Toward A Landmine-Free World —

NHS Senior Organizes United Nations Conference

By Jeff White

Tate Hoeffel knows that good ideas are often born from seminal experiences.

The Newtown High School senior did not have to think too hard about what to do for her senior mentorship project — she just had to recall a few newspaper headlines, and a magical day in New York last December.

The newspaper headlines came during a trip to Egypt with one of her friends. During her travels, she read where other tourists, most notably an American couple, were killed by landmines left undetected in some remote parts of the Sinai Desert and Israel.

Then came a winter day in New York, where, thanks to an uncle who is the chief of the United Nations Department of Pubic Information, Tate attended a UN conference and heard Secretary-General Kofi Annan speak. Although she had been canvassing different ideas for a senior project, watching those proceedings struck a cord in her interest in politics and international affairs. She started thinking of ways to bring together different regions of the world to discuss a common issue of concern.

What resulted played out in the high school’s lecture hall Wednesday, March 8, as students from several social studies classes represented a total of 20 countries during a mock UN conference that Tate organized to discuss the global issue of landmines.

It was a symposium steeped in the current headlines, as the much-touted Ottawa Ban Treaty is moving from country to country for ratification. As it stands now, the treaty, which the United States currently has opted not to sign, calls for a landmine-free world by the year 2009. Country representatives, comprised mostly of freshmen and a few sophomores from Steven George’s Latin American and Middle Eastern studies classes, researched their county’s stance on the landmine issue and prepared position papers that were delivered during the conference.

Tate Hoeffel got to assume the Kofi Annan role as secretary-general, acting as the conference’s chief moderator.

“I think [the students] definitely learned a lot about their countries and how [these countries] relate to other countries,” she explained this week. For her part, Tate spent three periods a day for over a week teaching these social studies students about the landmine issue, showing them research techniques to get specific information on countries as varied as Angola and Afghanistan, and contacting embassies herself to get a country’s official stance on landmines.

“I like networking and talking to other people,” she said during a free period Monday.

Along with student presentations, Peter Hanson, the chairman of the Adopt-A-Minefield program in New Canaan (the first place in the United States to join the program), gave a keynote address concerning landmine disarmament and worldwide educational programs in countries riddled with the invisible killers.

Student presentations involved giving their chosen country’s position on landmines and the signing of the landmine treaty, how the country plans on “de-mining” itself, and other relevant economic and political information that might shed some light on the landmine issue.

Although Tate’s mock UN conference is unlikely to effect any real change, she felt that it not only highlighted an important current events topic for other students, but crafted her own feelings on the issue as well. “I think [landmines are] something we’re lucky not to have to deal with, but the [United States] as a superpower should sign the landmine treaty,” she said.

The United States currently has a few areas in the world, most notably between North and South Korea, where it still uses landmines. The US is reluctant to sign the treaty until it feels its foreign policy interests will not be compromised. American leaders have said they will take another look at the issue in 2006.

Tate Hoeffel said this week that she is now in the process of molding her United Nations conference into her project for the Barton Wellar Scholarship. Tate is one of three Newtown finalists in competition for the prestigious scholarship.

For her Wellar project, she said she would draw out an extensive curriculum so that another student would be able to put on a similar conference in the future. Tate liked how the experience brought together disciplines like Middle Eastern and Latin American studies, along with some European studies classes, to show how an international issue can bridge borders and oceans. “It’s a good way to get the area studies classes to come together, and I hope it happens next year.”

Toward that aim, she hopes a social studies teacher will take up the curriculum she is currently writing and implement it as a permanent part of the larger social studies curriculum.

Tate was accepted in early decision to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, a school she said felt right the moment she stepped onto its manicured lawns.

Like her choice for a senior project, the decision of what to major in next year was relatively easy. Tate wants to study a combination of political science, journalism, and commerce.