Nathaly Hewawasam
Gateway High School
Celebration, Florida
 Nathaly and Claes Nobel at Scholar's Day in the U.S. Senate |
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
This summer, I had the opportunity of embarking on a wonderful journey. This journey was in the form of the Hugh O'Brian 2006 World Leadership Congress (WLC). It was an eight-day Congress that took place at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Last year, my school selected me through an essay contest to be among the 150 student leaders that participated in the local HOBY Leadership Seminar, HOBY Mid-Florida, which took place at the Ivanhoe Plaza Hotel in Orlando. That, too, was an amazing experience. From there, students are eligible to advance to the HOBY WLC.
Hugh O' Brian was born in 1925, and he went on to become the youngest drill instructor in Marine Corps history at 17 years of age. He gained national fame through his acting career in "The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp," a nationally top-rated television series that ran fro 1955 to 1962.
In 1958, O'Brian received a life-changing invitation to French Equatorial Africa by Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Dr. Schweitzer, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, was renowned globally as a musician, ethical philosopher, and humanitarian. During his visit to Africa, O'Brian spent his days helping the volunteers in the hospital and his nights discussing global peace and world politics with Dr. Schweitzer. Dr. Schweitzer told O'Brian that he felt that "the most important thing in education is to teach young people to think for themselves." At the end of the trip, Dr. Schweitzer asked O'Brian, "Hugh, what are you going to do with this?" That was the encounter that inspired O'Brian to found Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY).
This program for high school sophomores started out with seminars in Los Angeles only. By 1968, the scope of the HOBY program grew to include national and international participants. Run by over 4,000 volunteers, community leaders, business executives, educators, and parents who gather for this express purpose each year, the HOBY seminars can only be described with one word: OUTSTANDING.