When Bigourdan high school students work like the elected representatives of the United Nations

While natural events are unleashed in Morocco, in Libya, as peoples are torn apart in the Middle East, students from around fifty nationalities learn, during the UN Modeling sessions, to talk to each other, agree, negotiate compromises to draft resolutions.

Lycée teachers Victor Duruy, Laurent Martin, Xavier Chalot and Perrine Gourio prepared their European Section students for UN simulations. This is a multilateral diplomacy role-playing game, a simulation exercise of the work of the General Assembly and other United Nations bodies to introduce high school students to global citizenship.

During this exercise which took place in the glass skyscraper of the IE University of Madrid from November 7 to 11, 2023, the students, divided into two committees, UNICEF and UNEP, worked as a team to defend the positions of the countries which were allocated a few months earlier as Angola, Iran or Cambodia. The objective was to negotiate to achieve the adoption by consensus of a resolution on child labor in the fashion industry or the prevention of natural disasters, topics which were chosen by the organizers of the IE MUN.

Since the start of the September school year, the Euro finals have called on research skills such as knowing the country you represent and its positions on a specific subject, its allies and its interests, have developed eloquence talents to defend their position at the podium and their diplomatic skills.

On this occasion, the university also organized a conference at UNICEF Madrid where students discovered the major challenges of this institution as well as the professions linked to it. This exercise allows you to deepen your knowledge of geopolitics, prepare for the Grand Oral and the continuum with higher education as well as the development of digital and linguistic skills since the simulation and off-screen discussions took place entirely in English.

Linguistic immersion both in English during the day and in Spanish in the evening since the students were accommodated with warm host families in Alcala de Henares, a city listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This trip was possible because it was entirely financed by Erasmus+, the European fund. The 1st euro students will soon take off by participating in the MUN Adour, in Tarbes, organized at the Théophile Gautier high school under the leadership of Nicolas Bounet, history and geography teacher in the international section.