Georgetown Launches Model UN Training Conference for Qatar Schools
For high school students in Qatar and around the world, the Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) Model United Nations diplomacy and leadership program (GMUN) is a highlight of the year and an important achievement to add to college applications. To give local students a competitive edge at the conference held in the spring, GU-Q recently launched an additional full three-day MUN training conference this fall, which saw 21 schools and over 280 students from Qatar take part in the inaugural conference held under the theme “Redefining the Role of the Individual in the Information Revolution.”
Replacing local MUN training days developed to help prepare local students for the rigors of the more formal GMUN, with a complete MUN conference experience, enhances the impact of the skill-building exercises, explains Jibin Koshy, Educational Enrichment Manager at GU-Q. “We felt that the local training days don’t offer enough time to fit in all the training needed. So we decided to create a total simulation to provide the full experience. And they’ll be able to take those learned skills to future MUNs, as well as to the classroom and beyond.”
The Georgetown Fall MUN was held at the university’s campus in Education City, which will be the site of all future MUN conferences. “We invited interested local schools to apply and bring up to three delegations of six students each. And for schools that don’t have an MUN program, Jibin says they were committed to ensuring that every local student could benefit from Georgetown’s academic enrichment program. “If a school didn’t have an MUN club or counselor, we made sure they could still participate by creating teams of individuals.”
At the start of the conference, local school counselors accompanying their school’s teams made an on-the-spot request for their own MUN training to help them deliver more personal opportunities to their schools throughout the year. The following day of the conference, said Jibin, “We were pleased to be able to put together a how-to session for all counselors called MUN 101. The training covered a wide range of topics on how to prepare for a MUN conference to how to start an MUN club in their school.”
MUN conferences are organized by Georgetown students, and even for this smaller training event, over 50 GU-Q students devoted hours of their time to make the experience an unforgettable one. Lina Noureldin, an International Politics major at GU-Q, works as a student organizer for the program that had such a transformational impact on her as a high school student. “Model United Nations made me who I am as a person today. Not only did I discover the world of international organizations and relations, which I am majoring in now, but it taught me how to be diplomatic, how to speak in public, and even how to make friends.”
The event allows students to learn without the high pressure stakes of the international conference. While participation isn’t a condition for acceptance in the big event, Jibin notes that “It definitely boosts the likelihood that schools will be accepted to participate in GMUN, and more importantly, to perform really well when they’re here.”