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Students Return from International Youth Forum

2/27/2017

Sixteen Collegiate School seniors returned home from Mexico on Saturday after participating in the 4th annual Youth Forum on International Dialogue, as part of Collegiate’s International Emerging Leaders - Americas program.

The forum, hosted by Collegiate’s partner school, Colegio Carol Baur, welcomed more than 200 delegates from Thailand, Italy, Mexico and the United States. Collegiate was the only U.S. school in attendance.

During the event, students debated and negotiated in Spanish about some of the region’s and the world’s most pressing challenges and worked together to form resolutions through discussion and collaboration.

Collegiate senior Ben Granger represented the United Kingdom in the historical committee and debated the topic of the creation of Israel. Not having much research on the United Kingdom’s opinion in 1948, he relied on his knowledge from past history classes.

“As the debate went on, I became more and more confident and raised my placard to speak more,” he said.

While on the trip, Collegiate students enjoyed connecting with their peers from the region and exploring various historical and cultural sights, including the pyramids at Teotihuacán and the Frida Kahlo house.

Before leaving Mexico, the students thanked their Carol Baur peers for putting on such an incredible event and expressed how grateful they were for the experience.

For the second half of the spring semester, the IEL - Americas students will focus on an in-depth service-learning program within Richmond communities with strong ties to Mexico and Central America.

To learn more about the students’ experience at the International Youth Forum, visit their blog.

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