16 students from the Arlington Enrichment Collaborative at the United Nations.

Middle-school students attend CONFERENCE IN N.Y.C.

Sixteen Arlington sixth- through eighth-grade students from the Arlington Enrichment Collaborative after-school program experienced firsthand for two days what its like to be involved in issues of worldwide significance at the United Nations in New York.

The group attended the UNA-USA Middle School Model United Nations conference on April 4 and 5, when the students represented El Salvador, Sudan and the Czech Republic. They had spent more than four months researching their countries, the topics to be discussed in their committees and the procedure to be followed for debate in moving resolutions through the committees. 

Each pair of students assigned to a country and committee wrote a detailed position paper, which they submitted two weeks before the conference, detailing their countries' position on the topic the committee would be discussing.

One of the pairs of students, who represented Sudan in the General Assembly, where they were discussing children in armed conflict, won a special recognition: 

Alec Shea and Jonah Husson, both sixth graders who attend the Fayerweather Street School, were recognized with an honorable mention as the outstanding delegation. Danny Wolf and Robert Harrelson, seventh graders from the Ottoson Middle School, represented El Salvador in the General Assembly.   
 
Eighth grader Natalie Duranceau and sixth grader Ethan Morgan represented Sudan, and sixth graders Maddie Domenichella and Rita Kambil represented the Czech Republic, in the World Health Organization, where they discussed the topics of tuberculosis, malaria and infectious disease.  All four attend Ottoson.
 
Jeremy Norberg-Bohm and Matt Ober, seventh graders from Ottoson, represented El Salvador in the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, where they discussed the eradication of poverty. 

Louise Tanner and Molly Rookwood, sixth graders from the Ottoson,  represented Czech Republic in the human rights  commission, where they discussed the rights of indigineous peoples.   
 
Ottoson students Aidan Wilcox, an eighth grader, and Antoine Malfroy-Camine, a seventh grader, represented the Czech Republic in the United Nations Environmental Program, where they discussed the topic of global warming. 

Case Potter, a sixth grader from the Fayerweather Street School, and Kirby Stoff, a seventh grader from Ottoson, represented the Sudan in the Economic Commission on Africa, where the discussed the issue of orphans and AIDS.
 
In addition to attending the conference itself, held from late afternoon Friday through Saturday evening, the students all took a tour of the United Nations building Friday afternoon before the conference.

The four students representing El Salvador had the wonderful opportunity to meet with the real El Salvador delegate to the General Assembly Friday morning in the U.N. headquarters for almost an hour and then had lunch in the Delegates' Dining Room. 

This was especially meaningful because of Arlington's relationship as a sister city with Teosinte, El Salvador, and AEC's partnership with the Sister City Project: many of our students have begun to write letters with students from Teosinte and are working to found a youth volunteer corp for the Sister Cities Project.
 
This was AEC's first year participating in the UNA-USA Middle School Global Classrooms Model United Nations, and we look forward to doing so in the future.

Our participation was a project of our Planet Ottoson/Roots & Shoots Club, which invites participation in their many activities by any fifth- through eighth-grade student.

AEC is an after-school program open to any fifth- through eighth-grade student, for either afterschool program participation or individual enrichment program participation.

The group's final enrichment session for this school year starts April 28.  In the fall, the program will be located in the Ottoson Middle School.