Kii Small stands as an example of how international Bermuda can be.

Born in Bermuda to Barbadian parents and now living in New Zealand, the 18-year-old has been selected for the next Youth Parliament.

He will represent his home district of Northland, situated at the northernmost tip of New Zealand.

“I had forgotten that I had applied. I handed it in and forgot, so when I got the news I was shocked,” Kii told The Royal Gazette.

News of his appointment was welcomed with pride at his old high school, Kaitaia College. Judges were taken with his essay on improving the turnout of young voters.

The son of Barbadian educators Edwin and Faye Small, Kii lived in Bermuda until the age of 13, and the Island is inextricably part of his identity.

“I had a bit of an identity crisis in the last few years,” he laughed.

After attending Harrington Sound Primary School and Saltus Grammar School, where his father was a teacher, Kii went with his family to the small town of Kaitaia in June 2010.

“It actually had much more of a sense of community to me — I came back to Bermuda a few years ago and found it very fast paced.”

His new home is a close-knit community of some 5,000 people.

Kii traces his interest in politics back to Bermuda: finding out that he would have to leave at the age of 18 and learning the intricacies of status furnished him with “my first sense of politics”.

He keenly observed Bermuda’s fiercely fought party politics and gradually acquired a fascination for the topic, now being pursued in a bachelor of commerce degree in international business and political science at Victoria University.

Unsure whether he will pursue a career in the field, Kii said: “People tell me I’m halfway there.

“It’s one of those things — I’ll see how life takes me. I might end up back in Bermuda.”

Giving the “short version” of how he applied for the Youth Parliament, Kii said that while running a student radio show with a friend, he met a variety of people in the field.

“We ended up getting Members of Parliament, city councillors — I met an MP who told me, ‘You’re 18, you’ve got a good sense of politics, and you’re not crazy; I think you should apply’.”

This month’s news came as a tremendous surprise, but Kii was quick to take up the appointment, meeting with Northland MP Winston Peters to discuss issues affecting young people.

Many younger voters have failed to take part in New Zealand’s political process because “they have no idea how it works, no idea of the structure of the Government”.

He speaks now with a distinct Kiwi accent but said: “I wouldn’t be where I am right now without going to Harrington Sound, without Bermuda; everything I have done so far is a product of that.”

The 2016 Youth Parliament 2016 goes ahead in July.

Kii and other Parliamentarians will take on their duties starting in January.