Model United Nations Update

 Junior Model UN Conference – January 7 & 8, 2010

The Junior Model UN conference was held at John Carroll University in the new Dolan Science Center in University Heights, Ohio.  Excellent facilities and welcoming staff helped to make this a most rewarding conference.  The weather interferred, however, closing some of the attending schools on the second day of the conference and forcing some adjustments in committee makeup.  Next year we have scheduled a back up day in case weather intervenes.

                   

The theme for the conference was “Reevaluation & Collective Reconstruction as a Global Community,” and this theme generated lively debate and discussion for the two day conference in January.

Ten schools and 208 students from both public and private schools attended the conference.  Both high school and college students from a variety of schools served as chairs and observers for the UN committees which were simulated.
                      

                              

Our keynote speaker was Patience Fiodembo, a senior studying Psychology and Foreign Affairs at John Carroll University.  Patience grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and attended school in Kajiado, a small Maasai town in southeast Kenya.  She is particularly interested in improving the conditions of female education and the issues of poverty, AIDS and inequality, which were the subjects of her talk to the students.

         
                                                                   
Students found the conference both productive and engaging as they debated such topics as Nuclear Arms Security, Global Warming, and Child Soldiers in Uganda.