JDTP 2025 Graduate Speaker Speech by: Mr. Zayne Keshwan
Good morning to our Chief Guest, Honourable Ms. Lenora Qereqeretabua, Assistant Minister for the Fiji Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Speaker for the Fiji Parliament; The Hon. President and Founder, Mr. Akmal Ali; Excellencies of the Diplomatic Corps; Advisors, Coordinators, Trainers, families, friends, and my fellow graduates.
It is truly an honour to speak before you today on behalf of the JDTP 2025 graduating cohort. As I stand here, I am filled with deep gratitude, a touch of disbelief, and perhaps just a little panic that I am the one giving this speech. But mostly, I am filled with pride; for all of us.
To begin with, in complete honesty, I did not volunteer for JDTP. I was gently, well, forcefully, encouraged into it by my parents. When I heard the words โdiplomacy training,โ I pictured something very formal, very serious, and very much not for me. I imagined long speeches, handshakes, and a lot of big words. And I was not wrong. But I was also not ready for how much I would come to love it.
At the start, public speaking felt like climbing a mountain, blindfolded, with flip-flops. I was nervous, unsure, and convinced I would not last long. But week after week, something shifted. The nerves faded. The fear turned into focus. What began as a push became a purpose. I started to see JDTP not as a task, but as a space where I was becoming more confident, more thoughtful, and perhaps most surprisingly, more talkative.
The journey itself was no holiday. Our Saturdays were full: debates, speeches, workshops, and the occasional existential crisis about whether I had cited the correct resolution number. But we pushed through. Together, we learned not just to speak, but to listen. We learned to see the world through other people's eyes. And in that process, we found something more important than training; we found community.
There was one person who anchored that journey for me and for many of us: Mr. Vipin Maharaj. Mr. Maharaj is the kind of facilitator who shows up early, stays late, and answers your questions with the same energy at 9:00 p.m. as he did at 9:00 a.m. He was patient when we struggled, honest when we needed correction, and calm when we were panicking. He gave us structure, but he also gave us room to grow. Thank you, Mr. Maharaj, for your dedication, your professionalism, and your belief in our potential, even when we doubted it ourselves.
I would also like to thank Ms. Arci Singh, our Deputy Coordinator, and all the volunteers, advisors, and Executives of UNA Fiji who made this programme possible. What you did behind the scenes created a platform where we could thrive. We may have taken the stage, but you were the ones holding up the lights.
To Mr. Akmal Ali, Founder and President of UNA Fiji, thank you for your passion. Anyone who has met Mr. Ali knows that he does not do things halfway. He walks with purpose, speaks with fire, and leads with his heart. Rubbing shoulders with him and being mentored and groomed under his leadership has lit a fire in many of us. His drive has not only kept this programme alive, it has made it magnetic.
Now, one of my most vivid memories was during the Community Impact Project. We were ankle-deep in swampy mud, planting mangroves under the hot sun. My shoes gave up before I did. But I will never forget the laughter, the teamwork, and the moment I realised; this is diplomacy too. This is what it means to protect, to serve, and to lead. We planted 12,600 mangroves. That is not just a number. That is 12,600 promises to the future. We also trained 23 Nadroga youth, and through them, the impact continues to grow.
Then came the Summation Simulation. I will say this: if you can survive fifteen hours of simulated diplomacy, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 the next morning, on instant noodles, adrenaline, and sheer willpower, you can probably survive anything. That day tested our patience, our preparation, and our caffeine limits. But it also showed us what we were capable of. We were no longer just participants. We were diplomats in spirit, in discipline, and in purpose.
This programme has changed me. I now carry myself with more clarity. I speak not just to be heard, but to connect. I listen not to reply, but to understand. I have learned that leadership is not about having the loudest voice, but the most thoughtful one. JDTP has given us all that gift: a voice of substance, grounded in service.
To my fellow graduates, thank you. Thank you for showing up, for encouraging one another, and for growing together. We came in as individuals. We leave as a family. Let us take the lessons we learned, the friendships we formed, and the courage we built, and carry them into every space we enter next.
As we prepare to go our separate ways, I leave you with the words that have meant a lot to many of us:
๐ด๐ ๐ค๐ ๐๐ ๐๐, ๐ค๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ด๐๐ ๐กโ๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐ ๐ค๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐ก ๐ก๐๐๐๐กโ๐๐
๐ด๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ข๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐ ๐คโ๐๐ก๐๐ฃ๐๐
๐๐ ๐ค๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฃ๐๐.
Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you all. May we always speak with conviction, lead with compassion, and serve with courage and heart.
With Class, Dignity and Elegance
