From UBC and UK’s House of Lords to the Y20 Summit and Cambridge, Khandelwal is making strides in law, policy and international relations to educate and empower youth and students to take ownership of their future.
Honour to meet the Duchess of Cambridge in Vancouver @CanadianPM's reception for young leaders. 🇨🇦🇬🇧 Back to @Newnham_College this week! 📚 pic.twitter.com/s328eSwLjm
— Umang Khandelwal (@u_khandelwal) September 26, 2016
When the Prime Minister of Canada knows you by name, you know you’re accomplishing important things for youth, while at the same time influencing leaders and policy at a national and global level. At just 21 years of age, Umang Khandelwal is one of Canada’s brightest young leaders.
Khandelwal sees the “value of bringing the youth perspective to the table because youth are so integral to the way society works and essentially the building blocks of our future…We really need to see more representation from young people and to get them interested in these issues early so that they can take ownership of their future.”
[Google] hangout w PM @JustinTrudeau discussing the Y20! How incredible to have such an accessible PM. #G20 #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/wiqU1rrgxl
— Umang Khandelwal (@u_khandelwal) August 17, 2016
As one of five delegates from Young Diplomats of Canada, Khandelwal represented Canadian youth and students in July at the Y20 (Youth 20) Summit that took place in Beijing and Shanghai, China. Since 2010, the Y20 has been recognized as an official engagement group of the G20 (Group of Twenty) Summit and is held prior to the G20. This year, leaders from the G20 countries will be attending the international summit in Hangzhou, China, in early September.
According to Khandelwal, it is a “huge honour” to represent Canadian youth and students, but it is also “a huge responsibility because Canada as a country is so diverse. It’s about trying to capture issues that Canadian youth face today and coming up with policy recommendations that help us tackle those issues.”
The young leader goes on to say, “It’s a very challenging process because representation is always a difficult thing, as you’re speaking on behalf of people. That’s exactly why the consultation phase was so critical for us before we went to the Y20, it was extremely important to get a wide range of perspectives reflected for us.”
The Y20 is recognized as the “highest level and most influential international diplomatic conference for young people.” During the conference, the international delegates, five from each G20 country, come together to discuss ideas and issues that are important to youth.
Through roundtable discussions, the delegates discuss and negotiate diverse issues to achieve a “fair, creative and representative solution.” The final policy document is then submitted to leaders at the G20, expressing the views and perspectives of youth from around the world.
At this year’s Y20 Summit, Khandelwal was responsible for the topic of poverty elimination and joint development, and she advocated for a number of issues including education promotion and accessibility, youth unemployment, job creation and sustainability, and mobilizing resources to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
Upon her return to Canada, Khandelwal along with fellow youth diplomats spoke to PM Justin Trudeau via video conferencing to discuss their Y20 policy recommendations, and to also advocate for their policies to “be reflected in the G20 communiqué – it’s saying that youth are a priority and these, as we see it, are solutions to problems that youth face today.”
“It’s great that PM Trudeau is accessible…He didn’t just listen, but the call was conversational – he was very present with each of us and engaged with us on our points,” Khandelwal explains of her second interaction with PM Trudeau. She originally met him in March 2015 at the University of British Columbia, where she had the opportunity to introduce the Prime Minister before he addressed a crowd of 1,500 students.
Khandelwal completed her Bachelor in Arts – International Relations from UBC. During her tenure at the university, she received several prestigious accolades including Central Guaranty Trust National Entrance Scholarship, and UBC Go Global International Learning Program Award.
At UBC, she served in multiple leadership roles, and was involved in a number of organizations from student union and Alma Mater Society to UBC Equity and Inclusion Office. Khandelwal says it was important for her to be involved on campus, as she wanted to be engaged in the community and give back to UBC and its student body. She also spent a semester abroad in Paris at Sciences Po, a renowned international research university, where she focused on European Union (EU) economics.
Furthermore, Khandelwal spent a summer in London working in the House of Lords as a legislative assistant, while she studied British politics and public policy at the prestigious London School of Economics as a Hansard Scholar. This focused and driven youth is now studying law at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Currently, she is involved with local organizations like BC Civil Liberties Association and Access Pro Bono, and internationally, she is the Director of Policy of the Wilberforce Society, the UK’s largest student run think tank, guiding the research and policy portfolio; Member of University Council, the highest policy making body at Cambridge; and Board Member of Cambridge, Faculty of Law.
As for the future, Khandelwal will continue to complete her law degree at Cambridge and is currently figuring out which path to pursue as the “options are endless” from private or public law to international relations. “It’s important for me to continue to engage with the community around me, and to give back so that will ultimately guide where my future path goes,” she concludes with a smile.
