Validus ist ein Berliner!

The week after the triumphant return from Berlin was extremely fast. Compared to our time in Germany, it was like 2 days. At this time last Sunday, we were still in Europe. The thought of coming back home was still a happy and sad feeling. We were all going to miss Berlin but we had to come home to continue our life as American students in validus preparatory academy. The closing ceremony is still fresh in my memory. The joy and the rapport in the congregation of students was heart warming. It ended with the perfect amount of seriousness and fun as it had started. The closing speeches given by several committees showed that the conference was a boring but amazingly fun. It was a conference that helped me build my confidence in the aspect of public speaking. It forced me to articulate my ideas accurately and swiftly.

BerMUN was a life changing experience. Anything at that scale should be a life changing experience because one way or the other, it takes one out of their comfort zones. The host families were wonderful people. They welcomed strangers into their homes and made them feel like one of their own kids. I will like to say that JFKS is a great school. The students are talented, hardworking, and kind. They did an excellent job organizing the conference. BerMUN was marvelous as it equally mixed fun with seriousness. If it was a once in a lifetime, I will be sad but it isn’t. That is what is great about BerMUN. The fact that it will hopefully give generations to come the chance to experience its excellence.

This whole week has been an amazing and exciting experience from all the walking and eating to family time to conference lobbying and resolutions this week has been by far the best time of my life. Some may say it was a disappointment others the start of something new. My host family where the best people in the intire world out mom remembered what we like to eat setting up the table for breakfast alway taking out my bowl for cerial and already having chasitity and Ginas bread on the toaster always forgot the sugar though…Our father was always working but always had time to talk to us and see how we was doing both hard working parents. Our sister Aletta was amazing she juggled three to four thousand things at once from school test to admins stuff to having to write her application to work in chile she always at the end of the day will just sit back and talk with us untill 10 or 11 mainly 12 lmaoooo but she never mind spending time with us. Our brother at first was a little weird out by the whole concept of all these girls and him being the only guy but at the end of it all we spend a whole lot time with him and got to know him way better which was great. They treated us like family and like family we treated them. They will for ever be in my heart they have changed the whole perspective of life for me and have guided me to the right path and have enlightened it not by words but by daily actions as they carry themselves and their work.

The conference was amazing it actually made me think about a lot of the things going on in the world. As i served as a Human Rights Activist in the HRC representing Haiti i realized that more then half of the population in US have it way better then most of these people. From living in tents and not having any aids provided to them and if they are they are too afraid to go out and seek help due to fear of being raped killed or coming back to nothing because their things would be stolen. So i came up with the idea to pare up with all other LEDC’S and two major MEDC’S to come up with one of the greatest resolution regarding to poverty but more detailed into health care, nutrition, and education. This became one of the least debatable resolutions that were passed only about three amendments were held in which once was not passed, and another was reworded by yours truly. I met so many new people and made many friends this is an experience i will never forget. Having to know that today at 10am i will be leaving Germany to head over to New York breaks my heart into little pieces. i wish i could stay and debate some more, ask for more points to personal privileges and see people dance,sing, or do the cat walk for being late or passing notes of how bored everyone is at the discussion of the resolutions. I dont know how im going to say good bye tomorrow to our host father without wanting to cry because even as i write this i which i can hit back on time and re do this whole week over and over again. But as i know that i have to be realistic and phase the world i face the world with a new attitude better state of mind and knowing tht i met so many great people which one day i wish too meet again Bye Berlin bye Family Bye Friends Bye Old ME Hello World Hello Me I embrace my shortness and admit that i might just be the tallest midget around; i have the abiliy to be a leader, because my hight nor weight defines what i can do in life and who i can become ive become powerfull and thanks to this amazing week i will go back to rule the world in the best way any women can with her intelligence, beauty, perseverance, and a heart tht defines wright from wrong <3

• Monday November 14, 2O11

Day O2 is coming to a close, It’s 9: 15 in Germany. I’m having a blast with my host family, the Bühlers :). Yesterday, they took Gina, Yadie & myself to Sans Souci which means ” without worries ” . Sans Souci was King Fredrick’s summer castle. We also got to see the Nuese Palace which was King Fredrick’s nephew’s palace. It was so beautiful, everywhere we turned we saw beautiful art and little greenhouses that would of been occupied by wine grapes if grapes could stand the winter. We feel right at home with our host family, they welcomed us with open arms. I am very appreciative of their kindness. Today Yadie, Gina and myself met the others, AJ, Wu, Alphonso and Paul, at John F Kennedy Schule. Then we went to Potsdamer Platz to go sightseeing. We visited the Berlin Wall and The Neues Museum. I also ate my first döner, I’m so proud of myself because I’m a picky eater. After we finished sightseeing, AJ, Wu, Gina, Yadie and myself walked home and we gave them a tour of our new house. So far, these O2 days of our trip has been so great. We have another day of sightseeing tomorrow, I can’t wait.

• Chastity H .

The first day of the BERMUN Conference was today. It was great, I had such a blast. Not only did I make friends from Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Poland and so many more countries but I also got the chane to hear about their country situations, pertaining to domestic violence. I can’t wait to continue developing my action plan on domestic violence tomorrow, I have alot of ideas in mind.

Today was a really interesting day even though I did have to struggle to stay awake a bit, I was so cold. During the opening ceremony, they showed our awesome video about poverty in New York and the students and staff just loved it, some even said they cried. Gina, Yadie and myself even got the chance to sing with jazz singer Jocelyn B. Smith and a choir by people who attended a homeless shelter years ago. I was more than touched, I could not stop smiling. not everyone gets an experience like this and it came with extraordinary feelings. Everyone was so pleased with everything we did today, so it just made it so much better.

After the first day of the conference and spending tine developing action plans with others, I had a nice conversation with the press from the JFK school and Gina. Everyone there is just so friendly and funny, you’re bound to make about 20 new friends everyday. The conference just started and Im already thinking this was the best experience ever.

Chastity H.

            Thursday the 17^th of November, 2011 was a memorable day in the history of the world. It was an amazing day in the eyes of the children and adults gathered and it was a simply spectacular day for me.  Thursday the 17^th was the finalization of the opening ceremony, and the beginning of lobbying. It was a fun process of getting countries and organizations that both support your cause and theirs to agree to your resolution enough for them to allow it into the debate stage. It was during this time that I met some amazing people, people from different countries that represented countries like Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, DR Congo, France, Japan, USA, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and NIGERIA. It was all smiling, talking and progress. There was rivalry between my group and the United States even though we previously “almost” merged with them due to similarities of our resolution. It was just amazing the amount of knowledge these people had. For example, the girl representing the United States of America was experienced in model UN conferences because this was her 5^th, but it was quite obvious because she had four pages of resolution on just the first topic. I personally believe this was the reason a lot of the countries joined her at first. They were most likely intimidated by the “details” and “numerous solutions”. However, amongst all this rivalry and arguing, we were friends now. Unfortunately, the main day of event had to come to an end and my group submitted our resolution with a total of 19 signatures. I wanted to stay longer even and from the reaction of having to leave for the night, I believe many wanted to continue working towards the betterment of mankind and socializing. BerMUN is still great, it will always be wonderful and it will never stop being a place to have an amazing experience.

BY- PAUL

 Today was awesome. Just Simply awesome. It all started in the morning during the opening ceremony when our poverty was shown. Throughout the entire day I got complements about the video. Everyone said they liked our video and it was pretty cool and we did a very good job. It felt pretty good to be getting complements from people from other parts of the world that I barely knew. Later into the day we went into our committees. This is when things really got fun. I really started to get to know other people. It was just awesome. One part i found interesting was someone thought of the brilliant idea of finding everyone on face book. So now I can add another 50+ international friends to other ones. All in all the day was cool. My group as a whole got some serious work done and our resolutions are not that debatable so that means we did our job. Only 2 more days then I will be back in the U.S.A I already miss Berlin and its people…..

By: Alphonso

The first day of the BerMUN conference was great. The speakers knew what they were talking about and some of the students had obviously practiced while others stumbled. It was serious, it was hilarious, and there was the BerMUN spirit in the air. The teenage habits did not hide in time when professionalism was highly required but it was perfect. The first two speakers were adults and their speeches were LONG. It was a difficult task for me to stay completely awake for the first one for some unknown reason. It was however easier when I started to engage myself with what was being talked about that I found it easier. A lot of the people also found it difficult to stay awake but personally, I regret dozing off a few times because I believe there were some information that would have been of great help. This is because, before the power of sleep almost engulfed me, I WAS taking good notes and ideas were coming to my mind. It was a strange feeling to suddenly become sleepy. Anyway, Gina as the Political Committee Delegate did a great job in her speech. She was excellent in stressing the position of the Country of Haiti that we were representing. The opening was great. I met some more people, made quick and useful alliances and enjoyed a thick orange juice and cake lunch. It was an awesome experience to be officially part of BerMUN. I had fun and from what I saw and heard, everyone present had fun too.

-By PAUL