Hi Delegates!
My name is Aisha Van Pratt and I’ll be your chair for WHO in RUMUN ’12. First of all I want to let you all know that I’m really excited to meet you! Since I also want all of you to be equally excited for RUMUN ’12 and our committee, I’ll let you know a little bit more about myself.
I am currently a junior at Rutgers, majoring in Cultural Anthropology, with minors in Women and Gender Studies and Biology. I am also a pre-med student and plan on attending medical school after I graduate from Rutgers. I love playing and watching soccer and volleyball (I actually played both in high school). I’m a vegetarian and I looove Mediterranean, Mexican, and Indian food! I also love photography and film and the way both can be used to represent and evoke critical thinking, but emotions at the same time. They’re both hobbies of mine along with sewing, music, learning about new and amazing things, and traveling.
I’m not a New Jersey local (although I like to consider it home now). I was born in California, but I grew up in Mexico. I moved from Tijuana/San Diego to New Jersey in the summer of 2008, and started my senior year of high school in Franklin High School. I’ve been in the East Coast ever since. My interests in medicine go beyond my delight for the sciences. I’m definitely a people-person and because of this I’m always interested in the multiple social, cultural, economic, and political factors that play into the idea of “health/disease,” and the access to health cross-culturally. This should more or less give you a clue of what to expect for our committee’s focus.
We will be exploring the topic of Sexual and Reproductive rights and the factors that affect the way they are socially perceived. Likewise, we will look at how the social perception about them affects people and their communities at an international level. Your task as delegates will be to analyze—as thoroughly as possible—the various social and medical factors surrounding the question of sexual and reproductive rights, as well as how can health conditions involving and surrounding them be improved.
We will also be looking at epidemic and pandemic preparedness. While the last decade has seen over a billion people added to the global population, it has also seen disease outbreaks like 2002 SARS pandemic and the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic. With over seven billion people now inhabiting the Earth, the possibility for disease transmission has never been higher. Delegates in the WHO will have to evaluate the current state of disease prevention and formulate a plan to bolster current defense systems.
I hope you all are looking forward to this conference as I am!
Best of luck and see you soon!
Aisha Van Pratt