News Archive
Opening Address – Global Goals 2024
It gives me great pleasure, as Head of School, to welcome our 140 Grade 10 students this morning in Chapel and to extend a Shawnigan welcome to the 220 delegates from a record 12 different schools:
St. Michaels University School
École Royal Bay Secondary School
École Ballenas Secondary School
Glenlyon Norfolk School
Frances Kelsey Secondary School
Brentwood College School
Queen Margaret’s School
Mark R. Isfeld Secondary School
Pacific Christian School
Highland Secondary School
St. John’s Academy
Lycée Sacré-Coeur (Angers, France)
This is Shawnigan’s largest student conference of the year.
I would also like to thank, at the outset, the Secretary-General (Sorath Rakhra), the Directors General (Desi Shaw and Findlay Hatfield), and the many Committee Directors, drawn from different schools (who will be moderating debate throughout the day) – special shout out to the directors from Brentwood and QMS.
The theme of today’s Model United Nations is the Global Goals, with focus on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
In an increasingly complex and anxious world, I am delighted that you will be discussing the Sustainable Development Goals – with a view to a better and more sustainable future for our shared world.
These are very tense political times in the world beyond Vancouver Island.
I always draw great comfort from two things in October each year:
- The Nobel Peace Prize: given this year to the Japanese organization, Nihon Hidankyo, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”
- And our Sustainable Development Goals Conference here at Shawnigan – some of you will have noticed that we have placed it on October 24, United Nations Day (and the 79th anniversary of this visionary and global organization).
We need people everywhere to raise their voices and help build awareness of the Global Goals. Today’s MUN gives you the opportunity to be relevant, purposeful and of service in our changing world.
I imagine that many more countries and cultures are represented in Chapel this morning and that you will bring diversity of experience and diversity of thought to our campus today.
I invite you to practise and develop skills today essential for community building – both at local and global levels.
Good luck.
Today is about conversation: giving it a go, gaining in confidence, and sharing your voice.
And, most of all, have some fun with it.
With escalating tension and conflict across the world (and the clear and present danger of nuclear warfare), I leave you with this.
The perceptive and prophetic words in 1954 of the Swedish diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and second Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld:
"The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”
Food for thought.
Richard D A Lamont
Head of Shawnigan Lake School
24th October 2024
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.
Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful West Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
