Model United Nations

MUN promotes a series of skills that, with proper teaching and guidance, can be learned at any age. This activity exposes participants to current events and global political and economic issues that young students would probably not understand or care for until much later in their lives. Through their involvement in MUN, students have to learn how to research and understand the international conflicts in which the real United Nations are involved, in order to promote peace and stability. In preparing for MUN conferences, students are not only developing public speaking and debate skills, but are also learning history, geography, politics and economics, sometimes with a greater level of detail and complexity than what they study in any of their school courses. In addition, they are forced to be creative and come up with solutions to the real life problems that most countries are currently facing. Even though most people recognize the capabilities and the potential of young students, organized school activities tend to limit their participation until they are much older. As a result, these students either turn to other activities or get frustrated and become indifferent. Recognizing their potential is not enough. We have to reach out to them, to show them how exciting it is to understand what is happening in the world, and give them the opportunity to participate in debates and discussions of current events as delegates of different countries. Because of their young age, elementary school students are usually more open minded to consider and accept diverse opinions, which is something very important for the resolution of international conflicts. One of the main reasons why I began to develop the Jr. MUN for elementary school students is the realization of how important the skills I have acquired through MUN have been for my academic and social life. I joined my school's MUN club in the 8th grade, and now, four years later, I only wished I could have started earlier. Since elementary school students are not eligible to compete in the local MUN circuit in Puerto Rico, I decided to create a Jr. MUN club that would function as a year-round training "boot camp" program where younger students could participate and practice in preparation for formal conferences in the future. In order to get the project started, I targeted fifth and sixth graders and invited them (and their parents) to a general orientation meeting on the Untied Nations and its goals. This meeting was held in the school auditorium where I gave a Power Point presentation that was very simple and geared mainly at developing their interest in the United Nations and the discussion and understanding of current events. Involving the parents of the younger students proved to be very useful because it is always important for younger students to have their approval and support for an extra curricular activity that would eventually require the interaction with students from other schools and eventually, at the high school level, travel for international competitions such as the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference (ILMUNC), where my school usually attends.