Sam Rayburn High School WorldQuest students recently met 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus at a Houston World Affairs Council luncheon at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Houston.

The Houston World Affairs Council sponsors Academic WorldQuest groups throughout the area to attend educational seminars and the council invited and paid for the Sam Rayburn students to attend the luncheon. Yunus visited with the students after his speech and autographed copies of his book Creating a World Without Poverty.

“This was a great opportunity for us to interact with a world renowned economist and a man with a truly unique vision who has made an enormous impact on the people of Bangladesh and other developing nations,” said WorldQuest student Etni Flores. “Mr. Yunus is an inspiration to the future generation that one man can solve huge problems if ingenuity and effort are applied.”

Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker and economist, founded the Grameen Bank through which he pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people—mainly women—with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty.

WorldQuest student Roberto Guzman said this opportunity made him and his peers feel special and that it was a great opportunity to speak face-to-face with an international leader.

“It is very empowering to know our opinions matter and that a man such as Muhammad Yunus will answer any questions that I have,” Guzman said. “It’s very important that these leaders pass on the message to us that we are the future and we have a responsibility to understand current events, get a better education and make something of ourselves.”

Yunus spoke to the WorldQuest students among many other listeners at the luncheon about ending poverty by breaking the cycle of indentured labor to corrupt money-lenders. He also told his audience about how his bank gives loans to people who have no collateral, no money and offers them the opportunity to invest in themselves and their labor.

“Mr. Yunus spoke to us about how he came to discover this need for a bank that would help the less fortunate by providing micro-loans to them and that when given the opportunity to work for themselves and control their destinies, most people rise to the occasion and make their own lives better,” said the school’s WorldQuest sponsor Jane Sidwell. “That’s a very inspirational message for our students to hear.”

WorldQuest is a Flagship Program of the World Affairs Council system in which participating students throughout the country attend 10-15 educational seminars and lectures a year and stay up to date on current events. So far this year, Sam Rayburn students have attended seminars on the use of child soldiers, malaria prevention in the third world, the future of Mexico by Vicente Fox and a conversation with Dr. Anthony Lake. The students also just recently attended a lecture by Jonathon Spence, a Yale professor and leading expert on China, at Rice University.

“This student group gives us the opportunity to see the world through different eyes,” said Maza. “It allows us to see other cultures and events while also making us realize that living in the most advanced civilization at this time in history comes with an obligation to help others.”

Sam Rayburn WorldQuest students will compete with other Houston area groups this month by answering rounds of questions testing their knowledge on international affairs, geography, history, culture, the world economy, religion and more. The competition is divided into four rounds, and the students have 20 seconds to answer each of 10 questions. This is the second year Sam Rayburn’s group has competed, and last year, they
ranked in the 50th percentile of the competition. There are 10 WorldQuest students at Rayburn.

Student Meagan Chambers said she is excited about the upcoming competition.

“The majority of teams are from private and charter schools,” Chambers said. “The question are tough and the competition is tougher, but we will do better this year than last given our experience and that we have put together a stronger team.”

Sidwell said students can best prepare for the competition by reading magazines such as The Week and The Economist, listening to cable news and using the Internet to gather information on current events and their impact around the globe. The team with the most accumulated points will advance to Washington, D.C. to represent Houston against other major city WorldQuest teams.

“As a long-term goal for this group, I hope our students will seek careers with a global emphasis, have opportunity to travel and to be aware of global events and their influence on American culture and economic development,” said Sidwell.