New Haven Independent

New Haven Goes Before U.N.

by Allan Appel | January 28, 2008 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Thanks to one Model U.N. veteran’s efforts, New Haven students like Melissa Matos, Kathleen Smith and Dannieka Wiggins got a taste of international relations that in the past was reserved largely for peers from out of town.

Matos, Smith and Wiggins (second from left to right in photo) were attending Yale’s 34th annual Model United Nations (YMUN) conference. Matos was trying to solve the India-Kashmir problem; and Smith and Wiggins were working on social and humanitarian issues on behalf of El Salvador.

They were there at Yale’s Linsely-Chittenden Hall in part because Sabrina Howell (pictured to their left in the photo) made an effort to get more New Haven public schoolers involved in this year’s event.

“When they first came to us, they didn’t really know much about the United Nations, where the countries were on the map, or international relations. Now they’re focused, engaged, absolutely fabulous,” Howell said of the 30-plus New Haven high schoolers who attended this weekend’s conference.

“It’s normally an elitist thing,” Howell said of the annual summit of some 1,300 kids from across the country interested in the U.N. who want to get a good item on their college-bound resumes. She herself attended when she was a senior at New York City’s competitive Stuyvesant High School.

Now a senior at Yale, Howell noticed last year that New Haven’s students weren’t well represented in the YMUN, and she’s gone about changing that.

Howell added that international relations are ill taught not only in public schools but also in private and elite prep schools, all to the future detriment of our country.

Working with the gifted and talented counselors in the New Haven Public Schools, she identified some 30 to 40 kids who self-selected, as Howell put it. She got Yale’s Model United Nations Conference to pay the fees. S he and student colleagues such as her Yale confreres, juniors Nathan Tek and Nicholas Handler, held a Friday afternoon class beginning in October. With pizza and soda to fuel them, the kids, guided by Howell and her friends, learned about the U.N., worked on their public speaking, and prepped for what the high-powered conference would be like.

“They’ve gotten so energized on so many issues, ” said Howell, “particularly child soldiers and women’s poverty in the developing world.”

All the New Haven kids were assigned to represent India or Kashmir, Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador. The issues they chose, with the help of their teachers, they researched themselves. Howell and the others helped them learn how to present, to speak up, and to work within the parliamentary rules.

Danneika Wiggins, who attends Coop High School, soon had to be on her way to the SOCHUM, or Social and Humanitarian committee meeting (to use the U.N. lingo) to present El Salvador’s position on the use of paramilitary contractors.

“El Salvador doesn’t employ any now,” she said, “and so our position is currently neutral. But it’s a serious issue, like what happened in Iraq, and so we’re taking it under advisement.”

Kaneez Anwar, who attends Career High, speaks Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, English, of course, and is also learning French. She represented India in the India-Kashmir dispute. She prepared to debate Kathleen Smith, of Coop, in committee, who represented Kashmir, as did Melissa Matos.

Kaneez said she was thinking of becoming a doctor, but this experience — which, she added, will be good on her resume — has made her think international relations might be more interesting than medicine.

Danneika Wiggins looked around at the frenzy of talk and committees. Before she went off to her subcommittee she said. “Candidly, you look at these problems and they’re so complicated, it’s a little overwhelming. I’m not sure a real United Nations is for me.” She did say that she, a junior at Coop, did want to write screenplays and maybe write journalism, and she considered the possibility of doing them by going abroad to live and work in a far-flung country first.

What did she get out of the experience most? “I’ve really learned to speak up. In this kind of gathering, unless you are outspoken, you will be lost, you will not be heard, or remembered.”

Sabrina Howell, who last year had piloted this program by working with a single New Haven School, CT Scholars, was pleased. After the conference, and on through the end of the school year, kids will continue to come to the Friday class and study international relations.

She won’t be around next year because she’s taken a job doing international energy consulting with a Houston company. The program, however, will continue to be run by her junior collaborators to help make sure New Haven’s diverse students, participate in the model U.N. so close to home.

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Comments

Posted by: on whalley | January 28, 2008 9:43 AM

I wonder if they participate in "model" rapes, "model" exchanging of food items for sex with children, "model" infecting people with HIV, "model" embezzlement, "model" turning their back on "model" genocide etc...

What was the most recent one? Oh yeah, disallowing breast feeding because of the 5% chance HIV could be passed onto the baby and instead forcing the use of formula which effectively wiped out a generation of infants due to the lack of important nutrients and anti-bodies from the breast milk.

They better get to work on the "model" collecting of a global carbon tax. All this child sex, rape, embezzlement and spreading of disease is pretty pricey after all.

How many have died because of the DDT ban?

The U.N. is possible the only thing more corrupt and evil than our own government.

Posted by: gina coggio | January 28, 2008 11:03 AM

On Whalley, I think you're missing the point of this article. Isn't it that New Haven kids, historically underrepresented in "elite" programs like MUN, were there and were actively participating? Whether or not you agree with the UN itself, let's at least congratulate these high school students for taking on a huge risk and learning great skills that are sure to help them in their futures. They sound like amazing individuals. And let's also not forget the Yale students who reached out to the community to get these kids involved.

Posted by: Esbe | January 28, 2008 12:23 PM

On Whalley -- it is unfortunate that you want to spread that load of falsehoods. Just try finding links, to reputable news sources, for any of your crazy claims. To the degree that there are tiny remnants of truth in your claims, they have little to do with the UN, but rather with specific actions by specific nations and/or private corporations. It is private companies, like Nestle, who pushed formula over breast feeding. The UN has no army to fight genocide or ability to collect taxes; these things are purely in the control of individual governments. There are things to criticize the UN for (like bureaucratic inefficiency and meaningless posturing by the General Assembly), but your claims are straight out of looney-land.

Posted by: Terryandgirls | January 28, 2008 12:39 PM

Kudos to Sabrina Howell who recognized that New Haven students needed help and doing something. You are a true leader.

Congratulations to the New Haven High Schoolers who seized the opportunity to learn about the U.N. and international issues.

New Haven students rock!! (From a mom of a Coop alumna and a Coop freshman)

Posted by: on whalley | January 28, 2008 12:55 PM

okay ESBE

In Botswana, Step to Cut AIDS Proves a Formula for Disaster

New Standards For UN Troops?

Sexual abuse by UN troops in Congo hasn't stopped

UN admits failure in Rwanda

DDT Ban Turns 30, Millions Dead

I could post links all day. I make a hobby out of collecting these stories in link form as well as full text from EBSCO and Lexis Nexis. It keeps me busy while in my cube at work.

Posted by: PowertothePeople | January 28, 2008 4:01 PM

ON Whalley said"It keeps me busy while in my cube at work."

Shouldn't your job be keeping you busy at work? Are you stealing time and money from your employer? Are you so bitter and jaded that you miss the knowledge and experience these young people got that can propel them forward in life? No one is disagreeing that the UN has issues but I dare you to name an organization that doesn't. Maybe I'm just a "half full" kind of guy but I see this as opportunity for a different future. Perhaps some of these kids will move into working for the UN and perhaps some of them would be the impetus for change. Perhaps they just need some of us adults to teach them.

Posted by: Esbe | January 28, 2008 5:07 PM

On Whalley -- I checked your first link. It says:

UNICEF officials also participated in an October 2006 conference that issued new guidelines reemphasizing the importance of breast-feeding and warning that formula can be dangerous in all but the most developed, reliably sanitary settings.

So, UNICEF took the advice of public health professionals and then, when things started to go bad, quickly corrected themselves. I could now post a link to the fact that UNICEF does thousands of great things all around the world, that the efforts of WHO eliminated smallpox throughout the world, etc., etc.

I could also waste my day going through the rest of your links, but since the first one doesn't check out, I won't.

Posted by: Josiah Brown | January 28, 2008 6:06 PM

Compliments to S. Howell, N. Tek and N. Handler--and to the New Haven Public School students (and their teachers) who participated in the Model UN Conference.
Wilbur Cross High School has had a Model UN Club since 2003, when history teacher Ralph Russo and Cross students established this self-supporting club.
This year, Cross sent to Yale a delegation of 15 students. About half the students served as the Croatian delegation, about half as Madagascar. The Cross Model United Nations team won best small delegation to the Cornell Model UN in 2005. Since 2003, the group has attended 12 conferences: Yale 6 times and 6 overnight conferences: Cornell (2), Princeton (2), Brown (1), Columbia (1). Cross delegates have received 5 best delegate awards, 3 outstanding delegate awards, and various honorable mentions.
My understanding is it costs each student about $250 to attend an overnight conference, with funds raised informally.
Ralph Russo's work with Cross students on the Model UN followed his participation in a 2002 Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminar that Yale faculty member Bruce Russett led on "War and Peace in the 20th Century and Beyond." In that seminar, Ralph Russo's own curriculum unit was on "Investigating Conflict Resolution through the United Nations":
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2002/3/02.03.03.x.html

Other units written in the seminar included one pertinent to Iraq: a unit that history teacher John Buell of Sound School developed on "Just War Theory:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2002/3/02.03.01.x.html

Posted by: on whalley | January 29, 2008 7:51 AM

But you'll miss my favorite part:

First, UN Congo chief William Swing, a former US diplomat, may resign Friday amid charges he hasn't prevented things like UN soldiers raping teenage girls or trading sex for bread or peanut butter.

Found in the second link.

I know, I know. It's only brown children being raped, brown babies dying, brown people being hacked to death by other brown people with weapons they received through the U.N.. Who cares? It's only brown people. And the U.N. even went back and "fixed" things......sort of. They weren't able to bring anyone's child back to life or un-rape any children but they did their best. So no worries.

Posted by: Renee | January 30, 2008 7:40 AM

I applaud Sabrina for getting the kids involved. My daughter enjoyed the experience.
A Co-op Mom.

New Haven Goes Before U.N.

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