 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. I'm here with me at the University of the American Puebla in Puebla, Mexico. We are in Cholula, Puebla, I should clarify. And joining me today are two young leaders who have been involved with a very important conference that's held here every year. A student conference known as the Latin American Model United Nations. We're going to talk about what is involved in organizing such an important event, what kind of activities they do, what lessons the students get from this or our skills. Joining me today, I'm very happy to welcome, on one hand, I have Maria Jose Goitia right here in the middle. Welcome, Maria Jose. Thank you Dr. Tom. So much for having us here today. We have talked about such a project and not so much. And this is so much effort into it. Great, thank you. And also joining me is Enya Nava, another student here. Thank you for joining us, Enya. And welcome Global Connections. Thank you, Enya Nava. I love that you have a lot to do. For instance, it's kind of a break because there might be because of the students and because of this interest to be of the work. Sure. And here at the university, of course, we learn different ways and classes where we study things, we research, we write, we have lectures. But this type of experience is what we might call a more practical experiential learning that is outside of the classroom. But very important because you're learning lessons about many of the issues you study in the classroom, but more real world, more practical. And we'll talk more about, particularly the Model United Nations. It's a program that's been around for some time, of course, and it helps students to develop very important skills. But before we jump into that, maybe just a brief word, Maria Jose and Enya. Tell us, you're both students here in Puebla, Mexico, but where are you from? Are you from this area yourself? Yes. I'm born and raised here in Puebla, Mexico, everything. And I've been a student here at the University of Latin America at Puebla since 2014. I'm doing adult major in political science and international relations, hopefully graduating next year. And while it's been such a ride, the university has helped me to do internships abroad, an exchange program in religious universities. I'm so grateful for having the chance to study here. And definitely one of my greatest passions and biggest projects throughout my entire undergrad has been Model UN. And you mentioned, did you have any chance to study abroad yourself outside of Puebla? Yes. I was a student for summer at the University of Paris. And I also went to McGill University during a semester. Montreal. Montreal. And I went to the University of Edinburgh to finish my year of law. Scotland. Scotland, yeah. UK. Well, very good. And tell us, Enya, are you from Puebla yourself? Where's your home? My home is in Lafayette. Lafayette. Lafayette. Lafayette. I'm from Puebla. Yes. And people from here, from Puebla, they say that Lafayette doesn't exist. Because it's really near, and they identify with Lafayette. Yeah. So it's just as far as Puebla. That's right. It's kind of surrounded by the State of Puebla. But it is one of the smaller states. Maybe for some of our listeners who might maybe know the geography of the United States, kind of like the Rhode Island, a little small state surrounded by a bigger one. But it has its own charm in the long history of actually holding off. Indeed, it exists because of the, perhaps, you know, the ancient warriors that kept it from being conquered by other groups. Well, thank you both for joining us. And again, you're also a student of international relations. Yeah. And of course, I mean, something like the Model UN, the United Nations. Basically, it's an experience that is done throughout many high schools, many universities. Often it's done at a local level or a regional level. Sometimes they are international. They take on many dimensions. And I want to talk to us about this experience. Both of you have been involved as leaders in this Latin American Model UN. And it's hosted here in Puebla at the University of America. This is now, I think, we finished just the last one, the 31st annual edition of the Latin American Model UN. And so for our listeners, I want to make sure we understand. I mean, what exactly is it? And it's a program that goes on for several days, basically a part of a week. And it brings together many different students. So tell us a little bit about just the dynamics. What it is? Who comes? Who participate? Well, I think it's really important to highlight that someone is the first Model UN that sits in Latin America at university level. So we're very proud of that. We're very proud that we're still around after 31 years. And it's definitely a challenge because a lot of things change. It definitely depends on every generation. So it's been around for 31 years. It's been growing and it has the goal to be a regional Model UN to bring not only universities in Puebla and around Mexico, but also to revive the same university in Latin America and try to reach for us in the US and Canada. So it's been coming. We also try to reach for high schools because they're involved because you know, they're high school. It's a very thrilling experience and an opportunity to get involved in Model UN. So basically that's the goal and the history of the Model UN. And I think Amy can tell you way more about the function of the Model UN like the United States. Yeah, so it emulates essentially a series of negotiations and discussions and basically the agenda of the United Nations and the real world problem that issues many very complex, many, you know, many different pieces of the UN. And then we have to understand the United Nations is a very large complex organization. The General Assembly is a big one. The Security Council focus on peace and conflict. But many others that may be dealing with socials and humanitarian economic development. Tell us anything else you want to add about in general what it is. And who are the participants? They come from all over Mexico and some other areas in the region, but they're a mixture of university students and some high school. So you have a mixture of different types that you can add? Um, like my experience tells that it's kind of of being going and it's a bold thing to be like, you know... Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hegemon. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But in ways that we will try to be like among my, you know, try to be a little bit debate. There are three days that we debate. And although you have like the agenda, whether you're going to debate, whether you're going to debate, you are visiting our country. And also, there's always motions that we've got us together. We view whether we're going to send them to the Secretary of the United Nations. In that way, we're saying that we're going to do that. Maybe not that way. It has a very important, maybe, youth perspective of young leaders, of young students. And so as you said, you come together for this several days, three intensive days. A lot of work is done before. So the students who come, they represent a particular country. They have to research, understand the issues, the interests of that country, what role it might play. And then they're participating in a particular piece of the United Nations, whatever committee or organization. And they need to understand a lot of rules, procedures, protocol, et cetera. We'll talk a lot more about that. And of course, one of the biggest challenges is you as young leaders that are involved in organizing this type of thing. There's a big challenge because one of the very important things about this, it is put on by students. Students are the ones who basically help organize it and put it all together. And that's not easy. There are many challenges. You have to learn a lot by doing it. But at the same time, you learn by sharing that experience. And Mariana, you most recently were the, what, Secretary General? I love Secretary General for this. For just the third one. And you're the future of women. And you have a successor in training. And of course, that's the real world. You have to have people who bring experience and maybe learn through the system. And so that the next year, as it will come again, and it will be sort of the top dog, the Secretary General, but helping to bring together many others. Because like all of these type of things, it's a complex, let's say, event. It requires a lot of participation, a lot of different people. If I can turn to one of our first pictures. We have a photograph here of the very first photo that shows us an example of the opening ceremony, the panel where you'll have some of the distinguished, either academic leaders, these, and other academic officials kind of welcoming them and receiving them. We have a, in the first picture, again, a panel group that these are the main core people beginning and organizing it. If we can turn to the second picture, we have here the organizing committee itself. And both of you are in this picture together with a few other of your peers. You form this picture, basically, the top organizing committee. Yes. That would be what we call the high command. High command, okay. Like it's like the usual word that the U.S. and the United States to describe the organizing committee. So, basically, the high command, you mean more created by the Secretary General, under Secretary General, who was standing at this year, we have an academic director in charge of building all the committees, preparing all the chairs. We're going to be moderating this way, creating the research. We also have a director of logistics, who is in charge of all the small details of how long it's going to work, the agenda, partnerships, like all the functioning details. And this year, like from previous years, we realized that if we wanted to make, like include the quality of the events, we need to reach out to other areas. We have a director of finances, who is in charge of helping us with all the money, because we are from international relations and sometimes... Finance is not your expertise. Finance is not like our expertise. We definitely know the basics of money, but it's great to have someone who is the best at it. And we have a special director for the media, who designs. He's in charge of all the communications and social media, designs, all the image. He's in charge of the humanities department. And I think I'm missing our head of delegation. We prepare people's youth at university to be part of the delegation. If they don't want to become part of the staff or of the chairs, they can just be delegates and debate. So, we also encourage them to do that. And it's basically what the high command is part of. Yeah. And I mean, it's a very important, though, sort of overall executive committee that comes together, because, as you know, there are many different pieces. And as we continue our dialogue, I mean, understanding some of the challenges of logistics and planning are one thing. But on the other hand, the agenda, the items that are discussed and the topics are both current and contemporary issues, but they're extremely complicated. And the reality for the UN is that you need, obviously, diplomats and experts who understand negotiation and understand maybe how to solve complex problems, but you also need very technical expertise if you're dealing with, you know, everything from whether it's military or even maybe agricultural development or thinking of the many different things. You really need a wide range of experts. You need finance people. You need engineers. And in many ways, it's a very good experience for the students because at the end, you may be students of international relations, but you also have students who may be in business who may be in psychology or maybe they're in nursing and they understand health issues. That's the real world. And the United Nations must deal with all of these many topics. Our high command actually is all through different undergrads. Like, some of us as an international relation, we have some nanotechnology, some communication, some finance, some engineering. It's amazing, but it's truly a multi-dimensional high command to build. That was one of the things I found was really important. Like, the team really worked things that we had, like people in their expertise and working together and also the chairs. They belong to different parts of the university. They come from different undergrads, different bachelors. So it's not generally for only international relations, political science people. It actually comes to be a full university. Yes. And this is why, again, it's a very important and even popular because it reaches out to everybody. And that's, again, the real world, the United Nations. You have not only the traditional diplomats that are in this world at the pharmacy, but you have public health officials, doctors, engineers, bankers, because if you're dealing with challenges of underdevelopment and economic crises and so on, you need people to understand the money, the financing, and so on. And public health issues and issues, even the issues of conflict and war, they involve very technical questions of mobilizing weapon systems or whatever it might be. But again, I think it's a good example where it's not reserved just for the students of international relations and sort of diplomacy and so on, but you need all of that. And thank you for sharing that. I think if we get ahead, we're going to be looking to take a short break in a moment here. Basically, we've got a basic setup. We have this Latin American model, UNA, and this is now the 31st year that just finished. So it's now institution-lined. It has like a system of process and part of what you do is you've had your experience that you have less than you learned as challenges and you try to convey them to your successors. We'll take a short break right now. And when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about those logistics and the specific challenges, but also very important. What are the takeaways? What lessons? What skills? What sort of values the students learn when they participate in this? It's such an important opportunity. So we'll come back on just a minute. I'm your host here, Carlos Guarez. Global Connections joined today by two young leaders, Enya and Maria Jose, who've been involved in the Latin American Model of the United Nations Conference. We'll be back in just a moment. Come back and join us. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Welcome back. I'm your host, Carlos Guarez, here on Global Connections. And we're having a great conversation today with two young student leaders here at the University of the Americas in Cholula, Puebla, in Mexico. And they have been basically involved in the Latin American Model of the United Nations Conference. We'll be back in just a minute. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, we're really excited that the Latin American Model of the United Nations Conference is basically involved in helping to organize and put on a very important annual student conference, the Latin American Model of the United Nations Conference. This past year they celebrated the 31 year that has been hosted here at the University, and it brings students from many parts of particularly Mexico and some other regions and students from different schools, different even levels, including high school and university students. But it's often when it comes down to actually doing it it can be really tough So I wonder if you might just share some anecdotes some of the issues that What is involved in planning it and what are the kind of challenges that you have to overcome just to bring it all together And make it happen because it happens over three four days, but to get there and to arrive at that. It's obviously a lot of that Preparation so maybe share with us a little bit of that so So talking about like the bureaucracy that everybody has a lot quite difficult because when you need that the department or maybe another kind of Or or kind of that supports you You're going to find that you need to Too long later you have to put like this paper and then another and then they can tell you that you can use like that Some budget because you don't have like kind of numbers so over students and maybe That was like the big deal with us that the students that arrived Inscribed in them only my nation's like quickly. So have a lot of fun with have like a number and a number You don't even know who's arriving at the very last minute. It's a lot of change of plans, of course So again, this is a headache. I think for any kind of big complex organization And like you said, I mean you're part of an institution here Which is it's only bureaucracy and rules and procedures and you end up having to find yourself very frustrated But tell us again just challenging I think that's the greatest challenge here when I took charge of the model you and it was with few times previous So I decided to take the challenge I just turn around we've got any idea What's convinced to do this together and I'm really thankful for that my biggest lesson of the challenges here is definitely The way our university works because we are students. We are really into the academic branch We really don't know the administrative part, but it's crucial to get things done for a conference Yeah, at the end of the day, it's an event from the university We're representing the university and we need to follow those rules, but we are like in blank And you're learning as you go Somebody told you this before Yes, it's challenging and I think in every conference you prepare money It's always a thing. I think that budget is always tricky and getting sponsorship So I think that the biggest challenge is just trying to learn how to figure it out and improve the budget and to become more creative and Innovative in how we're going to do to keep this Sustainable in way of numbers. Yeah, because it's terrible to talk about numbers But at the end of the day and it then requires funding And if we don't talk about the money that I think was an issue in previous years I was trying to like to be avoided because to be politically correct where this year was our biggest challenge and I Think that it's really divided the support here the department Professors like you and our dean of social science was extremely supportive full of trust and always fighting with all to get things done and to get the best experience for a guest But definitely we need to take like a time to like define what we want them to be going in To actually make it visible how an enriching experience it can be but we can overcome all the challenges that we find during the 31st edition And I think you know again, this is so true of many things I mean even the United Nations has to struggle with reality of budgets But maybe the key point here is that you have to continuously have to explain and argue and articulate You know, what is the purpose of this and what you know, it's not just for this narrow interest of students But in fact the university as a whole We definitely found out that my morning said great And then to portray what we want to be at the university what you can do and to actually Invite all students who are part of the community to be part of the event because you can find What to collaborate with and I think that many people think it's just for international relations So that's one of the challenges we want to like to take advantage of creating to a bigger a better opportunity and hopefully Improve the lessons we learned from this year And so again speaking as you are now the lessons and the challenges as an organizer now, let's think of it now finally Some thoughts about for the perspective of those who come and participate and who get involved I mean this type of experience that I mentioned earlier called experiential learning where you're learning really practical hands-on simulation role play and You're developing very important skills that I can tell you certainly as an educator You know, I've been involved with many model u.s over the years Students then develop skills that they're going to be able to use in their real life and and understanding complex issues Whether they're global or just even the dynamics of coming together as a group Maybe if you can speak a little bit about what are some of the skills or values or lessons that the participants learn What do they take away? You know why participate in the model you and what do you get from it? And again, maybe if you can share anything about that One skill I think that is very important. Maybe When you represent something maybe the things that you represent are not according with things that you think or that you believe and that's one of the things that has In this class we have a class and we have a debate And when you are defending something that you are not according with Then it's like an issue but in real life important and informative you are going to do that So I think that that skill needs to be released not only in in people that are Going through the format your colleagues, but also like In many things I have one cold medication that Takes me because we can do it more in my initials she tried to emphasize with people and And it's good that not only Are for diplomacy And I think maybe I just along the line you have to learn to be able to work with people that have different Skills and different knowledge. So if you're dealing again, maybe it's uh Putting out a pandemic disease crisis in west africa. Well, you need a public health expert. What is it involved with doctors? They need to know what what what is the Going to help us to solve and maybe manage this conflict and the logistical support of you know, getting the people there, etc So the point is that you also are forced to deal with many different types of experts and even in your case students That are studying something else that you might not have them in your classroom But guess what now you have to come together as a team To address this complex issue. Uh, and so that's again an invaluable skill And it's a good example of what this Latin American model u.m. Like like model u.m. Everywhere. It helps us to develop those kind of, you know, practical skills team building skills negotiation skills anything you can add yes, uh During the integration I talked about Why modeling are important? Why that movie is important not only for us, but for students And for me the biggest emphasis was not only the academic skills to get a research of negotiation of Speaking out loud It was about empathy model united nations definitely teach you to Learn about a different reality the one you have And to learn to represent it to leave it and to open your eyes to the different realities And I think that's not only a valuable lesson or a valuable skill you should develop for your life as a student For your life for the future and from the point of view of organizing Definitely seeing the biggest lesson Learned is teamwork Nations and it's just learning how to work under pressure Model united nations because you do so much. That's why I say not only skills I will definitely make you more competitive when you go out to work Whatever you're going to work enterprise is politics Private sector anything you want to do definitely there are skills that will help you be more competitive But also help you to be a better human being they teach you a lot of values So for me it's like a very complete activity to do even if you're just going to try it once You're definitely get a lot of learning and you're going to mean a lot of people who might become really close friends And it's a great way to connect to the network and to get to know people from different places Yeah, I know you've said it very well and again, uh, so indispensable And it's just a learning that has to come outside of the traditional classroom This is a real practical hands-on roleplay simulation as we finish now. Let me just show a couple of quick Final slides. We have a picture number three that just gives an example of an auditorium Where you know part of the process is the students come from many different places But they also have opportunities to hear some lectures some discussion some workshops And that happens to be a presentation I gave we turn now to number four A lot of what goes on is the typical sort of student discussion. You have small groups There's negotiation. You're trying to Find some kind of a proposal reach a resolution on something and bring together a consensus agreement on something You have a complex issue a problem. How can we solve it? What can we do? And that's the thing that happens in a lot of these sort of look at the final picture We have number five Just an example again here the final group picture at the end of the many different participants who came together for this particular Latin American model u.n And again, it's just a very exciting opportunity The students take it very seriously you learn the importance of protocol of procedures of rules because certainly u.n Have a lot of them But also it's just the nature of dealing with you know cross-cultural relations Understanding empathy the most important lesson that you really get out of your comfort zone And you put yourself in the shoes of others and you understand the issue from their point of view So thank you for sharing all that as we finish now I'll I guess we just have some final closing thoughts I mean anything else you want to share with us anya from your vantage point You're you've been through it now and you're going to be embarking on helping plan the next one You have the fortune of having experienced that but any final takeaways or thoughts It's a challenge. I think it's a It's a real good challenge, but It's your life my face told us and I think the next year it's going to be better. It's uh No, I hope I hope We have like only speaking about each year and now we know what's going to be sure going to want to work once Yeah, what's anticipating anything like for us the 31st year represented a challenge and What we came as a team and what was like my biggest goal this year was Bring the vantage point of what we want to do with that What we wanted to become because we have all this history What we need to we need to move on we need to to be more attractive to To see a lot. So I think that as I said, I definitely Trust that next year is going to be better We want to make lemon and an integral experience. It's not only about being a release resource academic activity, but then you can also learn from the conferences And that you can also have fun and enjoy Meeting people from all around different parts. So I think that these people's vantage points and I am sure That it's going to be intense. I hope I'm making it easier and it's going to be these this year was like Figuring out what we're going to do and next year is going to be this great comeback. So I I trust it's in the greatest of hands He was an amazing partner around this life and she's so Well, again, both of you are good examples of young young student leaders who obviously have taken this initiative and and you will certainly lifelong Benefits and skills from this and and lifelong friends that you've met along the way That you may not have had in the classroom, but suddenly this experience kind of brings you together Well on this I want to just thank our viewers for tuning in on us here A good example again of the sort of dynamic learning process that that we see Happening in today's world young leaders who are involved in this latin american model U.S. And developing skills that they will carry with them in whatever next steps they have Thank you for joining us here on global connections. I'm your host carlo swad is joined today by Anya nava and mariachi say goitia both students here at the university of the america's in chonula We will close on that and wish you will join us again for our next episode on global connections