My name is Felipe Félix Méndez and I am honored to serve as PANAMUN XXIV’s President of the General Assembly. I was born in Panama City to a Panamanian mother and a Uruguayan father, and I have lived here ever since. Last year, I enrolled in the International School of Panama, where I am currently a proud junior.

 

My Model United Nations involvement can be traced back to around March of the year 2013, when I joined my previous school’s Debate Team when I was just in 8th grade. Since then, I have participated in around 15 conferences/tournaments, both as a delegate and as a chair. This will be my third year participating in PANAMUN; I have previously been a delegate to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Security Council. Some of the other conferences that I have been to as a delegate are: Boston College’s EagleMUNC and the Harvard Association Cultivating Inter-American Democracy Forum, among others. I have also been honored with the opportunity of being an invited chair in the United Nations Security Council of Colegio Isaac Rabin’s Foro Intercolegial David Robles and the Historical Committee of Colegio Episcopal de Panamá’s Model of Organization of American States. Upon my enrollment in ISP, I founded a MUN Debate Team along with several other students in my school, many of whom will be chairing in this year’s edition of PANAMUN. Also, around the same time, I was given the opportunity to be a speaker at last year’s TEDxYouth@ISP.

 

Besides MUN and other public speaking-related activities, other passions of mine include writing and social justice activism. As of now, I have found my area of academic interest to be the social sciences, and I am looking into the possibility of pursuing a career in journalism. Currently, I am an intern at Nueva Nación, which is a Panamanian newsletter that holds the Magic Grant, meaning that it is funded by a joint program ran by Columbia University and Stanford University for innovation in journalism. Regarding social justice advocacy, I am establishing a local chapter of Redefy, a New Jersey-based youth NGO that strives to promote tolerance through the elimination of social barriers and stereotypical thinking.

 

Being part of PANAMUN’s Secretariat is far from an easy task, but I am convinced that every single instant that I have invested into making this conference a great experience will be turned into absolute joy when I listen to the amazing ideas that you will bring to the General Assembly, as well as to this session as a whole. I look forward to meeting you in Panama!