Model UNDP

I just got back last night from a Model United Nations Development Programme Conference in Istanbul. I took four students Thursday through Sunday. It was a lot of fun and I was really proud of them. I had several people comment to me what a great group of students they were. They were all mentioned by other people in their committees as good participants. There were 13 schools (11 from Turkey, one from Bahrain and one from the UAE) with 183 students. It was a long weekend, but really a fun one. I got to bed at midnight last night. So today has been a long one!

For those of you familiar with Model UN, this is a little different. UNDP is an agency of the United Nations that deals with issues of developing countries. Each student was put into one of 6 committees. Each committe dealt with a specific issue and the students then had to write project documents to solve the issue. For example one group dealt with the issue of Rwanda refugees in Burundi. They developed a project document with the budget and resources needed to set up the refugee camps.

We are looking forward to participating in the regular Model UN conference this December in 2006. That will also be in Istanbul and will have a larger participation. But I'm very excited about our start. We are the first program of this type from our school. Our name is getting out there! I'm really excited to see how much the school is going to grow over the next year.