Charity Porotesano '12 named member of Pacific Young Leaders on Disarmament by Federation of American Scientists and Pacific Islands Society

Elementary school teacher Charity Anna Porotesano has been selected by the Federation of American Scientists and Pacific Islands Society as a member of the inaugural class of Pacific Young Leaders on Disarmament.

The Pacific Young Leaders on Disarmament Project provides young leaders in foreign policy with an international forum to voice their ideas.

Over the next six months, Charity and her class, made up of young leaders from the Pacific, will draft a short series of blog posts on contemporary counter-proliferation and disarmament issues.

These will be designed to better familiarize the young leaders with opportunities and challenges currently facing the Conference on Disarmament (CD).

Each will then be asked to draft a "Statement to the Conference on Disarmament," which will provide their personal views on how the CD could, in the words of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, better live up to expectations.

After publishing these statements on the FAS Blog, FAS/PacSoc staff intend to deliver the collection of statements to various Geneva-based diplomatic missions based to coincide with the start of the 2014 CD session.

Charity is a Truman scholar and has a bachelor's degree in political science from Grinnell College. She is also a youth representative on the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa Advisory Council.