TechNews

STUDENTNEWSPAPER OF ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF
TECHNOLOGY SINCE 1 92 8

McCormick Tribune Campus Center
Room 221

3201 South State Street

Chicago, Illinois 60616

E-mail: editor@technewsiit.com
Website: http://www.technewsiit.com

STAFF

Editor-in-Chief Anoopa Sundararajan

Opinion Editor Austin Gonzalez

IT Manager Kristal Copeland

Copy Editors Kristal Copeland

Kayleigh Stevens

Annie Zorn
Layout Editors Kori Bowns

Sijia Wu

)(iaoyu Zhang

Annie Zorn
Distribution Manager Reno Waswil
Financial Advisor Vickie Tolbert
Faculty Advisor Gregory Pulliam

MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is to promote student discussion
and bolster the IIT community by providing a
newspaper that is highly accessible, a stalwart
of journalistic integrity, and a student forum.
TechNewsisadedicated to the beliefthatastrong
campus newspaper is essential to a strong campus
community.

GENERAL INFORMATION

TechNews is written, managed, and edited by the
students of, and funded in part by, Illinois Institute
of Technology. The material herein does not
necessarily reflectthe opinions of Illinois Institute
of Technology or the editors, staff, and advisor of
TechNews.Therewill be no censorship ofTechNews
publication by the faculty or staff of IIT. Sole
authority and responsibility for publication and
adherencetothevaluesset forthinthis policyrests
with the TechNews staff. This paper seeks to bring
together the various segments of the Illinois Tech
communityand strives through balanceand content
to achieve a position of respect and excellence.
TechNews strives for professionalism with due
respect to the intellectual values ofthe university
and its community.Allmaterialsubmitted becomes
the property of TechNews, and is subject to any
editorial decisions deemed necessary.

SUBMISSIONS

TechNews is published on the Tuesday of each week
of the academic year. Deadline for all submissions and
announcements is 11:59 pm. on the Friday prior to
publication. Articles, photos, and illustrations must be
submitted electronically to the TechNews website at
technewsiit.com.

EDITORIAL POLICY

The editors reserve the right to determine if
submitted material meets TechNews' policy and
standards. For more information about our editorial
standards, please email assteditor@technewsiit.com.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the editor may be submitted by anyone,
but are subject to review by the Editor-in-Chief.
All letters-to-the-editor become the property of
TechNews upon submission. TechNews does not
accept or publish anonymous letters or stories.

ADVERTISING

Legitimate paid advertisements, from within
or outside the IIT community, which serve to
produce income for the paper, are accommodated.
TechNews holds the right to deny any
advertisement unsuitable for publication. Media
Kits are available upon request. Ad space is limited
and is taken on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Contact the Business Manager at business@
technewsiit.com for more information.

LOCAL 8' NATIONAL ADVERTISERS
To place an ad, contact us via email at
business@technewsiit.com.

 

AUSTIN GONZALEZ

opinion@technewsiit.com

     
 

| Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

A moving experience @ UNICEF national conference

Bhav Bhalla
TECHN EWS WRITER

Last weekend, UNICEF at Illinois
Tech attended the annual UNICEF Summit
2016 in Washington, DC. The summit boasted
over 300 UNICEF club members, leaders and
activists in an effort to share best practices,
participate in skill and knowledge building
workshops, and bring the most recent UNICEF
resources back to our respective schools. The
theme for the summit this year was advocacy
and how participants can advocate for children
in their communities and through various
tools such as social media.

We were fortunate enough to visit
the White House, Washington Monument
and Lincoln Memorial before checkingein
for the summit. As we headed back to the
conference center, we were greeted with
warm and welcoming smiles from other
UNICEF chapters along with “swag" bearing
the UNICEF logo. After checking in, we were
given key cards to our rooms and time to
settle in before the student mixers. In order to
encourage collaborative discussions over lunch
and dinner, each member had a different team
color on their ID badge which would represent
their group for the entire conference. Meeting
UNICEF clubs from various school such as
UCLA and Penn State was an exhilarating
experience. Listening to other clubs describe
their experience educating, advocating and
fundraising on their campus and in their
community was truly captivating. With the
ice breakers out of the way, we were split into
further subgroups to discuss what successful
events we had implemented so far and how
we went about it We not only learned about
the successes and failures of each club, but
also formed new bonds with each other. Later
that night, we played air hockey, foosball and
shared popcorn with fellow UNICEFers. We

were exhausted by the end of the night and
headed to our comfortable beds.

Early Saturday morning, we joined
everyone in the auditorium for a keynote
presentation by Monique Coleman. Coleman
is best known for her coastarring role in
Disney’s High School Musical movies, in
which she plays Taylor McKessie. She is also
an entrepreneur and passionate philanthropist
who has journeyed to over 20 countries to
help children around the world. She asked
us extremely thought provoking questions:
What do you do when you have finally reached
your goal? What is the next step? She spoke
of the experiences she went through dealing
with insecurities of failing and perseverance.
With the keynote coming to an end, we were
given the opportunity to attend student
led workshops to help improve upon our
UNICEF organization. The fact that most of
these workshops were hosted by a majority
of older UNICEF organizations from other
schools astonished us. One of the workshops
that I attended was about how to attract new
members and retain membership. I was able
to give a brief explanation about our own point
system which was commended by many of the
other campus clubs.

After lunch, a panel discussion
was held about UNICEF’s Millennium
Development Goals, which are 8 goals for
the betterment of children all over the world.
These included eradicating extreme poverty
and hunger, achieving universal primary
education, promoting gender equality and
empowering women to name a few There
was also an open panel about how UNICEF
would plan to do all this as a nonprofit
organization. Shortly after, Iumana Haj,
Ahmad, an advocate for children all over the
Middle East, showed an extremely powerful
video about how adolescents are thought of
as incapable of bringing change to our world.

With her motivational words, we went on to
the next guest speaker, Laura Ulloa. Ulloa was
kidnapped at the age of 11 and held captive for
seven months in Colombia. She talked about
her time in captivity in a shockingly positive
tone. She believes that portraying her story in a
negative way only shares grief and misery Her
experience gave her the drive to help kids and
give them opportunities they otherwise would
not have.

Catching breakfast for the second
time at 8 arm. on Sunday was harder than
imaginable as we enjoyed our last meal at
the summit as one giant UNICEF family We
were then introduced to UNICEF NextGen
which allows students who are interested in
still being a part of UNICEF’s mission by
helping on a larger scale than their college
campuses. In my opinion, the most intriguing
part of the conference followed after. Caryl
Stern, President and CEO of the US. Fund
for UNICEF, was on stage right in front of
us. She brought us to tears with stories of
her experiences through poverty stricken
communities where basic medication was
unavailable. Never had I felt more grateful for
the basic necessities I had at my disposal than
when Stern told us about a baby who passed
away in front of her eyes because he had not
been given a one dollar vaccination against
tetanus. Her presentation was followed by
an award ceremony recognizing individuals
and clubs for their efforts and hard work. As
they announced, “Most Knowledgeable Club"
followed by the words, “Illinois Institute of
Technology”, we were all ecstatic, shocked,
confused and proud, all at the same time.
Having one last photo of us taken with the
award in front of all of the UNICEF chapters
was definitely a proud moment for us at the
summit that we’ll never forget.

 

MOST KNOWLEDGABLE CLUB 72015-20165

 

 

Illinois Institute of Technology

 

I {inicefIQ

UNITED sn‘Es FUND

children first.

February 21. 1015

 

 

 

    

Manager, out}! Engagement

Phntns murtesy 0f UNICEF @ IIT