Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 30/99) - Julia Christensen will do her best to plug the North while she plies the South Seas later this summer.

The Yellowknifer will be attending school aboard the Ship for World Youth -- a project run by the Japanese government -- where she will represent the NWT, Nunavut and the Yukon.

"These three areas are so diverse but are often left out of Canadian representation," she said, "so that's what I'm bringing to the table."

A third-year student at the University of British Columbia, Christensen studies international relations and human geography -- examining man's relationship to the planet -- and said the Ship for World Youth is right up her alley.

She said she heard of the Ship of World Youth program through friends she'd made at another international exchange -- the Canada World Youth project, which took her to Quebec and Tunisia two years ago.

"I'm interested in learning about any place in the world," she said, "and there are few opportunities to meet youth from around the world at the same time."

Christensen said she and a team of nine Canadians will join a total of 250 delegates from 16 countries, including hosts Japan, in Tokyo on Aug. 31. After spending two weeks with host families, the group will embark on a three-month voyage that will take them to ports-of-call in South Africa, Tanzania, the United Arab Emirates, the Seychelles and Singapore.

"I thought it might be nice to take a semester off," said Christensen, "but I wanted to do something educational and not simply travel around."

The 21-year-old called the application process comprehensive, saying it covered everything from youth leadership and volunteer work to international experience and interest in Japanese culture.

She said the program itself -- run in Canada through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Travel Cuts travel agency's Student Work Abroad Programme -- should be equally as demanding and result in anything but a ship of fools.

Visiting the youth

"It's a scholastic program," she said, "and we'll be attending classes and seminars on a wide variety of subjects and visiting port cities and the youth living there."

Christensen said she and the other Canadians will also be expected to make a presentation on their own country, and the Yellowknifer assured she would hold her Arctic end up.

"Being a Northerner can be maddening because in presentations on Canada certain regions often get left out, and that's left me with a chip on my shoulder," she said, "but I've been talking to the other Canadians and am stressing that we should break the presentation up into regions so that every area is focused on."

The world traveller will also be knocking on some doors in the meantime. She said that while Tokyo is paying for the entire trip, she's expected to fund-raise to cover the costs of presents for the Japanese delegates and hosts.

Christensen said it's all for a good cause -- developing the world's, and her own, international outlook.

"I realize how important it is to be able to look at things with a global perspective," she said.