PROGRAM
Pegasus
Empowerment By Yasmin Suleiman To this day, one of my most vivid memories dates back to 2015 when I was a Pegasus seventh grader. During the Sans Fards Day celebration at school, all of the female students wore white tops, went make-up-free, and embraced our inherent beauty. As I stood among my peers, each of us accepting our natural state and motivating others to do the same, I felt a sense of belonging. I felt that I was allowed to be my inherent self and enjoyed inspiring others to do the same. From that point forward, I aimed to expand my role in empowering others. I yearned to determine how to have a positive around me in the same way Sans Fards Day had a positive effect on me. In high school, I developed my skills of influence through Huntington Beach High School’s Model United Nations (MUN) program, where I learned to represent multiple nations and develop innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. MUN
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THE PEGASUS SCHOOL
itself centers around public speaking, research skills, and cooperating with other student delegates. During my time in the program, I expanded on these traits and embraced my ability to explore new perspectives and express unique opinions in my writing and with my voice. I developed diction and rhetoric in public speaking to better support my arguments —I commanded authority with my use of words. As I pursued my passion for tackling global crises through MUN, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to New York for an international Model UN conference during my junior year in high school. At this four-day conference, I distinctly remember hearing the chatter among the exhausted delegates as we neared the end of our first day of debate. I stood up, gave my speech, and watched as the room went silent. The one hundred and twenty tired delegates stopped what they were doing to look up at me as