Meet Lei'anna
2022 Friendship Games Ambassador from Los Angeles
July 28, 2022 Updated October 3, 2022
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I lived in multiple places but I live in Los Angeles now. I live with my mom. One thing that is unique about where I grew up is that there are a lot of landmarks and there’s a lot of beaches all around. I like where I live. I have a lot of friends and everyone pretty much knows each other.
Q: What's the one thing that you'd want people to know about you?
I do art and I’m fun.
Q: Do you have a special talent that most people don't know about?
No, I think everyone knows everything [about my talents].
Q: Who's your hero? Why?
My mom, because she raised me and she taught me how to be strong.
Q: What do you think are the most important attributes of a leader?
Respectfulness and teaching others things that they don’t know.
Q: What are you most looking forward to about Friendship Games?
I’m mostly looking forward to meeting all the new people and exploring other parts of the world.
Q: Will it be your first time on an airplane? In another country? If so, what are you looking forward to about visiting another country? How do you feel about traveling abroad without your family?
Not the first time on an airplane, but first time in another country.
Q: What are you looking forward to about visiting another country?
I’m looking forward to seeing what’s different from where I live – like different languages and stuff.
Q: How do you feel about traveling abroad without your family?
Kind of excited. Because I’m always with my mom and stuff, so I think it’s a great opportunity.
Q: Is there anything you're nervous or unsure about going to the Friendship Games?
Just the plane ride.
Q: Why do you think PeacePlayers wants to bring together 130 young people from around the world?
To make us meet different people, and make us more social, and see what’s different and see what people around the world are like.
Q: If you could do anything you wanted when you grew up, what would it be/what's your biggest dream for the future - for yourself, for your family, for your community?
My biggest dream is, I want to be successful. I want to be a pediatric surgeon. I want to have my own place and not too much money but a lot of money. For my community, I wish that there wouldn’t be so much litter and global warming. And for my family, I wish that everyone’s financially stable and doing good.
Q: What's it like in your city/town/neighborhood? How would you describe it to someone who's never been there?
Pretty much everybody knows everybody.
Q: If you could time travel for one hour, where would you go? What would you do?
I’d go into the future and see how I’m doing in life.
We followed up with Lei’Anna during the Games to hear about her experience in real time. Here’s what she had to say!
Q: What's the most important thing you've learned this week?
The most important thing I've learned this week is how we got to see different religions and how other people live. And it's not like just one standard of living.
Q: What is the benefit of being exposed to people different from yourself?
The benefit of seeing people different from myself is very eye opening. It’s kind of crazy because I didn't, like, really know other people are out there that are different. I knew there's people different, but I didn't know they're as different.
Q: What's the thing you’ve enjoyed most?
The thing I enjoyed this week was playing basketball. I love basketball and especially the three on three. That was my favorite part.
Q: What’s something that you learned that you're going to take with you?
One thing I learned that I’ll take home with me is the breathing that we did with Sean. We did some breathing activities where you breathe in for four and hold and breathe out for four.
Q: Why do you think it's going to be helpful?
He said that it relieves anxiety and I have a lot of social anxiety.
Q: Do you think there's something that young people have the power to do that maybe for an older person might be a little harder? Do you have some sort of a unique power being a young person who wants to make change in the world?
Personally, yes. I think as a young person, it's a specific power of changing something because older people, they're a specific standard. As a young person now, we experience different stuff and we all have different mindsets. I think we're open minded so we can push stuff out there that we really want to do.
Q: Has this been your first time visiting another country?
Yes, this is my first time flying into a different country. And this experience was actually amazing. I loved when we went to the beach and stuff, the water was non polluted, it was nice and clean. And it’s kind of hot out here, but it's kind of different because it's the same degrees in L.A as here, but it just feels way hotter.
Q: Do you feel like you being from L.A. and it being a hot beach country, does it feel a bit more at home here than if you had visited somewhere else? Or does it still feel really different?
It really still felt different because people speak in a different language. I don't have a problem with people speaking a different language. It's just very new to me because being from L.A. it's just Spanish and English. It was really cool to experience the different languages.
