Crookston High School senior Ana Koch, has been invited to participate in the 2010 Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC), which will take her to China and Hong Kong in a few weeks.
The GYLC conference is sponsored by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council (CYLC is a nonpartisan educational organization, founded in 1985.), whose "mission is to foster and inspire young people to achieve their full leadership potential". Members of the U.S. Congress (including Senator Klobuchar and Representative Peterson) and over 50 embassies representing countries around the world serve on CYLC's Honorary Board of Advisors.
The theme of GYLC is "The Leaders of Tomorrow Preparing for the Global Challenges and Responsibilities of the Future". Students will interact with key leaders and newsmakers with powerful influence over politics, finance, culture and diplomacy, and will take part in a carefully designed curriculum, which includes thought-provoking simulations that build leadership skills. "The Global Young Leaders Conference aims to provide scholars with the opportunity to collaborate with their peers from around the world to both study and resolve global conflict," said Marguerite C. Regan, Dean of Academic Affairs for the Congressional Youth Leadership Council (CYLC), the organization that sponsors GYLC. "When ideas and points of view are shared, the true results of the Conference are realized."
GYLC culminates with the "Global Summit", in which students apply what they've learned throughout the Conference as they debate, negotiate and build coalitions dealing with issues such as foreign aid, global warming, cooperative efforts in space, terrorism and human rights. Past highlights of the program include welcoming remarks from a variety of young leaders who make and leave their mark on the international community, a briefing at the U.S. Department of State, an address at the United Nations and site visits at financial institutions on Wall Street, among several other events.
Ana was nominated based on her PLAN ACT and PSAT test results. She departs June 27 and returns July 11. Ana currently lives at Maple Lake with her family. Her parents are Dennis and Rose Koch. She is active in band and choir, swims (two time Minnesota state competitor in the freestyle and backstroke) and participates in treasurettes, where she has been named co-captain next year.
As for other international experiences, Ana spent three of her young years (ages 1 - 4) overseas. She and her family lived in Malaysia while her mother was an expatriate working for the phone company, prior to settling in northwest Minnesota in 1998. She has visited England, Belgium, France and Bermuda on vacations, but this will be her first trip as a young adult alone, which Rose said, will no doubt be harder on them than on her.
