UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Dream Sequence

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is addressing the Global Classrooms Model United Nations Conference, in New York, 15 May.

This is an extract from his speech:

So, please indulge me while I tell you a true story about someone I know very well. His name is Han Seung-soo, currently the Prime Minister of Korea, where I come from.

When he was a young boy, he lived in an isolated village in the mountains of my country, Korea. He had to get up at dawn and travel for miles, crossing two different rivers, just to get to school. The only thing that kept him going was the dream that he might one day become President of the United Nations General Assembly.

He later wrote that this great dream, I quote “offered one destitute boy the hope and sense of purpose needed to continue studying”…

It was a great dream, but I think, looking back, it was also a very unlikely, unrealistic dream, because, at the time, Korea was not even a member of the United Nations…

Still, he never gave up his dream. He studied hard and began to work on the international scene.

And finally, in 2001, right here in this room, he was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly — the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly. I worked as his Chief of Staff at that time

Once upon a time…

Anorak

Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Politicians Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink