Welcome again, everyone, and good evening.
This summer, I had the opportunity intern
at the permanent mission of Pakistan
to the United Nations in New York.
My name is Habiba Shah.
I'm from the class of 2019.
My major is international relations.
And this summer, again, I was a junior advisor
at my internship.
So my internship search actually started at the start
of my sophomore year.
And I knew that I wanted to work in a big organization.
I didn't know exactly what.
I went to the CDC.
I used a lot of their resources, interviews, resume, CV,
everything.
CDC helped me out with that.
I spoke to my professors about development and diplomacy
and and Kirk is here, I spoke to him
about international internships.
And I knew that I wanted to work in New York.
I love New York.
It's my favorite city in the world.
And so the organization, the Pakistan mission the UN
is a government organization.
And our ambassador is Dr. Maleeha Lodhi.
And it works with the international community
in accordance with the UN charter
to promote and maintain international peace
and security.
It's also a member of the Security Council.
Ever since 1947, since Pakistan's independence,
it has been a member of the United Nations.
So my role as Junior Advisor, I had to attend meetings daily,
9:00 to 5:00.
Sometimes I had to work eight hours
to 10:00, 11:00 at the Security Council and General Assembly.
And I was representing Pakistan.
I attended high level events including the Oceans Conference
that was in June.
I had to draft reports and meetings every day.
I visited a lot of international embassies,
ranging from the United States, Canada, Morocco, Bangladesh.
And I hosted events for Pakistan,
including our [INAUDIBLE] celebration
and the independence day musical which is on the 14th of August.
And the UN Bazaar, we have a whole shop
and we had to sell products from Pakistan.
And moreover, I participated in a lot
of discussions and debates on a host
of issues ranging from human rights, antiterrorism,
development, climate change, and international law.
So the main challenges that I faced during my summer was A,
I was in a male-dominated environment.
Not just within the Pakistan mission.
We only had two women working there.
One was our ambassador, and one was one of my supervisors.
But the rest of them, I think there were 15 officers,
and all of them were males.
Adjusting to a new city was very, very challenging
for me because of the different culture values,
again within our office, outside our office where I was living.
I was staying in the Bronx and I had
to commute to Manhattan every day
and it was a two-hour long commute.
Working in a team, again, was also very challenging.
There were a lot of people who didn't want to cooperate
and it was just very challenging dealing with people like that.
What I learned, again despite obvious challenges,
[INAUDIBLE] from reports and this
is just an example of one of the reports
that I wrote on the humanitarian situation
in the Congo and the CFR.
I learned about building and maintaining
professional relationships.
My supervisor [INAUDIBLE] again, she was a woman.
And she gave me a lot of respect as an intern.
When she introduced me to people at the UN,
she would never introduce me as, oh, this is my intern Habiba.
She'd always say, this is my colleague.
And it was very different, again that parallel,
because my other supervisor, he was a male,
and he would never--
again, this is my intern.
First off, he would never introduce the girls to anyone.
And then we had to actually apply for--
he would give preference to the males a lot.
And as women, again, we had to fight for that.
I learned about budgeting living in New York.
It was so expensive and on a tight, lean budget.
That was very challenging for me.
The negotiation process, I learned so much about it.
And like, if my international relations courses,
history books, you think it's just
a treaty and the next thing they sign it.
But there's a lot of hard work that goes into it.
197 countries coming together and everyone
is protecting their interests.
So I learned a lot about that.
Pakistan's role at the UN, again, it
was a very challenging time for Pakistan at the UN at the time
because that's when our prime minister, he faced
a lot of corruption charges.
And we were at the highlight of the Kashmir issue
and the Afghanistan issue.
The people I met, at the UN, again every day was amazing.
Casually, I got to meet very different people.
I met Nikki Haley who is the US ambassador to the UN.
I was sitting at a coffee shop.
This man comes and asks me, oh, can I sit with you?
There are no other seats available.
And we just got to talking.
He was from Saudi Arabia.
And then another man comes in a business suit
and says, oh, Mr. Ambassador, we need you.
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
He said, oh, I'm the Saudi ambassador.
And again, we got to talk, we got to exchange numbers.
And I met Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine.
I met the president of [INAUDIBLE],, Peter Johnson.
I met several Pakistani politicians.
And the UN DP administrator who is in that picture with me,
I just asked him, a random person, hey,
can you take a picture?
And we got to talking, and he was a UN DP administrator.
Again, I exchanged numbers with him
and it was a great opportunity to network.
Not just with important people, I made a lot of friends
from all over the world and built
a lot of lasting relationships that I
know that we're going to keep in touch in the future.
[INAUDIBLE] everyone takes at the UN.
Overall experience, it was very, very enriching.
Despite all the challenges I face, I grew personally,
academically, professionally.
And this is an experience that's going
to stay with me for the rest of my life.
Thank you very much.