Dubai high school students debate world issues at ‘UN’ meeting

The event, held at the American Academy, saw more than 500 girls aged 10 to 18 came together to debate world issues from health epidemics to child soldiers.

From left: Fatma Alawadhi, Katya Abdulkhasan, Zaina Awan and Miami Hussain at Model United Nations. Satish Kumar / The National

DUBAI // Pupils from around the UAE gathered on Thursday for the first all-female Model United Nations.

More than 500 girls, all between 10 and 18, came together at the Dubai American Academy to debate world issues, including health epidemics and child soldiers.

“There are a lot of schools like ours that haven’t been able to send kids to Model UNs because they are mixed sex, so it’s been a good opportunity for girls who haven’t been able to challenge themselves or need leadership roles,” said Karen Nyborg, head of social studies at the school.

Ms Nyborg has organised Model UN gatherings at the school for the past three years. This year it was opened to schools around the country for the first time.

Pupils from 25 schools simulated debates and lobbying, with each designating a country and issue to represent. Each girl wrote a mock-legal document for a resolution on their topic.

“This is a chance for them to come out of their comfort zone and become citizens of the world,” said Ms Nyborg, who has taken students to meetings in Italy, Russia and Qatar.

Two of the girls are the school’s secretary generals at its own Model UN – Russian-Lebanese pupil Katya Abulkhasan, 17, and Emirati Fatma Alawadhi, 18.

Fatma has taken part in more than 11 meetings and covered about 50 topics.

“You’re not ignorant after you go through this experience. You’re open minded and you don’t have a sense of racism. People don’t admit it but it’s there.”

Katya said she had learnt many skills in the past three years, including public speaking and research.

“When I first did it, writing a position paper would take me a month. Now it’s just a few days after I do research.”

Fatma agreed. “I was really disorganised through my high school but when I started the Model UN I started writing a schedule to get everything done so I learnt how to implement that into everyday life.”

Miami Hussain of the Australian International School in Sharjah said yesterday’s Model UN was her first. She was representing Guatamala on the topic of health epidemics.

The 16-year-old said she was nervous addressing the meeting but learnt a lot. “I now feel I could do it again and much better. It’s given me more confidence.”

Miami is interested in medicine and the experience had helped to reinforce that.

“I was thrilled to get the topic, but after all the research it’s just reinforced that I want to go into medicine.”

Zaina Awan from Cambridge International School in Dubai had taken part in four such meetings in the past year. The Pakistani loves “intellectual debate” and was representing Germany on the issue of child soldiers.

“Now I’m just more aware of what’s happening in the world. Every student should be more aware of what’s happening.”