We are pleased to have the opportunity to host Jake Bailey at Roncalli on Tuesday, 21 February. Jake will present to the yr 9 & 10 students and a group of our student leaders but will return later in the year to address the seniors.

Below is a short bio about Jake. His message is about hope and resilience.

Jake Bailey is a full-time public speaker, the youngest #1 bestselling author in New Zealand history, and a passionate educator on the power of resilience.

Jake first caused a global sensation in 2015, when his speech as Head Boy at Christchurch Boys’ High School’s prize-giving ceremony went viral. A week before he was due to deliver this speech, Jake was diagnosed with Burkitt’s non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, the most aggressive cancer known to man. Given two weeks to live if this was left untreated, Jake persevered through to make his speech from a wheelchair, the video of which went on to touch the hearts of tens of millions and draw support and praise from across the globe.

Since being announced in remission in 2016, Jake has gone on to share his story with tens of thousands of people, through hundreds of speeches across dozens of cities. Working with corporates, organisations, and schools across the globe, Jake has helped audiences ranging from elite athletes to kids in outback towns, Fortune 500 CEO’s to prison inmates, and foreign governments to retirement homes to understand how we can most successfully overcome the adversity we will all inevitably face in life. Click here to learn more about Jake’s speaking work.

Jake is driven by having seen the powerful impact that resilience has had on his own life both during and post-cancer, and consequently knowing the potential which this learnable skill can have on the success and happiness of others. This passion also led him to create SORTD, an online video-based curriculum of resilience related content for teenagers, in conjunction with his public speaking and writing.

He is the author of the #1 Bestselling book ‘What Cancer Taught Me’, the subject of the documentary ‘The Common Touch’, and an official ambassador for two charities - the Maia Health Foundation in New Zealand and Tour de Cure in Australia.