One of the UN’s brightest young voices on work, centering young voices, and the widespread criticism of the institution.
An ode to the indomitable organization that has rallied for peace, offered aid in the thick of natural disasters and spearheaded the COP climate conferences, Mission’s United Nations Issue is unlike any past edition (or any edition of a magazine, ever, if we do say so ourselves). So, whoever graced the cover needed to be equally idiosyncratic. “Do we choose a celebrity UN ambassador? Someone who operates a big-time NGO? Or perhaps a high-flying consummate professional who’s been a fixture at the UN for decades?” We asked ourselves. None of these seemed quite Mission enough.
While putting this issue together, the conviction that perpetually re-surfaced was that the future lies with the youth of today: we need more young people’s opinions, young people in boardrooms, and young people taking up the spaces historically reserved for older, more experienced figures, something Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN Envoy on Youth , addresses in her interview in our ninth issue.
27-year-old Tamara Chammah was just that: an optimistic, pin-sharp voice helping to shape the UN’s agenda from the ground up.
Our 9th issue with Chammah on the cover, clad in an oversize Louis Vuitton blazer, launched on September 30. To say the least, it’s been a big week for Chammah. “I’m very, very blessed,” she gushes over Zoom from her apartment in Hudson Yard, New York, an eerily futuristic area near the Hudson River.
Born to ambitious Lebanese parents in Paris, France, Chammah was destined for good things. Since childhood, she’s harbored an interest in politics and criminal justice, and throughout her adolescence, stoked this interest via internships at the European Parliament in Brussels. “I remember participating in plenary sessions at the parliament where you’re surrounded by all these members of parliament that actually write laws. I thought it was just so interesting to immerse myself. I was so young, and I was like, ‘I really do see myself in that field at some point.'” she remarks.
Her parents wanted her to become a lawyer, but she demurred, opting instead to study European politics at the lauded Kings College in London. Throughout her time at college, she developed a preoccupation with New York City and longed for a way she could move to the Big Apple full-time. In a welcome twist of fate, she came across a master’s degree in Human Rights at Columbia and, at around the same time, secured an internship at The United Nations’ Manhattan headquarters.
The following two years were highly rewarding, if strenuous. Chammah would get through her 9-5 internship at the UN before taking the subway across town to Columbia to attend night classes. “I would finish my days at 10 pm every day during the week. But I didn’t want to not work because I had started my internship and when you get a foot in the door at the UN, you don’t want to leave.” On Saturdays and Sundays, she found herself on that all-too-familiar ride again, this time to her weekend classes. Towards the end of her internship, the pandemic struck, which, although devastating, offered Chammah some welcome respite from the traveling, as everyone at the UN and Columbia was working from home.
As a nascent intern, Chammah acted as a research assistant for a former President of the General Assembly. “I was asked to research any new resolutions at the UN and write speeches for my high representative because he would be invited to speak at big conferences worldwide. Every conference has a different topic. It could be, you know, climate change, or it could be women, power, men, gender equality,” Chammah explains of her role.
Shortly before graduating, she was ordained with a highly coveted full-time job at the UN as a senior associate of project management. Currently, Chammah’s primary focus is a partnership with the private sector on an NGO incubator-style project. “We have a selection process every year for NGOs from around the world, we select up to 10 every year, and we work with them for a year. We help them with funding and capacity building, invite them to our conferences and events, and help them with networking. So that’s one of the main projects I’m supporting right now,” she says.
Since its inception in 1945, The UN has been no stranger to criticism, which has steadily increased thanks to public scandals, questions regarding its efficacy, and many accusing the UN of being stuck in archaic ways amid a rapidly changing world, something Chammah is hyper-aware of. “You know, I get a lot of critiques, and I know it’s a gray area. Even as a UN employee, I understand that there are things that we could do better. But I do believe that we work. The UN was built for one reason: to avoid another war, and at this time, right now, it’s very uncertain, and I think the purpose of the UN is extremely important right now, specifically what’s happening in the world.”
I ask Chammah how the Russia/Ukraine conflict has affected daily life at the UN. She explains that because her department isn’t overtly political, direct intervention isn’t in their remit. But they’re working quietly on the periphery, “we have alumni from our projects, and some of them are from Ukraine, some of them are from Russia. So when this whole thing started, we decided that we wanted to emphasize those alumni and invite them to future projects and conferences and put them at the forefront. Let them talk, give them a voice.”
She stresses how the UN is working to put young people’s voices front and center. “They are actually hiring young people a lot. They are looking for young voices. They know that young people are the future of the UN, and we have different ideas, we have different perspectives in life, we see things differently, and I think that that insight is extremely important. I have seen, especially young women in their mid-thirties and early forties, that have these senior positions, and they are doing an amazing job because they are bringing that youth insight that is very much needed. So I would say it’s getting better, for sure.”
In conversation, Chammah comes off not only as markedly ambitious, but fervent in her passion for human rights and equality. So what does the hard-working humanitarian see in her future? “I’m very interested in social impact through innovation, so I’ve been looking at a lot of different programs or positions in those big companies that have the human-rights social impact aspect. It’s very rare. But it’s starting to boom. Even diversity and inclusion in a big private sector company,” she explains, an exhaustive career plan for a 27-year-old.
But Chammah’s not ready to decamp from the UN’s 1st Avenue headquarters just yet, “right now I’m very happy at the UN.”
Images courtesy of Tamara Chammah. Home page image by photographer Craig McDean at Art and Commerce, styling by Gro Curtis, hair by Tomo Jidai at Home Agency, make up by Susie Sobol at Julian Watson Agency. Tamara Chammah wears Louis Vuitton.
