Carl Hobert Strikes a Chord with NHS Visit

For nearly sixty minutes on Monday night, the New Hampton School student body was transfixed.

 

One slide after another illustrating orphan children in Rwanda and high school students providing time, patience, and care--coupled with Carl Hobert’s from-the-heart tale of these service learning experiences--resonated with students who were seeing a distant worldoutside the school grounds and their local community.

 

Hobert, the founder and executive director of Axis of Hope, the organization that works to teach global responsibility and conflict resolution, attracted more than 40 NHS students to the stage for questions after his evocative presentation. Students craved for more information about how they could get involved in one of his programs.

 

"Carl's visit was a success on a bunch of levels,” said English faculty Matt Altieri, who heads the New Hampton Speaker Series. "Carl is clearly an engaging speaker with a powerful subject that provided a great opening to our celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.  More than Carl's success, though, the event was a testament to the highest qualities of our student body: they are committed, generous, engaged citizens--both of the New Hampton community and of the broader world--and their response to Carl's talk was a great demonstration of this."

Hobert detailed and illustrated the plight and struggle of orphans who were left without families after one of the most horrific civil wars in history.

 

He asked New Hampton School students to open their minds and to look beyond the comforts and conflicts in their own lives and consider this type of service.

 

As he closed his speech, Hobert connected this type of experience with a greater worldview. He implored NHS students to continue to strive to become more complete global citizens.

 

“Starting today, Carpe Diem,” Hobert said. “…I ask that you please continue to think about becoming humble chameleons where you can fit in wherever you go. 

 

“Whether it is learning another language, learning about another culture, doing service for others. This is what we have to believe in. You are the cream of the crop students.”