Life-changing tour for Senior School student

Senior School student Angelina Ibrahim (Year 13) joined 20 other young New Zealanders on the trip of a lifetime at the beginning of this year, the United Nations (UN) Youth Aotearoa Global Development Tour.

Angelina was selected for the tour following a rigorous application process that involved writing an application and an online selection interview. She was a high school ambassador of the New Zealand UN Youth Group last year, which meant she was the Chair of the UN Youth Group at Kristin, and this year, she is the Chair of the Kristin UNESCO group. This heavy involvement and dedication to these organisations put her in good stead for selection.

The month-long tour took her to some big cities around the world, including Boston, New York, London, Brussels and Paris. There, they met with major humanitarian organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF and Orders without Borders, with a goal of allowing the group to have more international-mindedness about what these organisations do, primarily focusing on the UN and how they are going about achieving the sustainable development goals for 2030.

One of the significant items on the agenda for Angelina and her group was a model UN conference held at Columbia University in New York:

“It involved around 800 students from all over the world and lasted for four days. We practised things like being in the United States (US) Senate and mocking roles that those people play,” says Angelina.

Highlights for Angelina included going to the UN Headquarters in New York, where she got a full tour, taking in the General Assembly, and in Paris, she visited the UNESCO Headquarters and met with the UNESCO Director General, someone she was honoured to meet as the Chair of UNESCO at Kristin.

Not only did Angelina learn a lot about the organisations she visited, but she came back with a fresh understanding about her future:

“I think going on the trip really helped me decide what I want to study at university and do for a career. Meeting with so many people who studied law and political science, but also some who studied computer or neuroscience; learning what they do day to day and how policy changes can make such a big impact for the next generation was really helpful,” says Angelina.

Angelina is now looking at studying law, political science and neuroscience, focusing on international relations, and following on from her invaluable experiences on this life-changing tour, it might not be long until we see her working with these organisations on the global stage and making real change in the world.