“If you ever come to England, give us a call,” said Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and his wife, Kate, jokingly to Easter Niko, a senior accounting major from Tuvalu, when he met them during their royal visit to his home country three years ago.
After he received the 2016 Queen’s Young Leader award in December, which he is anticipated to accept from Queen Elizabeth II in June, Niko said he thought it was funny that now he might actually see them again.
“I was most surprised with what it included,” said Niko about the award that in addition to sending him to England to meet the Queen during a week-long training with the other award winners, enrolls him in an online course about leadership through Cambridge University.
Niko said he applied for the award when he was unable to attend a conference for a similar group in Indonesia because of school. The application process, according to Niko, included a review of social projects and activities he’s been involved in or is working on, personal essays, and interviews via Skype.
“From the interviews, I felt pretty sure I was going to get it,” said Niko. “There were a total of three rounds of interviews, I think, and they all went pretty well.”
According to its official website, the Queen’s Young Leaders Program began in 2014 and seeks to recognize young people across the Commonwealth, ranging from ages 18 to 29, who have shown leadership and influence in their home communities.
“A remarkable trait of Easter is his passion, love, and patriotism for his country. The passion Easter has for Tuvalu spills over to his friends and acquaintances. This was evident from the first time I met him,” said Lowell Nash, a friend and fellow project manager.
When Niko first came to BYU-Hawaii in 2011, his older brother had already started a project for the benefit of the Tuvaluan people with the ENACTUS program, which back then was called SIFE. Niko said with this particular project his main focus is education. He started working on the program after his mission, he said, and shifted it in a slightly different direction.
“I think that education is the key to everything, you know? Knowledge, not just university education, but knowledge, in general, is the goal. It can unlock a lot of doors,” said Niko. “I’m someone who loves learning, and I think that growing up in Tuvalu,” he continued, “we were very unfortunate to grow up in a place that didn’t have the same resources and access to learning.”
BYUH has long been a part of Niko’s family, and pretty much everyone in his family always plans to come to Hawaii for school, he said. After his experience here at BYUH, Niko said he wants to be able to provide youth from his home country the same opportunity to learn and grow as he did.
“Where I’m from, it’s kind of a problem; not a lot of kids go to school,” said Niko, who wants to find a way for more youth from his country to study abroad. “My goal is to get kids back home to expose themselves in the states and hopefully continue on to college because not a lot of kids get that chance. Coming here opened doors and eyes for me, things I’d never get back home. My goal is to help youth see further than their little island.”
Niko, an accounting major with a minor in Chinese who hopes to one day start his own business, plans to graduate in June, soon after marry his fiancée, then continue on to graduate school.
“I’m always impressed of how he can make friends with anyone he meets. He’s very good at getting to know others and learning from different people,” said his fiancée Cindy Liao, a senior studying elementary education from Taiwan. “I’m happy he has been selected to receive the award.”
“Easter is one of the most humble and sincere leaders I have ever been around. That is such a unique and inspiring combination. People like Easter infuse energy and confidence into the people they serve,” said BYUH graduate Kaleb Valdez.
“Easter has an infectious sense of humor, an easy-going attitude, but a bright spark of passion and ingenuity behind the things he cares about. I have watched him mature as a leader, gradually departing his comfort zone and embarking in huge goals that challenge his current abilities, and make him strive to become stronger, better, and more understanding,” he added.
Niko, Valdez, and Nash worked on a “multi-year initiative in Tuvalu to train entrepreneurs, construct a preschool, gather metrics for future initiatives, and understand more the issues that his country is facing,” according to Valdez.
“[We] have traveled across the United States to speak about the issues Tuvalu and many nation states are dealing with. He has arranged dozens of meetings and calls with some of the top leaders in the Pacific, to understand all sides of many important issues.”
Niko said, “I worry about a lot of things. I worry about getting a job, supporting my family.” He added, “I’m not majorly worried, but they’re there in the back of my head. But I’m excited to get married and see where the next chapter goes. What’s out there is scary and exciting at the same time.”