SCVMUN 2015 Speech

Yesterday I gave a speech to an auditorium full of high school MUN participants. It was fun, transcript below:

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Good evening, everyone and thank you, Sam, for that generous introduction. Today I don’t have a normal speech for you. But what I do have are three short stories from my own life.

The first story took place at this very conference, my first Model UN conference. When I was in high school, I was deathly afraid of public speaking. I decided to join Model UN to challenge myself and get better at it. When committee started, I was incredibly nervous. For the first few minutes of committee I did nothing but repeat what I was going to say over and over again in my head, basically tuning everything else out. And then my moment came: my turn to speak. “PRESENT!” I said. Nailed it.

The rest of the conference was a blur. Did I say anything after that? Who knows! Now, I’m not encouraging you to go comatose during committee or anything, but what I learned during my time in Model UN is that improvement comes from constantly pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, wherever that may be. The happy ending to this story is that I did become better at public speaking, one step out of my comfort zone at a time. Also, don’t feel bad if you’re not amazing at Model UN right away—I sure wasn’t.

My second story takes place in college where I ran WorldMUN—a 5-day model UN conference of 2,000 international college students from around the world—certainly not an easy task. At some point during day 3 of the conference, when it felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong, a delegate from Venezuela stopped me as I was running down the hallway.

“Thank you” he said. “Thank you for organizing this conference. Without WorldMUN I would not be allowed outside of Venezuela.” It was his first time out of his country and his first time interacting with so many people from around the world.

Even though I had a million things to attend to I stopped and we stood there for a while speaking about Venezuela, its politics, and policies and I remembered that Model UN at its heart is about the amazing and interesting people that you will meet and the conversations that you will have. The rest of the conference had its ups and downs, but to this day what I remember most about that weeklong whirlwind was the people I met. So take the opportunity this Friday and Saturday to meet someone new. I guarantee it will be worth your time.

My final story is still ongoing, and it’s happening in law school. I went to law school eager to learn more about international law, after all, I had worked in South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore and was familiar with injustice abroad. But during my two years in law school, what I began to feel most inspired by were issues within the US itself, barely contained under the surface.

After the grand jury decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases, Berkeley law school and the city of Berkeley erupted in protest. This reminded me that as riveting as warlords in Africa or human trafficking in Southeast Asia are—there are still many issues in our own backyard that need the skill, time, and passion of people like you. Train your critical eyes toward your own community, state, and nation—what bothers you and can it be changed? After all, the US is part of the GLOBAL community that we are all so invested in.

In the end, my three stories are more like three challenges that I know you each have the capability to successfully tackle.

CHALLENGE NUMBER ONE: step outside your comfort zone at least once during this conference—if it’s embarrassing, so what? People who make mistakes have better stories to tell, trust me.

CHALLENGE NUMBER TWO: meet someone new this weekend. The more people you know from different schools, the more proms you get invited to. Again, trust me.

CHALLENGE NUMBER THREE: you’re probably tired of hearing about how you are the leaders of tomorrow and blah blah blah, but it’s TRUE. You are already pushing yourselves to think about difficult issues that many people your age don’t even know exist. Take that knowledge and critical thinking and change your communities for the better.

There is no way for me to hold you accountable for fulfilling these challenges, but I hope that you will hold yourself accountable. Plus, you’ll thank me when you get invited to three proms. I wish you all the best of luck.