Menlo hosts international delegates during youth summit
Rory Plewman ’16, co-online editor

On Saturday, April 26, Menlo hosted the inaugural Menlo / America India Foundation (AIF) Youth Summit, with the aim of bringing together students from Pakistan, India and a number of Bay Area schools to focus on leadership, art and culture.

Head of Menlo’s GPS program Peter Brown spearheaded the months of planning it took to enable this summit to come to fruition, along with help from middle school Spanish teacher Marisa LaValette, and a number of enthusiastic Menlo families who graciously hosted the delegates.

While the AIF provides a number of programs in education, public health and global citizenship for underprivileged communities in India, this particular program was summed up well by Diaz Nesamoney, an AIF board member, when he said, “The program is sponsored by the U.S. State Department to enable educators and students in the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan to collaborate and develop the leadership and technical skills to develop the area into a vibrant region.” With the historic animosity between the two countries, this is an important yet difficult goal.

Seeing as the AIF was formed at the behest of President Bill Clinton, it seemed fitting that a large part of the afternoon’s leadership activities were orchestrated by a former Clinton fellow now working with ‘at risk’ youth in Oakland. She led us through various leadership activities including a fun competition to see which team, picked at random, could build the tallest tower out of paper. Over a lunch of samosas and sandwiches, nearly 15 Menlo students got to interact with the visitors. During the summit the students were treated to singing, poetry and Bollywood dances from the delegates, as well as a group of Menlo dancers lead by freshman Ishani Thakur. Activities ended with creative and  collaborative screen printing led by Menlo art teacher Nina Ollikainen.

Zaryab Ghori, a lively eighth grader from Karachi who formed part of the Developments in Literacy (DIL) school delegation, had waited two years to attend the summit.  Upon talking to Ghori it was apparent that he lived a life uncannily similar to that of the average Menlo teen: enjoying sports, videogames such as DOTA 2 as well as rappers such as Eminem. It was this realization–that teens the world over are similar, having more in common with one another than we think–that encapsulated the summit’s goals.

The wealth of cultural experience that the summit provided was both gratifying and eye-opening! It made us realize that as teens, we should work to find the commonalities we share and not focus on the differences which divide us; we are united by one race, the human race.

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[Editor’s note]

This event was the culmination of over 17 months of collaborative projects and interactions with students in India and Pakistan, led by Global Programs and Studies director Peter Brown. The event is an example of weaving global experiences into the curriculum and creating opportunities for sustained interactions.