Murrieta Rotary Sponsors 4 Students' Way to Model UN

News release from the Rotary Club of Murrieta:

Four Murrieta Valley High School students became the first to participate in the annual Model United Nations program in San Diego recently. The Murrieta “delegates” included Freshmen Darren Wang, Cassidy Aranda and Jessica Kim along with Junior Emily Marker.

Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Murrieta, the four, and a team from Mexico, were the only high school participants from outside of San Diego County.  Murrieta Rotarian Gabriella Brown spearheaded the Club’s involvement in the program, working with the students to develop positions for their assigned countries – Germany and North Korea.  In total, 32 countries were represented by two-person teams, each of which researches the political, economic and cultural aspects of their nation in order to present support for proposed resolutions as their nation.

“By participating in the model UN, the students were expected to view global issues from the standpoint of the country they had been assigned. In this case, North Korea and Germany,” Brown said.  “The goal of the program is to foster the ability to look at global issues from a standpoint other than our own and see what effort it takes to reach a consensus with nations whose world view is very different from ours.

“This understanding opens their eyes to why there are no simple solutions to global issues while taking the time to respect every country's sovereignty and cultural history.”

A highlight of the Model UN program was the keynote speech by Iraqi UN Ambassador Al-Bayati, who spoke about Iraq today in a preview of his recently published book.

The Rotary Club of Murrieta, chartered on April 28, 1992, is involved in many international and community projects in cooperation with Rotary International, which has as its theme "Service Above Self."  Club meetings are held Mondays (excepting holidays) at noon at Richie's Diner in Murrieta.