Global Youth Eco Leadership Summit (GYELS) 2016 has been the greatest experience I?ve ever had. I?ve gained so much new knowledge and new friends from around the world. There, I learned the value of teamwork and friendship and with those two combined, together hand in hand, we can achieve anything. 

On Monday, 25th January 2016, the global delegates arrived. Some of us in the afternoon and some of us in the evening, but we had dinner together. During dinner, we were told to introduce ourselves to everyone. Dinner was great and even though we just met, some of us has already clicked with each other. 

On the second day, we were taken to Seoul National University and were given lectures from various lecturers such as Mr. Julian Quintart, Mr. Gerhard Sabathil, Professor Yun and others. Mr. Julian Quintart talked about sustainable living and what we could do to live sustainably. He also showed us a video campaign that he made on living sustainably where we could plug off chargers when not in use, use spaghetti sticks instead of straws to stir your coffee, etc. Mr. Gerhard Sabathil talked about efforts to make sustainable energy in practice in EU along with his colleague, Mr. Thomas Lehmann, who talked about green taxes in Denmark. Professor Yun introduced us to the topic of sustainable energy, but she spoke in Korean so we were given a portable translator to use during the lectures. Ms. Hana Kim talked about first zero energy housing that would be built in 

South Korea by January 2017. These lectures were very inspiring.

The third day was quite stressful. When we first arrived in Seoul National University, we were put into our teams. I was in team F along with my team mates, Jingle, Seyoung, Ebrahim and Jinyoung. We were given an activity to create a team flag and choose a team leader. I became team leader for team F and it was an incredible experience. One of us piped up that we should name our team ?Team Fantastic!? because we?re fantastic and so that was how we got our name. The decorations were quite random. Jingle decided to draw the Earth on it as a joke, but we all agreed to it. We then decided to draw the whole solar system, along with the black hole. 

After our team activity and introduction of our team was over, we were separated and put into our groups. Mine was ?Academic experts?. There, we discussed about the roles of academic experts in solving global warming issues. We all agreed on the fact that academic experts have the role of educating and spreading awareness to the youth and that we can do extensive research on sustainable energy in which we chose Nuclear fusion and thermal electric system.

We were then put back into our teams where we all had an inter-stakeholder discussion. There were 5 stakeholders in my team. Seyoung came from NGOs, Jinyoung came from developed countries, Ebrahim came from industries, Jingle came from developing countries and I came from academic experts. With the information we earned during our group discussion, we brought them back with us to our inter-stakeholder discussion. In this discussion, we were told to make a resolution paper and a PowerPoint presentation in under 1 and a half hours. We were given 1 and a half hours to discuss and then another 1 and a half hours to create the resolution paper and the presentation. The discussion went really well. Everyone?s ideas were great and we finally found a way to connect all these ideas together. Then came making the resolution paper. We?ve got all our ideas written down, but we didn?t know how to put them all down in our resolution paper. After all the remaking and rewriting we did (we wasted over 1 hour on this), we were finally done with our resolution paper. 

The PowerPoint presentation was aloud to be brought back to the hotel for those of us that aren?t done with it so that night, Jingle and Ebrahim came over to my room to continue making the presentation. Since the Korean delegates didn?t stay in the hotel with us, we did the presentation together through facebook messenger. Everything was well.

The fourth day was incredible. We were taken to Everland in the morning and it was so much fun. I went on almost all the rides we got to go on. It was exciting as I don?t usually go on roller-coasters but this time I did and it was so much fun. It?s nice to try new things sometimes. 

After Everland, they took us to the Samsung Engineering Headquarters where we would be doing our presentation. The bus ride to Samsung Engineering Headquarters was surprisingly fun. We were all singing along to songs and it was a great bonding time for all of us. We had tons of songs on queue that day for our bus ride back to the hotel. 

Our presentation went well. I was so nervous the moment before the event started that I was almost to the point of crying. When we got on stage, I was more relaxed and it all went by so quickly I almost forgot that we actually already did the presentation. Our team was given the award from Samsung as the best presentation. I was so proud of our team.

The last day was the worst day of all because we had to say goodbye to everyone. Our chairperson, Mr. Luiz Bispo, fell sick that day so we didn't get to see him. We went to the royal palace first where we learned about the culture of Korea. Next we were then taken to Insadong where we could shop for 45 minutes. This was one of the saddest part of that day because I had to say goodbye to almost everyone. Most of their flights were on the evening so they wouldn?t be joining us for our next trip. The next trip was to Myeondong. We shopped for a bit and said goodbye to a few more delegates. We then went to Seoul Tower and the night market. The night market was the last stop for us. We said goodbye to all the delegates and only 3 of us went back to the hotel, Shasha, Juan and I. 

To this day, I still miss everyone, but i?m glad that we all have social media to keep in contact with each other. This summit really opened my eyes. I learned about the different cultures from around the world. I gained more friends from around the world and that was the best part. This summit will forever be in my memories and I am so thankful to Tunza eco-generation, Korea Green foundation, UNEP, Seoul National University and Samsung Engineering for giving me this opportunity. I came back to Bali with new knowledge and new friends. I came back with a team and most importantly, I came back with a promise of making a difference in my region with the knowledge I received from this summit.