Wilderness Foundation Africa's Wild Rhino Vietnam Campaign 

My biggest leadership role to date has been with the Wilderness Foundation Africa's Wild Rhino Vietnam campaign. 

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In 2018, I took part in the Wilderness Foundation Africa’s ‘Wild Rhino Competition’ and was chosen to become a Wild Rhino Youth Ambassador. Through the foundation, I was given the opportunity to visit their headquarters in Durban, South Africa in 2019 to learn more about their conservation work and attend their Wilderness Leadership School. After this trip, I came back and led multiple events with the foundation’s Wild Rhino Vietnam campaign at schools in and around Saigon.

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During my gap year, I was invited to work with the Wilderness Foundation Africa's Wild Rhino Vietnam Campaign. As the only full-time member of staff, I oversaw a large portion of the campaign, which required effective coordination and management. My first role was to reconnect with the campaign’s previous Youth Ambassadors, as many had moved on to university and become less involved with the campaign. To this end, I updated and relaunched the Wild Rhino Youth Ambassador Facebook page to ensure that all the ambassadors were kept informed about campaign activities. I also scheduled online and offline meetings with the Youth Ambassadors to explain campaign decisions and worked on project ideas and create excitement and eagerness to be involved in upcoming events. As a result, more youth ambassadors from previous years reconnected with the campaign, and eventually worked under my leadership on projects and supported the campaign at events.

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My second role was to connect with new and keep in touch with old campaign partners in order to distribute the campaign’s merchandise effectively and to organise more awareness events. I was responsible for sending emails and meeting with potential or existing campaign partners, including kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, universities, NGOs and other organisations (language learning centres and community event organisers). Through my leadership, the campaign distributed a record amount of merchandise, held an interschool rhino week awareness event around International Rhino Day - September 22nd - and connected with multiple new partners. I also led and managed many awareness events, where I was responsible for overseeing all the volunteers and youth ambassadors present and making sure all activities ran smoothly.

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The biggest event I oversaw was when the campaign hosted a stall at the 2020 BritCham Fun Run in Ho Chi Minh City. This event hosted more than 10,000 people, and my leadership of this event included managing the get-in and get-out of the campaign’s stall and supervising more than 10 volunteers who were variously taking part in the run, serving visitors at the stall, taking photographs and wearing the campaign mascot costume. The successful management and execution of awareness events, including the 2020 BritCham Fun Run, highlighted my ability to bring people together for a common cause.

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Besides my two main roles, I was also responsible for many other aspects of the campaign, which included overseeing the management of merchandise for events, designing and creating the content for the three different information flyers, creating and translating bilingual posts for the Wild Rhino Vietnam Facebook page, and the translating the entire Wild Rhino website into Vietnamese.

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My involvement in the campaign during my gap year showcases my commitment to leadership beyond the requirements of my education, highlighting my dedication to wildlife conservation and community engagement. As the driving force behind the campaign's activities, I showcased substantial and sustained achievement through my leadership role, contributing significantly to the campaign's success. Through this leadership role, I also honed valuable skills such as event management, coordination, communication, project planning, and cross-cultural collaboration. My understanding of wildlife conservation and community engagement deepened, positively influencing my awareness of environmental issues and my choice to study a bachelors degree in Zoology and Animal Science.