The Sedona Charter School’s Montessori Model United Nations students spent the afternoon of March 10 sharing with their parents what they learned about diplomacy, foreign affairs and geography during the program, which included a trip to New York City and the United Nations headquarters in February.
The MMUN program offers online and in-person events through which students can collaborate with others around the world to learn about global issues using the UN format. Participants are assigned to represent different countries and begin the program by learning about that country’s culture, military, economy, history and geography. This year, SCS students represented Zambia, the Netherlands, Fiji, Botswana, Benin and Austria.
“Every two delegates get to choose a country that they are not from because when they go to the UN they are coming with that country’s perspective to solve world problems,” teacher Maija Alanen said.
“Most Model United Nations programs are for high school students, but Judith Cunningham, she’s my hero,” Alanen said. “She was friends with the delegate of Bulgaria from the UN and they found a partnership. And he said, ‘Judith, we need Montessori children. We need kids who are still young and open and creative.’ So together, they collaborated, and it’s been going since 2006, and it is so popular it’s spread all over the world.”
“Topic research is about [learning about] the topic that you’re researching, and you’re supposed to dive deeper into it to get more perspective on what the country’s problems are and then try and find a solution to the [issues],” SCS student Lyncoln Malinski said. Each pair of students is assigned two topics to study; Malinski’s was the right to food in Botswana and his partner Carson Bailey’s was water scarcity and agriculture in the same landlocked African country with 2.48 million people.
“It’s like helping you get into a different mindset, because most of us in the United States just think about the way the United States works,” said Sage Worssam, who represented Benin, a French-speaking West African coastal nation. “But it’s fascinating, the way that your perspective can change when you’re faced with a different country’s problem.”
As part of the program, students learn to write policy papers and deliver speeches that serve as summaries of their position papers.
“Women have a voice, too, and it is imperative that we teach young boys and men how to respect and defend women’s rights,” Isabella Ontiveros Rosas said during her speech. “The government of Fiji proposes that we create a program through the United Nations that will train young boys and men to go into the world and teach others about this important mission.”
Students also created cultural display boards to showcase information about their countries, which might include a map, landmarks, currency, traditional foods, notable figures, music and other cultural elements.
“So on Feb. 21, 2025, all 1,600 delegates and around 400 [parents and teachers] file into the United Nations General Assembly Building where, if you will, it was the climax of [our] trip, it’s what is building up to,” Bailey said. “Sasha, Sage and I were three out of 60 people who were selected to speak at the United Nations. What we spoke about was the resolutions and from our respective committee sessions.”
“It was quite overwhelming,” Bailey continued. “Walking in, I had an overwhelming sense to yell ‘woo’ at the top of my lungs, because it was unbelievably fun. I remember about 2,000 pairs of eyes walking on me, and I gave a speech. It was probably the most important of my life up to this point. And I would have 110% recommended to anybody who wants to do it. And as Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there.’”
During their time in New York City, the students also visited the Empire State Building, the American Natural History Museum, Central Park, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and rode the Staten Island Ferry.
The students spent the second half of the meeting discussing the early stages of planning a December trip to a MMUN conference in Bangkok that will take place from Dec. 9 through 12.
“They’re going there [to] find [their] voice and come up with real solutions to world problems,” Alanen said.
