Non-Handball Accomplishments
Going to New York City By: Belisa Camacho
My name is Belisa Camacho, I am eleven years old and I go to Khalsa Montessori School in Tucson, Arizona. I enrolled in a program called Montessori Model United Nations, which is about children my age (and all the way to high school) learning about the world’s problems, such as Preservation of Heritage Languages, Limitation to Water and Food Resources, and many others. The experience I got to go through was amazing because, not only did we learn about the world’s problems, but we developed resolutions, which are solutions to the problems. The resolutions are passed on to the United Nations General Assembly so they can be voted on to make them International Resolutions or not.
The United Nations General Assembly consists of over two-hundred nations (or countries as they are more commonly referred to) that have come together and formed an organization that is trying to help with world problems. The MMUN program is, basically, children representing all those nations in delegations. For example, my delegation was “The Delegation of Azerbaijan.” The committee that I was in was SOCHUM which stands for Social, Humanitarian and Cultural; and my topic was Preservation of Heritage Languages. What I had to do was find different delegations to help make draft resolutions that we could send to the United Nations General Assembly (or G.A. for short). After we passed our draft resolutions, we sent them to the G.A.
Before we could go to NYC, we had to do all the research we could find on our topics and write a paper about it. The country that our school was representing was Azerbaijan. The topic of my research was Preservation of Heritage Languages. That means, I had to learn about the languages of that part of the world, find out if any were endangered, and then learn what Azerbaijan was doing about it because they are important to the history and culture of the people of that area (and of the world, as I learned). Then, I had to write a report about it, give a speech at the conference, and help find a solution to the problem.
There was a lot of extra homework but, after doing it all, it really paid off and we got to go to New York City for a conference about our topics and committees from Model UN. While we were in NYC, we went to Central Park to a place called Belvedere Castle, which is a model of a real castle that overlooks a turtle pond. On that same day, we went to Battery Park, saw the Statue of Liberty, and went to the 9/11 Memorial. After all that traveling around NYC we got to ride the subway back to the hotel and eat Brooklyn style pizza for dinner. All together, I got to spend four days in NYC.
After three days in “The Big Apple”, we finally came down to our last day there. It was one of my favorite days while we were in New York, yes, it was the last day, but it was also the best because we got to see the actual United Nations building and inside of that building was the real General Assembly room. The GA was where the delegations were going to vote to pass the resolution to Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations. We did not get to vote, but we did get to see and take pictures of the UN building. After we looked at the GA, I was very proud of myself for being able to come to the conference and speak my ideas to my fellow delegates and have them, not only agree with what I was saying, but to come up with something so sophisticated that we felt confident enough to send our draft resolution to Ban Ki-Moon.
If anyone had the opportunity to do Model United Nations I would tell them to take the chance and go for it, because not only would they get to go to NY, but they would get to experience something that they would never get to experience again. There is a lot of homework involved, but after getting off the flight back home you will know you have done something good and you will feel so proud of yourself because of what you accomplished at the conference.
Belisa Camacho 6th grader at Khalsa Montessori School
Who had the chance of doing Model UN
We are very pleased to learn that Esteban Camacho has fulfilled the entrance requirements for University High School. U.S. News and World Report lists UHS as number 4th ranked on its list of Best Schools in the Country.
The school describes itself as the premiere regional college preparatory school that serves academically focused and intellectually gifted students by providing a rigorous, challenging curriculum and by offering programs that reflect the diverse backgrounds, talents and cultures of the students within a supportive school-wide community.
Esteban is currently an 8th grade student at Khalsa Montessori School. As he and his family researched different high schools, it became evident to Esteban that he wanted to meet the challenge that could be awaiting him at University High School. He had heard from friends that the entrance exam was very difficult. He soon learned how difficult it was by sitting for four hours right before Christmas break in order to complete the exam. It took about one month before he received the good news that he passed. However there was another huge hurdle to cross. The entrance committee had to scrutinize his academic history. In what seemed like an eternity, he received a letter about a month later that he had been accepted.
Esteban will be entering University High School as a freshman in August. He joins Alan Cheng, who will be entering his sophomore year at UHS, as two young men having bright futures in both academics and handball.