7 Days... to its fullest

Seven days can take the beating of your heart to its fullest.

Yes, this is what happened from February the 28th to March the 5th, 2016, to the Colegio Williams students who experienced academic and cultural challenges to the utmost in the city of New York.

The dream of participating in the National High School United Nations Model 2016 (NHSMUN 16) whose preliminaries started in October 2015 with lots of research, writing, listening, debating, creating, and presenting a position paper was now a reality.

Upon arrival to the hotel, our cultural experience began with a long walk through Central Park, which was followed on that and consecutive days by carefully designed visits to the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan, the Modern Art, and the Natural History museums, as well as to the Frick Collection. Out of innumerable options, we visited Union Square, the Strand Bookstore, the Barnes and Noble Bookstore, the World Trade Center Observatory, and the Ground Zero Memorial. We also watched The Phantom of the Opera, The Color Purple, and the Avenue Q broadway musicals. Ever present was the sense of awe, amazement, aliveness, and enlightenment throughout the exploration and exposure to that city which never sleeps.

The counterpart of our trip was as rich, as indelible, and as insightful, providing us with the opportunity to share, change, transform, and evolve intellectually, emotionally, and socially; thus, converting us into more of what we wish to become. This was the 40th NHSMUN, which held around 3000 participants from approximately 40 different countries. The venue, as always, was at the Hilton Hotel. It started with the Opening Ceremony, followed by five committee sessions of three hours each, during three consecutive days, and the Closing Ceremony took place at the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters itself, where all of the committees presented their final resolutions, and where five prizes were awarded.

This year, the delegation of the "Union of the Comoros," a sovereign island nation in the Indian Ocean, represented by six Colegio Williams students, was warmly congratulated for the noteworthy quality of their position papers as well as for the excellent performance during committee work as shown through highly relevant and notorious interaction with fellow delegates.

The plaque reads:

NHSMUN

National High School

Model United Nations

2016

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT BY A

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DELEGATION AWARD

March 2-5, 2016

Our participation as Colegio Williams delegates was as follows:

Committee: AFRICAN UNION

Delegation: Comoros

Topic A: Combatting Boko Haram – Fernanda Davalos (5A)

Topic B: Girls Secondary Education in Africa – Jessica Fuentes (CCH1)

Committee: DISEC

Delegation: Comoros

Topic A: Controlling the Flow of Arms in the Middle East – Iker Jarquin Rosas (6A)

Topic B: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Rebel Groups – Santiago Ferrat Jiménez (6A)

Committee: LEGAL

Delegation: Comoros

Topic A: The Legal Rights of Migrant Workers in South East Asia – Evanna Corona Van Vliet (CCH 2)

Topic B: Censorship of Mass Media – Jimena Budar Quesada (CCH 2)

The broad and profound exposure to the above mentioned topics obtained through research, reflection, writing, and discussion plus the exercise of collaborating, presenting, proposing, debating, and reaching consensus developed in us an acute awareness of the reality we live in. All of which has strengthened our humanness in order to pursue a different construction of the world, to build global connections and partnerships, and to find real solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, which is possible, regardless of where we live, the language we speak, the beliefs we hold, and of what we do. We all have the potential to contribute to human development in our families, schools, communities, countries, and . . . the whole world. In fact, many of us are already doing just that.

We deeply thank Colegio Williams for equipping us with the wings to reach the highest strata in our day to day classroom sessions, Carlos Gómez for taking passionately and proficiently full responsibility of the preparation and training of the students for this NHSMUN, and Enrique Cortés for the literature programs he creates, which allow us to refine our perception of the reality we live in, as well as to develop and interconnect the skills needed to participate freely and competently in any context or circumstance, and on this specific occasion for introducing us to New York through his voice and eyes.

Rosario Alva

If you want to read our students’ experiences just click on their names

• Jimena Budar
• Jessica Fuentes
• Iker Jarquín
• Fernanda Dávalos
• Evanna Corona van Vliet
• Carlos Gómez

If you want to see all the photos of this experience, just click here.