“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” My Journey

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” -Ralph Waldo Emerson (My favourite quote)

Dear Readers,

Welcome to my first blog, my name is Salam Raed Keadan I am a 17 year old Muslim girl from Baqa al Gharbiyye, and I wanted to share my journey with you.

In about a month I am going to one of the biggest Model UN conferences in the world called THIMUN (The Hague International Model United Nations) and there in the Netherlands, the Hague I’m going to meet my team that I almost known for about a year online for the first time face-to-face!!

How it all Started:

When I heard about the Model United Nations (UN simulation for high school and university students) in the 9th grade I found it really interesting and tried my best to join because one of the MUN goals is to achieve peace in the world and that is also one of my goals, I started my MUN journey in 10th grade when the Model United Nations club was officially opened at my school.

The Israel Middle East Model UN (TIMEMUN) was my first MUN conference. I participated in TIMEMUN in February 2011 as the delegate of The Czech Republic and again in February 2012 as the delegate of Togo.

Those conferences helped me understand more about how the UN works.

In March 2012 I joined a model united nations program online, called O-MUN (Online-Model United Nations) and that is when my life started to change, by joining O-MUN I realized that I can achieve anything, how global and important MUN was for all students around the world, students making efforts to debate and try to solve the world issues together online, it was really great and inspiring and it gave me hope for the future.

And also by joining O-MUN I got to have my first ever conference abroad, it was in Turkey, Istanbul and it was the best experience in my entire life until now.

O-MUN is sending a 9 student delegation to THIMUN the Hague in January 2013, I got to be one of the O-MUN delegates going to this conference which is really awesome and I’m really happy about it, words can’t describe how I feel about going and how excited I am for the conference and also for meeting my team for the first time face-to-face!

At THIMUN we are going to represent OPEC in different committees, my team consists of students from all over the world, students from the USA, Jordan, Lebanon, Hong Kong, UK and Taiwan, this is going to be the best experience in my life!

I wanted to share my journey with you so hopefully you find it inspiring, and somehow it gives you hope to try and follow your dreams no matter how hard you will have to work to achieve them!

Lastly I would like to invite you to come aboard this ship and have the best journey/experience in your life, meet students with different religions and beliefs, get to know how they think, share your ideas and make your voice heard because us the youth of today are the great leaders of tomorrow, the leaders of a peaceful and happy world.

We will be writing about our experiences in the “Laptops to Podium Tops” journal on the OMUN’s website. I invite you to read about our journeys.