World leaders and diplomats are gathering in Canada for the G8 and G20 summits to discuss several critical issues including nuclear non-proliferation, vulnerable and fragile states, and international terrorism.
Nebraska Wesleyan University student Lesley Dudden is there too discussing the same issues.
Dudden, a senior political science and global studies major, is one of seven university students in the United States selected to represent her country as a junior delegate to both the G8 and G20 summits.
Each country that makes up the G8 was invited to send a seven-member youth delegation to the summits. Dudden was selected by the U.S. Department of State. Delegates discuss, debate and negotiate the same themes considered at the G8 Leaders’ Summit. The debates culminate in the development of a final communiqué that is presented to leaders at the G8 Summit.
The youth delegates from G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) will also travel to Toronto for the G20 segment of the summit. The G8 component is being held in Muskoka, Ontario.
Dudden hails from Venango, Neb. While a sophomore at Nebraska Wesleyan, she won the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship, which sent her to Turkey where she studied Turkish in a summer language immersion program. She returned to Turkey in fall 2009 as a foreign exchange student.