Three students from Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College will be travelling to Taiwan in December to take part in an international conference looking at the role of young people in local and global development.

The sixth form students, Justine Lee, Benjamin Burke and Michael Lang, have been selected to be the British representatives at the conference being hosted by Changhua Senior High School in Taipei.

They will be accompanied by Carolyn Carr who is Director of Pupil Activities at the school. The group will be meeting students from America, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Canada.

Each student is delivering a 2,000 word report looking at the possible contribution to culture to the world of globalisation.

Justine, 17, who is studying chemistry, physics and biology at the school, said: "I think it's quite a good opportunity for us all. Preparing this project has opened up my eyes to how much we are targeted by advertisers."

Ben, 17, who is studying chemistry, biology and media studies, said that he had enjoyed putting the presentation together and was looking forward to the trip.

"It's been hard work - but it's been fun to explain globalisation as I didn't know a lot about it before. It's quite daunting to be the only three people going from Britain but it's great too. Doing the project has made me realise the effect that globalisation is having on smaller and poorer countries."

Mrs Carr, who is accompanying the students, said she was very proud of them all.

"I'm very proud of them, students don't get these kinds of opportunities very often. It's a chance to broaden their horizons. I am nervous for them but I am 100 per cent behind them," she said.

The group will spend five days at the conference meeting students from across the globe. The conference organisers are hoping that the students findings will be used and presented to governments in the future.

"This project has really opened all of our eyes to globalisation and in particular fairtrade. It's great that something like this can really make you think about globalisation as a whole and what you can do," said Michael.

e-mail: sunita.bhatti@bradford.newsquest.co.uk