Former Thompsonite and competitive figure skater Martin Nickel is embarking on a new challenge this August as one of 40 young Canadians travelling to China as part of Global Vision’s junior Team Canada trade mission.
Nickel, who moved to Ontario when he was 16 to pursue higher-level training in competitive figure skating – he was in the top 10 at the Skate Canadian national championships in ice dance in 2011 and in junior ice dance the previous two years – is now a fourth-year mechanical engineering student at the University of Guelph. His father, Georg Nickel, own Multicrete Systems Inc.
Nickel, whose focus during the mission will include delivering mandates from various organizations in Northern Manitoba, says participating in the trade mission will be a stepping stone from university into the real world and is seeking to work with organizations from Thompson and the surrounding area, exchanging information, research, contacts and connections in the Chinese marketplace for financial contributions to support his mission. Like all other participants in Global Vision’s junior Team Canada trade mission, Nickel must raise $5,500 – half the cost of his trip – to participate.
“The opportunities I had growing up were due, in large part, to the support I received from my community and region,” says Nickel. “Because of this, I easily developed a sense of pride for my home province. Now I have to opportunity to showcase it on a global scale and use it to explore how connections with such a powerful country could positively impact my northern home region.”
Nickel and the other participants in the trade mission, which focuses on building connections between Canadian and Chinese business, government, community and cultural organizations, were selected from hundreds of eligible participants who were part of Global Vision’s national recruitment and outreach campaign.
Global Vision is a national not-for-profit charitable organization founded in 1991 by former Member of Parliament Terry Clifford that provides Canadians aged 16 to 25 international experience representing Canada abroad through junior Team Canada, which has travelled to 35 countries on six continents since its inception.
