Teenager Madison Quig told Rotarians that in order to see a positive shift towards gender equality, they should elect more female leaders.

Madison was one of three delegates chosen to represent the Interact Club at the Rotary International United Nations Day in November.

At the New York conference, they addressed the themes “Global Women of Action” and “Sustainable Action” and the future Rotarians attended sessions on basic education and literacy, economic development, disease prevention and treatment, maternal health, peace and conflict resolution and overall gender equality.

At their weekly meeting yesterday, the 14-year-old gave Rotarians a taste of the experience by inviting them to participate in an exercise.

They were asked to pair up and attempt to open their partner’s closed fist and she watched quietly as they forcibly worked to prise their fingers apart.

“The point of this,” she said, “was to say that problems should not automatically be addressed the way they usually are.

“You all tried to wrestle each other’s hands open instead of saying, ‘Would you please open your hand?’”

The Bermuda High School for Girls’ student said that at the conference only one pair of the 400 participants asked the question.

“We need to question the way we socialise if we want to establish a change in gender equality,” she said.

The Interact Club is a service and teamwork group made up of more than 30 of Bermuda’s students. It had lain dormant for years when Cathy Bassett of the Hamilton Rotary Club was inspired to revive the club after attending the Rotary convention in New York last year.

Madison said: “A good step to take for us would be having more female leaders in Rotary and Interact.”

She said that a Cabinet should reflect its people, using Justin Trudeau’s Ontario Cabinet as an example of a more diverse and representative group.

“The leaders of tomorrow are in the classrooms of today,” Madison told her audience. The aspiring surgeon dreams of going to Harvard, an ambition the older Rotarians praised her for. She said that her biggest takeaway from the experience was that “we can have more of an impact if we work together”. Reflecting the club’s initiative, “to render service above self”, she said: “Your best investment is your time and energy. While it is important to provide funding, it is also important to be hands-on or put our collective minds together into solving a big social problem.

“For me, all of these messages are about being a part of something bigger than oneself and doing something even small that can make a difference in someone’s life at the same time as in your own life.”