Nagaland: Jessica Snock appointed as dy advisor of US Presidential Advisory Board for Asia

Our Correspondent

Kohima, Sep. 1 (EMN): Jessica Snock AK from Nagaland was appointed as the deputy advisor of the US Presidential Advisory Board for Asia on August 31.

Snock, who also holds the title of Mrs United Nations 2019, hails from Phek district’s Reguri village under Pochury sub-division and is a mother of a six-year-old son.  

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, the beauty queen said that she would be going to ‘the United States in the coming months or most likely by October or November,’ for the official formalities and paper works.

On being appointed as the deputy advisor of the US Presidential Advisory Board for Asia, she shared that she was excited and anxious at the same time, ‘as there are lots of things in store with the new responsibility.’

  “I have to work on putting in my effort, know where and how things are going to be,” she said, adding that she was looking forward to the new responsibility.

The 33-year-old was appointed by Dr. Philip Jadhav of the US Presidential Advisory Board.

While her focus is particularly on children and women and the injustice that is happening in and around Asia, Snock said that her role will be ‘basically for the humanitarian cause’. She added that she will have to ‘keep in touch with people around her jurisdiction.’

She will be responsible for passing on cases in Asian countries that need the intervention of the United Nations to the executive board, who in turn will take the matter to the UN. She said that the board will be helping her with the welfare of her projects, that is, orphanage and old age people.

When asked about the criteria of appointment to the post, she shared about her trip to Bangkok to receive an award from the royal house of Thailand, where she met the diplomats from the White House and other board members of the UN. She said that she had put across her project before them and that’s when ‘the diplomats were keen and took her project ahead to the White House.’ By then, she was already an ambassador for South East Asia for the UN, she added.

Three months after submitting her project, she received the confirmation and was appointed for the post, she said.

She also works for the peace keeping process in South East Asia and frequently visits the headquarters in Thailand. She said that she ‘does some sort of charity,’ collects funds and provides ventilators to hospitals. But she ‘normally works online’ now as she can’t travel. Snock, who is married to a Manipuri army doctor, also expressed dismay at those who are criticising her. 

 “Many of my own brothers and sisters from Nagaland don’t accept me because I married a man from another state (Manipur). This is pinching me because I was the one who was very proud to represent my state at the national level,” she said. “Although I might have married a Manipuri, I am also a part of Nagaland because this is where I was born and brought up. My parents belong to Nagaland and nobody has the right to tell me if I can be Naga or not because I am Naga by blood. I think that is my right to claim; that I am a Naga and not anybody else,” Snock said.

“Our people should know that it is not the state that is going to divide us; it is our own hatred and one should be supportive of someone who is trying to strive for our community,” she added.