Backboards and Greeting Cards

We are moving along in Model UN. Right now, we are working on our backboards. Our backboards contain facts about our countries; pictures of the people, food, and money; and maps of our countries. The countries we are working on are Libya, Israel, and Haiti. We also just finished working on our UN cards, which are cards that we made ourselves by hand, and they show the symbol of the UN, but we changed the symbol so that it was unique and our own. We were doing a fundraiser called "Equal Exchange" and we just turned in our money for that. I am getting kind of excited to go to NYC.

Ali Vondran

Updates for October/November

The students have started constructing their delegation backboards. These backboards display types of information about their country: geography, economy, cultural, political, etc. These backboards are on display for all the schools attending the conference. For our school, we are bringing three backboards to each represent Haiti, Libya and Israel.

We have two current fundraising projects. This month students have been selling Fair trade products like coffee, chocolate, tea and other items to earn money for our trip, and to also promote safe labor practices that do not include child labor. In addition to their sales, they are creating peace-themed greeting cards that will be sold at an upcoming school event. We used the official UN symbol of the world map supported by the olive branches for inspiration.

Welcome to Khalsa's Model UN Information Page

Welcome to the Model United Nations program at Khalsa Montessori. We have 14 dedicated elementary and middle school students who are attending an after school club to learn about peace education, the politics of other countries and how the United Nations attempts to help people worldwide. These students will attend the Montessori Model United Nations conference held in March 2010 in Brooklyn, NY as well as at the actual United Nations site. These students could be our future amabassadors and world leaders!

Montessori Model United Nations is an annual conference held in New York where students from all over the United States as well as other countries gather together to simulate the work of the UN. Students act as delegates from their assigned country, and complete intensive research about their country to prepare for the conference. At the conference, the delegates practice conflict resolution, negotiation, public speaking and formal writing skills. During the conference, students visit the United Nations building and vote on the resolutions they have drafted in their respective committees. The work that these students are able to do at such a young age is truly remarkable.

The goal of this program is to provide an opportunity for students to practice their conflict resolution skills that they learned in the classroom in an academic, international setting. They learn how to speak from another person’s perspective, which is essential part of being able to resolve problems with others in general. In addition, they gain insight into many of the world’s problems through this process.

We hope that you will consider supporting these students by making a donation in order to make their trip possible. Please follow the link to our Paypal account and remember if you're an AZ resident, this donation can be used as a the Arizona school tax credit donation (dollar-for-dollar return on your donation). Thank you!