Roots & Shoots Global Meeting

While speed reading my e-mails at a Hanoi Internet cafe I came upon an e-mail from Hannah, a friend in Hong Kong and the Project Manager for JGI HK. She was saying something about a global conference in Holland being a really great chance for me to learn more about establishing the program in Hong Kong. I took a moment to clear my head (clouded by the smelly backpacker to my left and the 30 something year old smoking while playing internet games to my right) and thought - am I being asked to go to Holland? With all the anticipation of a 6 year old on christmas morning I raced back to our hotel and called Hannah.... YEP, I'M GOING TO HOLLAND!!!

Recruited as the Hong Kong Roots & Shoots coordinator my new role meant that I now had the responsibility of growing the environment and community based education/action program in Hong Kong. I also had the honour of representing our office at the forthcoming global conference.

With 4 weeks warning I arranged leave from work and mentally started to prepare myself..... 4 weeks was not enough!

The whirlwind trip to Holland started when I left Hong Kong on Wednesday night (6th Sept) I arrived in Amsterdam (via Paris) in the morning of Thursday to be greeted by volunteers with a huge R & S Global Summit sign! Expecting a chinese person (representing HK) there was a little confusion however I was soon in a mini bus with two other representatives heading to Soest - 1 hour out of Amsterdam.

Cheese & Chocolate - my staple for the 4 days.

The sand dunes of Soest (area where we were staying)

Morning dew and hot air balloon - morning walks in Holland.

Bikes, bikes and more bikes - the only way to travel in Holland.

The conference was exhausting - 3 days of 8 am to 8 p.m. - talking, presenting, brainstorming, work-shopping and more talking. The evenings were a time to get to know the amazing people that were brought together by the meeting. I was humbled by the calibre of people there - each person was overwhelmingly inspiring and capable while at the same time as normal as my neighbour Mrs. Tang.

I thought my highlight would be meeting Jane and indeed it was a wonderful time sitting at the dinner table with her chatting about Hong Kong or telling her she looked quite silly with a basket on her head. But it was not Jane that left with me a lump in my throat at the end of the trip. I left Amsterdam airport feeling inspired to work harder and to get things done, for I was not just accountable to my personal beliefs, I was now accountable to all those wonderful people i'd met who were all working to achieve something far greater - something global.

International representatives.