“Being a first-generation university student in my family, it was at times challenging navigating different spaces,” says Adriel Charles, a final year student pursuing her BSc in International Relations with a minor in Cultural Studies at the St Augustine Campus.
Adriel found her place through involvement in student groups and extracurricular activities such as the Guild of Students and UWI St Augustine’s Model UN Club. It was through the Model UN Club that she was given a great opportunity – to be a Country Coordinator for Trinidad and Tobago, along with fellow UWI student Ruth Baptiste, for the UN Climate Change Conference of Youth 16 (COY16).
COY is an event under the Official Youth Constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that prepares young people for participation in the annual UN Climate Change Conference. Students from more than 140 countries will take part in developing a climate policy document, hold sessions on capacity-building, learn at skill-building workshops, and engage in cultural exchange with participants from all over the world. COY16 takes place in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021.
“This is an outstanding achievement given the degree of competition and limited opportunity for participation,” says Dr Georgina Chami, Coordinator of the Post Graduate Diploma programme in International Relations at UWI St Augustine’s Institute of International Relations.
Dr Chami, who is also the faculty advisor to the Model UN Club, adds that the conference is “a great opportunity for our two representatives to be global ambassadors for T&T on Climate Change and speak to our peculiarities and vulnerabilities as small states.”
Ruth, who is studying Sociology with International Relations as her minor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, says she was partially inspired in her pursuits by one of her lecturers, Dr Tyehimba Salandy.
“[He] often probed us and asked difficult but necessary questions,” she says. “He connected for us the relationship between the physical and outward reality to our inward and innermost states and that contemplation rearranged many predetermined ways of perceiving, thinking, and interpreting the world.”
Adriel points to her experience at the Model UN Club, calling it one of the best youth spaces with which she’s been involved, and saying it provided many opportunities, including conferences and collaborations on campus, such as with the Institute of International Relations and the Faculty of Science and Technology.
She urges anyone interested in following in her footsteps to have courage:
“Don’t be afraid of being in leadership spaces. The more you move out of your comfort zone, the more you learn about yourself and various topics as well. Especially now that we’re in a digital space, it’s so much easier to find and attend global conferences! Whatever your area of interest, do your research and attend various conferences and workshops. Lastly, be patient with yourself and your growth process! I promise you it will be worth it.”
