Students making a difference
Delegation from Harbourview Montessori to take part in UN conference
Students from Harbourview Montessori School will travel to Rome to take part in the International Model United Nations Conference.
The students from the Sydney school, aged 9-11, will take part in the four-day trip that begins Tuesday. They previously travelled to the UN headquarters in New York City, as well as the Palais de Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. This will be their first time at the World Food Program in Rome.
Sarwat Naeem, age nine, Manny Strong, age 10, and Graydon MacIsaac and Tia Hanna-Yun, both 11, will act as delegates representing the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Hanna-Yun and Naeem will sit on the social and humanitarian committee while MacIsaac and Strong will sit on the economic and financial committee. Their topics range from protection of the rights of the child to agriculture, food security and nutrition.
“The intensity and level of academic work that these young students go through, from researching their country to their in-depth study of the topics on the UN agenda, not only educates them on current events and world issues,
but expands their compassion to a global scale. It is a transformative educational experience for them,” school principal and model UN coach Michelle Morrison said in a news release.
“I find the topics of drought and desertification troubling because of the amount of damage it has done to the environment in so many countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa,” MacIsaac said. “I look forward to visiting the World Food Program building in Rome and hopefully I can make a change when I’m an adult.”
As part of their conference preparation, students raise money to donate to causes associated with their studies. In the past, they put a water supply in a school in Malawi, donated to an orphanage in Ethiopia, raised money for the Red Cross in Japan, helped
build a school in Haiti, sent money for school clothes to children in Lesotho, among
many other projects.
This year, the class raised money to provide individual
water filters to schoolchildren in sub-Saharan African countries.