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A week in the Big Citaay

March 31, 2009

I took an extra long spring break and actually went to New York for a week right after I got out of a week in Washington. The second week, however, was excused. I was working for the National High School Model United Nations (NHSMUN) conference in New York City. This was my third time attending the conference, I went once as a delegate of Barbados during high school and this would be my second time as a staffer. This is one of the largest conferences in the world of its kind, with over 2100 students from all over the US and many schools coming from around 13 different countries around the world. My former high school from Venezuela was in attendance at the conference and it was great to see them.

After being rehired last year, I took on the position of Director of Administrative Relations for NHSMUN ‘09. The name does not mean much, but it was fun carrying a nametag around that said that. It was my job to keep the Faculty Advisors happy and attend to any needs or concerns they may have. As part of my job, I was to bring guest speakers to the conference that would in one way or another inspire the students attending the conference. I brought in three different ones with completely different backgrounds that would add character to the nature of the conference. Ultimately, the speakers were so impressed by the students’ caliber that they stayed after the talk to have a more personal conversation.

The first speaker I brought was Thor Halvorssen, the president and founder of the Human Rights Foundation. They are well established in Latin America, their primary focus. They have as an NGO helped get political dissidents out of jail in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. In his speech, Mr. Halvorssen focused specifically on corruption that goes on with governments across Latin America and the world. The second speaker I brought was Saheer Lone, he is the senior executive liaison of the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East. It was interesting to have him speak because this is one of the few UN offices whose budget of over $500 million is mostly directly managed to build schools and fund educational programs in the Gaza strip. They have offices in most major cities in the Middle East and operate a massive system of UN schools which directly serve nearly 500,000 children.

The third speaker I brought is someone special and dear to the Rollins community. Her name is Rebeca Montaner and she is the founder of the Book Network Project. She graduated from Rollins in ’08 and founded her own small business that summer. She started her project here at Rollins and every year collects donated books which in turn she either sells or distributes to universities in the developing world. The revenues go to organizations such as Pro-Niños de la Calle in Mexico, America Developing Smiles in Miami and Latin America, Five Stones in the Dominican Republic, among others. She recruited students interested in coordinating book drives in their area, and she impressed a teacher who studies how to motivate and inspire students. Because of her mark on people, the conference has extended her an invitation to speak at the Southern US Model UN Conference (SUSMUN), a newly-created conference to be held in November of this year.

I’ve always been passionate about Model UN. I believe it is better than the real UN because it enables and teaches skills that empower the young to pursue their ambitions while the real UN is filled with government appointees stuck in bureaucratic red tape.

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