1 of the 5 pillars:
Youth Empowerment

When Claire Kirshenbaum, ‘24, was applying to colleges, Lehigh University didn’t even appear on her radar of preferred higher education institutions. 

 

“I was very anti-Lehigh,” Kirshenbaum said, giggling as she understood the irony of such a statement — she was now sitting on the school’s campus.

 

Despite the apathy her mom found a webinar highlighting the unique relationship Lehigh has with the United Nations.

 

She joined the Zoom, her interest piqued, and she ended up drafting passionate supplemental essays on the LU/UN Partnership. No other university could match the opportunities Claire realized she craved. 

 

And Lehigh’s admissions officers agreed.

 

Almost two years later, Kirshenbaum acts as the Lehigh University Youth Representative to the United Nations — not only does she promote youth empowerment as part of her work, but she embodies it.

 

“I think it's extremely important to bring more youth to the UN and get their ideas going — and also get that exposure,” Kirshenbaum said.

 

She believes work with the LU/UN Partnership, housed in the Office of Fellowship Advising and UN Programs, provides students with a sense of “endless possibilities” as they continue to figure out how they can raise their voices in the globalizing community. 

 

One of these opportunities comes from the office’s Youth Representative Program: Lehigh works with 10 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the world that are associated with the UN. 

 

Through this unique agreement, Lehigh students can present at UN conferences, submit written UN statements, conduct global research and organize UN-affiliated events with diplomats and other high-profile leaders — taking on roles not offered to most of their peers, according to Elena Reiss, who is the assistant director of the Office of Fellowship Advising and UN Programs at Lehigh. 

 

“We met with the Russian Ambassador two weeks before the (Russo-Ukrainian) war started,” Reiss said. “You don't get that experience anywhere else. You don't get to talk to the person who represents the voice of the country that is going to war anywhere else through any other programs.”

 

Two current youth representatives are developing a course at Rutgers University on non-communicable diseases in communities lacking necessary resources. 

 

Another representative is working with an NGO in Nigeria by focusing on women’s health issues — conducting screenings for breast and cervical cancers and educating about the HPV vaccine.

 

“They are bringing awareness toward those issues to the global stakeholders, so it’s not just something that happens at Lehigh,” Reiss said. 

 

Reiss is tasked with managing the Youth Representative Program, and she said the initiative and courage students build from working with the UN through this unparalleled program is extremely rewarding.

 

“I push them outside of their comfort zone consistently,” Reiss said. “So the youth representatives are expected to do things that they never thought they would be able to do before.” 

 

UN Global Communications Officer Felipe Queipo finds value to the UN specifically in these Lehigh students, who act as liaisons between distant communities and the headquarters in New York.

 

“Students may become representatives of civil society organizations globally that do not have the means to have representation in New York,” Queipo said. “And the United Nations gets representatives in civil society with whom we can engage.”

 

Though this involvement can come from experts who have spent decades studying and working, Reiss said she has noticed a trend at the UN: they are looking for more youth voices. 

 

She believes older generations form inhibitory habits and routines when it comes to their work, but youth have more space to clear their minds, focus on high-priority issues and act with revolutionary results: to her, they’re more passionate about the future.

 

“Whether we're talking about the climate change, eradicating poverty, gender equality, quality of education or any of the other 17 Sustainable Development Goals, it's up to youth to figure out how to get there by the year 2030, as identified by the UN.”

 

And while older generations may provide resources, Reiss thinks many theories and actions should be coming from people like Kirshenbaum. 

 

“I feel like a lot of our institutions are run by more older people that have already gotten all this experience,” Kirshenbaum said. “But I feel like we really need to create a shift and really empower more youth … let them know they can have an impact and their words do matter.”

 

The LU/UN Partnership emphasizes youth empowerment as one of its core subjects, and students seem to feel that attention. 

 

Reiss said Kirshenbaum is just one of many students to walk into their office and declare they chose Lehigh for the unparalleled global experience offered by the LU/UN Partnership. 

 

“We hear this all the time,” Reiss said, “And I feel like the community doesn’t know enough about it.”