UNIS Graduation Ceremony of the Class of 2019

Ms. Amie Pollack, Chair of the UNIS Board of Directors;

Ms. Jane McGee, Head of UNIS;

Faculty and Staff; students of UNIS;

Parents, family members and friends;

Dear UNIS graduating class of 2019;

I am honoured to be with you today to witness and celebrate the graduation of the 2019 class of UNIS in Hanoi, and to be among the very first to congratulate you on this significant milestone in your lives.

The UNIS ethos has a very special place in both my wife, Anita’s, and my heart. Both our children graduated from UNIS in New York many years ago and they and we lived and breathed UNIS New York’s very unique environment for 8 years!

Today is a special moment in your lives, when you have time to pause and look back, reflect and take pride in the work that you’ve accomplished in the company of your parents, teachers and the many others who have supported you and contributed to your success as young adults.

I would like to congratulate each one of you graduating here today from an academically challenging international baccalaureate programme that embodies the UN ideals of protecting human rights, eradicating poverty, combatting climate change impacts, and resolving conflicts, while advancing dignity, justice and equality for all people, and leaving no one behind. The richness and diversity of the profiles of the 80 students from 22 nationalities who are graduating here today from UNIS gives us all hope for a future of enhanced cooperation between peoples and nations across the boundaries of language, culture and nationality – something you are already used to living in your current day-to-day lives!

Your journey so far could not have succeeded without the tremendous love and support of your families, who have encouraged and brought you to this critical juncture in your lives. Please join me in acknowledging with your applause your parents, teachers, friends and family members assembled here to witness your graduation, without whom you would not have travelled so far.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Graduating Class of 2019,

You are very lucky to be international students who have come of age in a global era where you have more opportunities and means to publicly voice your opinions, and to be heard, compared with any other generation before yours. You have already learned how to be global explorers and are used to making friendships across the boundaries of language, culture and nationality. UNIS’ main goal has always been to provide an educational and intellectual experience for its students, while celebrating diversity, and promoting cross-cultural exchange emphasizing three key values: holistic learning; embracing a diverse and inter-connected learning community; and ensuring individual and collective responsibility.

Here at UNIS, you would have understood this better than other students in other schools almost anywhere in the world, because of the exposure you have had to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2030 Agenda, which promotes action to end global poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people can enjoy peace and prosperity, is more important than ever and you should view yourselves as young UN ambassadors being sent out into the world to spread this message. I hope you will take these and other key UN values such as tolerance and respect for universal human rights with you wherever you go when you leave this Assembly Hall for the last time today.

In many ways, the UNIS graduating class of 2019 is already living these values and I can see this from your accomplishments. Many of you not only performed on stage in musicals, choirs, orchestras, and theatrical dramas, competed in countless athletic contests, including three Championship Matches, but you have also written your own plays, composed your own music, curated politically and socially sensitive art and theatre, hosted Science Debates, Model United Nations Conferences and TED X Events, and produced podcasts, newspapers and entered films into international competitions. That range of accomplishments at such a young age is truly amazing!

Reading about the dozens of service projects UNIS conducts every year, and the contributions of the class of 2019 to them, I was also struck by their wide variety, from collecting funds for children with congenital heart disease, to teaching music, swimming, language and sports, to visiting and working with disabled orphans, and providing microcredit loans to low-income families, especially women, in order that they can undertake entrepreneurial projects.

You are already demonstrating many strong UN values and I, for one, am impressed. The values that UNIS represents, and has very clearly inculcated in each of you, are more important than ever before in today’s world. While being in UNIS has been a privilege, for which you should thank your parents most of all, it also carries special responsibilities.

Let me not sugarcoat it: This is a complicated and increasingly complex and challenging world we live in today. Extremist ideologies are destabilizing many parts of the world and threatening not just the values and principles of the United Nations but multilateralism, global peace and security, and decades of human progress made since the UN was founded. We face serious, urgent problems, and your generation has unfortunately inherited many of them. The challenges of battling extremism, climate change, celebrating and advancing multiculturalism, and protecting and ensuring the universal application of human rights, are but only a few of the critical challenges that your generation inherits, and will need to better address than ours has done. But looking at you, I believe there is enough hope and heart - mixed with intelligence and skill - to do anything. To solve any problem you want. To create anything you want to see. To build and improve communities and to be kinder to each other, in big and small ways.

Don’t miss this opportunity – and please seize it with both hands! Young people like you are the future of the world. It is more important than ever to speak up and speak out about the world you dream of, and most importantly, the world you know you deserve. As young adults – you are part of the complicated political, social and cultural tapestry of humanity that is tasked with the duty of charting a course for this planet. As we look into the future we can see that poverty eradication is now a possibility that is achievable by 2030 if there is the political will to make it happen. In that case, yours will be the first generation in world history to experience a world largely free from hunger and poverty. Many other important challenges such as climate change will remain as defining issues of our times, and new ones are emerging all the time.

I would like to encourage you, as you embark on this next exciting phase of your lives, to embrace and address these challenges in the spirit of the United Nations Charter which represents the UN’s best ideals. Class of 2019 - my hope for you is that you can find purpose in your work, your relationships and your adventures in life. But I also hope you can find meaning in how you engage with the world beyond yourselves.

My best wishes for the future to each one of you, and don’t forget to savour every moment of the exciting world that you are going into!

Thank you and good luck!