HAFTR Students Attend Model UN and Distracted Driving Meeting

By Nicole Wengrofsky

Last week 11 HAFTR students and I participated in one of my favorite events of the school year, YUNMUN: Yeshiva University National Model United Nations. At the Stanford Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. We represented either the counties of Spain or Eritrea in each of our committees, talking about two different issues (in each committee) prevalent in today’s world and voting on different resolutions. This was my second year at YUNMUN but my first as captain. I particularly love this event not only because we get to meet other Jewish students from around the country and world, but also because every time I go, I grow as a person. I also enjoy Model United Nations because during a regular school week, I don’t have much time to be aware of what is going on elsewhere in the world. The time I spend each year at Model UN is valuable because it gives me time to reflect and become aware of the issues that we face on a global level.

At the end of each Model UN three awards are given to three students from each committee. We were all so proud of one of our sophomores, Jake Levine, who received an award for honorable delegate for his work in his committee ICJ: International Court of Justice. We all had an amazing time and are looking forward to next year’s Model UN.

HAFTR had an assembly about the dangers of distracted driving, and in particular, the dangers of texting while driving. In response to this assembly the students on the Prevention of Distracted Driving Committee sold T-shirts to raise awareness of these dangers. The money collected from these sales went towards aiding victims of distracted driving accidents. These students were able to show that all it takes is five seconds for someone to look at their phone, and during that small window of time someone could crash and become paralyzed, inadvertently destroying their lives. Since our years in high school are when we begin to drive it is important that we promote this idea to students of all ages throughout the rest of the school year.

In my previous article I mentioned that five students would be attending a Youth Bridge- NY Leaders to Leaders Summit. During the months after the summit, the five juniors who attended along with Mrs. Szaluta from our College Guidance Department visited the Five Towns Community Center. They met with Ms. Veronica Ortiz, a counselor for the Youth Center at the Five Towns Community Center along with several of her students in order to deliberate a fundraising event that would be beneficial to the youth center. By doing so they will not only raise funds for the youth center, they will also be giving students the opportunity to learn about each other through teamwork and sharing a common goal. They discussed having a basketball tournament sometime in April. This tournament would include HAFTR students and Lawrence High School students (where a majority of the youth center students attend school).