There are two crucial ingredients to a changemaker. 1. Actively assessing the way things are, and 2. Committing to changing for the way things can be.
Our Executive Committee, Natasha Lee, Hannah Fu, Aanya Shah, and Aryav Bhesania, are a trailblazing troupe embodying these two qualities. From technology to psychology, they each have their own unique approach of setting out and seeing their visions through. But with change, comes challenges—clearly not enough to deter them from their goals as global citizens.
Hannah Fu – Secretary General
Hsinchu, Taiwan is an exemplary equilibrium of high-tech urbanisation and rich cultural heritage, which is why Fu is proud to call Hsinchu home. However, it is that same culture that is still intertwined in stigma surrounding mental health.
“A lot of families don’t see mental health as an actual issue just because it does not equate to a physical issue.”
Despite rates of suicide soaring uncontrollably, “there have been no legitimate efforts to promote mental health awareness.” Fu is forced to come to the conclusion that society’s deterrence toward empathy and acknowledgement of the unseen demons, has evolved into an invisible disease she hopes to cure. The next step toward this goal is her decision to study Psychology.
Someday soon, she aspires to mould a society empathetic of mental health—A society that sees the need to navigate convoluted mazes of moral judgement, with an urgent wish for genuine development for the greater good, beyond personal desire.
Natasha Lee – President General Assembly
When asked where she sees herself in 10 years, Lee has two polarising perspectives. On the one hand, a restful career in the comfort of her home would be satisfactory enough. But her ambition to uphold the pillars of peace, law, and justice, outweighs this temptation at every turn. Instead, Lee aspires to become a pro bono lawyer for the United Nations, a goal better suited to her responsibility as a citizen of—and for—the world.
Lee believes that the divisive competition amongst governments, chasing after the upper hand on artificial intelligence is frankly more harmful than it should be. Significant portions of the population without access to technological literacy, living in unarmed, undefended rural areas, are rendered vulnerable to foreign attacks targeted at their governments, the very bodies meant to protect them.
The voices of these people are under attack, but if there’s anyone to defend them, we just know it will be our very own Natasha Lee.
Aanya Shah – Deputy Secretary General
“Isolation has become a global standard, without anyone actually acknowledging it as isolation.”
That is the most prevalent issue Shah believes the world faces at present. No one can deny that collective action can bridge the gap between problem and solution. But if self-centricity is something even the United Nations has fallen victim to, multilateralism seems like a utopian society, yet to exist. Accordingly, Shah plans on studying Economics and International Relations, with a vision to help governments strategise financial allocations equitably, breaking less developed nations out of the socioeconomic mold from which they have been denied escape.
Leveling the playing field of international socioeconomic disparity is aligned with the democratic principle of equality. As a future economist, Shah wishes to set the foundation from which international collaboration will bring about prosperity equally to all.
Aryav Bhesania – Deputy Secretary General
Like many of us, Bhensania fights his own demons as he grapples with the dilemma of choosing a specific field to study, saying “I don’t know” before chuckling and looking to his peers for reassurance. In addition to this common bout of indecision, Bhensania is troubled by the social media malady of “the lack of educated opinions”.
“People refuse to educate themselves before forming an opinion.”
Of the two aforementioned skills, problem-finding, and problem-solving, we can all agree that Aryav is already halfway there, and we wholly trust that in one way or another, he will play a pivotal role in narrowing the gap between the opinions of those informed and otherwise.
In a world that tends to find fractures in any place that allows them, continuing to take part in a culture that prefers satisfying personal desire at the price of isolation disables us the youth to be the glue our society needs.
Big change cannot be made alone. So together with the secretariat, let us sustain a chain of development for a present and future we will be proud to share.
