After a long week I spent at the United Nations Headquarter listening to the same speech said in different languages and accents, I can say that it has been so far the biggest event during this internship, and my career too, (I hope my boss will not read this). But I wish they revealed more realistic experiences of what is going on in their countries. If they are all doing the right thing we wouldn’t have any social integration problems nor have need of that commission.
Still, this commission is a great opportunity to meet delegates, to present WYA and to practice the famous “three minutes speech,” when we introduce WYA and give a quick overview of the organization before they lose interest in the conversation, as delegates often do. Then we try to create contact with them by speaking out the magic words that might make them like us and avoid any word that irritates them, during this short period I will have to observe their reaction and conclude if they like us or not. Most of them are friendly and positive, especially to someone speaking in Arabic like me; some were really enthusiastic to see such organization active in the Middle East and Gulf Region; others were simply neutral. I had the chance to play the part of the sociable personality, which I really like to be. I spoke with almost every delegate from a Middle Eastern country who is there, except for the Lebanese who didn’t show up. That’s not all, still more fun to come. The most important part is to follow up with these people, we have to send them e-mails to tell then how much we enjoyed meeting them!!!!!!!! According to their reply, we can figure out if they like us or not, where most of them were really positive about cooperating with us on our common thoughts, or at least this is what they said. I hope they will keep their promises.
The commission at the UN is a different experience than I ever had, it’s a place where you build connections with the official representatives of each country, meet important people and gives you the chance to know how things and decisions are made.
Zeina Ghazzi – World Youth Alliance, Lebanon
