2006 National Model United Nations

April 11 - 15, 2006

UI Wins Award Representing Niger!

A different and far more international group of UI students traveled to New York to participate in the 2006 NMUN conference. Because the regular IS 310 class was not offered during the Fall ’05 semester in favor of an experimental research methods class, participants in the NMUN were drawn from members of the International Affairs Club. This meant that several students from across campus – and from around the world – joined the delegation. One member, a graduate student in education named Gulnur Esenelieva, became the first Kyrgyz national ever to attend the NMUN as far as conference as far as conference organizers could tell. She was joined by Dutch, Ecuadorian, Romanian, and Sierra Leonean nationals in addition to students from the western United States.

This year’s delegation sought a largely Islamic nation to study and then represent at the conference, and were pleased to be assigned Niger, a country situated at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Niger proved challenging to research and study, as relatively little of its official position is available in government documents on the web. The Idaho delegation proved up to the task as they diligently pursued leads in a variety of UN and regional sources. Their hard work paid off as the delegation received an award for Outstanding Position Paper writing. This owes in large part to the experienced guidance of head delegates Hanne Beener and Megan Thompson, both of whom attended the conference previously.

Ultimately, UI students served on nine committees that simulated actual UN bodies and considered issues from the 2005 agendas of their respective organizations. This was the seventh straight year that the Martin Institute sponsored the UI delegation to the conference.

 
Flags courtesy of ITA's Flags of All Countries used with permission.
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