Amazing Speaker

Yesterday was the longest day of the conference, really a full day of work. However, tucked in the middle of this hectic day where so many of us got so much accomplished, was the guest speaker. Our guest speaker this year was John W. McArthur, who is the CEO and Executive Director of Millennium Promise. Honestly, before working with the Model UN I had no idea what the Millennium Development Goals were, but they are a series of goals set forth by the UN that have the combined goal of halving extreme poverty by the year 2015. The Millennium Promise is the leading organization helping to meet these goals. McArthur provided a bit of background about how he ended up in the position he's in. It started when he was in college just like us and was struck by the fact that there was so much turmoil in the world. More than that however, he realized that there were whole groups of the world population that no one was even talking about. This led him to Africa. He explained in the past few years the three primary things he has had a part in and seen change in which have been 1) Aids treatment 2) Malaria prevention and covering beds with netting to prevent transmit ion and 3) Helping farmers in rural Africa. It was very inspiring to hear him ta kl about the amount of change he has been able to see in just a few short years.

He also expressed his hope for the next generation of leaders, which would be us. I would encourage everyone to take a minute to check out more about him and his organization. His resume is pretty impressive as well... with numerous degrees from several impressive universities. http://www.millenniumpromise.org/