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March 27, 2009
On Friday, March 27, four Levermore Global Scholars attended the Global Kids 2009 Annual Youth Conference. Global Kids, Inc. is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to transforming urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. This year’s theme focused on global public health, and the conference was sponsored by the Stephen and May Cavin Leeman Foundation and held at Baruch College.
Below are LGS students’ reflections on the conference.
Morning Workshop
The topic for the morning workshop was general awareness about Global Health. Two students from Global Kids led the workshop, and they first led a discussion about what came to mind when hearing the word “health.” We then played a game called “Red Cross,” in which we were broken up into teams that each represented a different country with a prevalent disease in the region. As a group, we had to come up with a presentation for student leaders as to why our country should get money to help eradicate the disease from the area. The presentations ranged from simple speeches to dramatic skits. The judges decided to be nice and share the money among everyone, but they also noted that this rarely happens in reality. We ended the workshop with a short presentation by Andrea Provost, a guest speaker who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Global Health Center. She discussed the health initiatives that she’s been involved in around the world, and gave us ideas about how we could become involved with helping/volunteering to increase awareness of the importance of health around the world. By the end of the morning session, it was not only satisfying to have learned a great deal, but also to learn from high school students who are taking initiatives and stances on global issues.
Written by Alysha Rashid ‘11
Afternoon Plenary
After an interactive morning, we had a quite delicious boxed lunch and headed directly to the Afternoon Plenary Session. Based on the incredible student performances we witnessed earlier in the day, it was only plausible that the afternoon performances and presentations would be just as fantastic. It began with a beautiful rendition of an old freedom song preformed by a teenage choir whose voices echoed throughout the auditorium. Immediately following the singing was a traditional Indian Punjabi dance of hope. The mixture of traditional Punjabi music and newer hip-hop was an entertaining and drove the crowd wild. It was a perfect example that tradition and culture can and do belong in the lives of these incredible teenagers, without whom the Conference would not have had such a cultural immersion. Soon after was a presentation on ending poverty, hunger and an overall awareness of health in developing countries by Dominic MacSorely of Concern Worldwide. His presentation was extremely informative and expressed how his organization is helping a certain African town by helping them develop their health system. He asserted that there is still much to be done in the global health arena. After this small entertaining and informative break we went off to participate in an afternoon workshop.
Written by Hilda Perez ‘11
Afternoon Workshop
The Global Kids 2009 Youth Conference was very insightful. I am glad I was able to participate in this conference because I learned a lot. The afternoon workshop I participated in was both challenging and exciting. It was created by high school teenagers and the lesson plan was on 'obesity.' We were all split up into 4 groups and discussed personal eating habits. We discussed options that people have to stay healthy, how the community can actively become involved, and how the government can help implement these initiatives. An interesting fact I learned was that "at least 20 million children under the age of 5 years old were overweight globally in 2005." I was personally moved by watching high school students educate and inspire fellow peers. I was able to recognize the talent the students put forth by their intensive workshops, dances, poems, motivational speeches, etc. I applaud Global Kids for educating youth to become successful leaders by involving them on issues of global concern.
Written by Radha Hettiarachchi ‘10
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