come
first in the country and got to
represent New Zealand in China.
Can you tell me a bit about the
competition, what’s involved in
it?
Basically you have to come up
with a speech fully in Chinese.
They have to be about three to
four minutes long. You go up on
stage and perform the speech and
then they’ve got a list of about
20 or so questions and they’ll
ask you one or two of those, so it
might be “can you explain to us
your favourite hobby is and why”
or like “what is your favourite
thing about China?” or along
those lines, so you got to do a bit
of impromptu speaking. You also
have to have a talent so mine is
sort of varied over the years but
last year I did a Chinese sand
dance.
What are some of the things
you’ve done as a head student
this year?
As a head student we’re pretty
much the go between with our
council and all the higher roles in
our school, like our principal. So
TRAVEL: Dunsandel’s Taylin Smith, 18, visiting the Great Wall of China. Taylin and Alyssa Thomas (right) with their waste-free
starter kit.
the three of us get put in charge
of three of the sub-councils that
make up the school council.
Mine are the academic council,
the cultural council and the arts
council . . . we also run school
assemblies, they happen once
or twice a term. We’re in charge
of writing scripts for them and
making sure everything runs
smoothly.
What are you most proud of
that you’ve done as your time as
a head student?
EMBRACING CULTURE: Taylin competing at the 10th world
Chinese speech competition in Kunming, China.
Mostly recently there was
a celebration of 125 years of
women’s suffrage that was held
in town as the Isaac Theatre
Royal. One female student from
each school was selected to go
up on stage with Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern and ask her a
question. I was lucky enough
to be chosen by my principal
to do that. That was quite a big
thing for me because I do social
studies and stuff, so I’m quite
into politics and seeing how
people can change the world and
challenge different views and
things. So that was really cool to
see and be a part of.
What was your question to Ms
Ardern?
I’m quite passionate about the
environment and making sure
we protect for future generations.
My question was regarding that.
She had said not too long ago that
global warming was the nuclearfree
issue for our generation so
I was wanting to know what she
meant by that.
How did you feel asking
that question and meeting Ms
Ardern?
It was so amazing to meet
her, she was so down to earth
. . . it was really cool because
my friend Alyssa Thomas and I
study social studies, alongside
environmentalism, we’ve had to
do a social action. We decided
to make these waste-free starter
kits. So basically it’s this kit
with all these different sorts of
products, that we’ve sourced
from local companies and a few
other franchises, and they just
replace one use plastic products
. . . alongside that event with
Jacinda Ardern I managed
to email the people that were
running it and see if I could give
one [kit] to her. She’s done so
many cool things recently with
regards to making policies to
get rid of plastic bags and things
so we wanted to thank her and
almost encourage her and show
her, her local communities are
willing to help.
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