PHL Ambassador Lauds First Filipino Australian Student Leaders National Summit, Melbourne on July 15

Philipppine Ambassador H.E. Minda Calaguian-Cruz addresses the First Filipino Australian Student Leaders National Summit, Melbourne

31 July 2017, CANBERRA — Philippine Ambassador H.E. Minda Calaguian-Cruz to Australia, lauds the success of the First Filipino Australian Student Leaders National Summit, with the theme ‘Imagining & Shaping a Shared Future,’ at the University of Melbourne on July 15.

In remarks to representatives of Filipino and Filipino-Australian student organizations at the Summit, Ambassador Calaguian-Cruz congratulated the Filipino student organizations for their hard work in organizing the Summit and for their continuing commitment to establish an Australia-wide alliance of Filipino student organizations in Australia. Calling the Summit a “dream unfolding,” she recalled her strong support for an umbrella student organization when it was first raised in Canberra on January. She shared the opportunities and challenges facing students in a foreign country, having been a Colombo Plan scholar herself on 1985. She called on the student leaders to help each other as kababayans in Australia, to make the most of the opportunity to study in renowned universities, to engage with the wider Filipino and Australian community and to build networks for their personal and professional growth. She also challenged them to answer the call of nation-building back home.

The Summit is an unprecedented gathering of Filipino Australian student leaders across Australia to bolster the Filipino Australian student community and assert its identity as a unified, inclusive and dynamic body. Present at the Summit were representatives from student organizations in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), New South Wales (NSW), Queensland and Victoria.

Other speakers at the Summit were FASTCO President Michael Angelo Malicsi, Director of the Philippines-Australia Studies Centre, La Trobe University Dr. Trevor Hogan, Philippine Honorary Consul of Victoria Mr. Felix Pintado, National Vice President of the ASEAN Youth Organization of Australia Mr. Dhiran Pillay, and the Malaysian Students’ Council of Australia (MASCA) Mr. Ryan Ritchie and Mr. Soo Jian Guan. ANUFA President Ms. Marian Cabuyadao, presented the concept paper on the proposed alliance of Filipino student organizations in Australia.

The Summit was generously supported by Filipino companies in Melbourne.

For more information, visit www.canberrape.dfa.gov.ph/ www.philembassy.org.au or https://www.facebook.com/phembassyau/. END.

Philippine Ambassador Calaguian-Cruz with honorary Consul Felix Pintado and Consul General Nina Cainglet, together with the student leaders of the Filipino Australian student organizations all over Australia during the  First Filipino Australian Student Leaders National Summit, Melbourne.