DebateforPeace Model UN

Delegation to Philadelphia and DC with Writers Matter and Heart of a Nation Brings Message of Hope and Empathy

April 18, 2024

In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Debate for Peace partnered with Professor Bob Vogel to run a 9 week writing course to help students and teachers process the emotions that they were facing. The writing, which covered themes ranging from fear and pain caused by the war, identity, questions about the future, and more, turned out to be very powerful and moving.

Over the last week, with the help of Professor Vogel’s Writers Matter, and Jonathan Kessler’s Heart of A Nation, a delegation of six students and two teachers traveled to the US to read their work and speak about their experiences. These meetings highlighted the difficulties that Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers have faced in the last six months, as well as their dedication to forge a new, peaceful future together.

The group met with public and private middle school and high school audiences, visited four college campuses, several synagogues and a church, met young professional groups, and spoke at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia and the Israel Policy Forum in DC. In Philadelphia they also had a chance to interact with local participants of the Writers Matter program, and to lead a peer writing session.

In total, the delegation met with about 500 people during the course of the delegation. The reactions were overwhelmingly positive, with many audience members and participants mentioning how inspired they felt, encouraging the students to keep writing together, and even asking how they could get involved.

Debate for Peace is grateful to the US Embassy for its support, to Professor Bob Vogel for his selfless dedication to giving students a voice, to the generous donors who enabled the delegation, to Mr. Jonathan Kessler and Heart of a Nation for hosting and facilitating the delegation’s visit to DC, and to all of the groups who invited the delegation to present.

Debate for Peace Visits European Parliament and UNRIC; Competes in YMUN Europe

March 24, 2024

Yale Model UN Europe brought together students from top schools across North and South America, Europe, and Asia for three rigorous days of MUN, March 15-17. Debate for Peace was proud to take part in this prestigious conference, held in Brussels, Belgium, the heart of the European Union.

The Debate for Peace delegation included students from six schools around Israel, as well as two students from Pristina high school. The group held a day of briefings on Thursday, March 14th, meeting with the German mission to the European Union, the Human Rights Action Unit at the European Parliament, the UN Regional Information Center (UNRIC), followed by a discussion with Simone Susskind with the Actions in the Mediterranean group.

The delegation then competed in six committees, ranging from historical crisis committees to the EU, SOCHUM and ECLAC committees. Each delegate put in hours of research to prepare for the conference, and the team as a whole performed at a high level, as befitting such an international competition. A special congratulations to Ari Plosker (Best Delegate Historical Security Council) and Yara Huleihel (Essay competition winner).

Debate for Peace thanks the Yale Model UN team for a special MUN conference, and for helping bring together students from such diverse backgrounds for this wonderful experience.

IOMUN 17: Delegates on Five Continents Address Challenges of the Past, Present and Future

March 6, 2024

On Sunday, March 3, 40 students from over 15 countries participated in IOMUN 17. The latest iteration of international online MUN, featured three committees: UNESCO (redesigning education); UNOOSA (addressing space challenges in 2075), and a historical Crisis committee dealing with the 9/11 attacks.

The conference opened with a guest speaker, Jake Morris, who spoke about how his own MUN experiences, from a delegate in high school to helping run Johns Hopkins University MUN, helped prepare him for a career in international relations.

After the ceremony, delegates began their opening speeches, before moving to collaborate and negotiate as they attempted to write a comprehensive resolution to their respective challenges. Despite being from a wide range of time zones, the delegates worked for nearly four hours, going down to the wire, before the final votes, or in the case of the crisis committee, the final directive.

During the award ceremony, in UNESCO, Teo Leon Villa (Estonia), was Honorable Mention, Maheswaran Narayanan (Estonia) was Outstanding Delegate and Shaurya Shetty (Mozambique) was Best Delegate. In the UNOOSA committee, Giancarlo De La Cruz Rodriguez (Spain) was Honorable Mention, Mahir Kridai (delegate of UKSA) won Outstanding Delegate, and Goutham Sivasailam (ROSCOSMOS) was Best Delegate. In the 9/11 crisis committee, Naomi Gildor (John Ashcroft) received Honorable Mention, Ayushmaan Mukherjee (Head of FBI) was Outstanding Delegate, and Guy Bar Gil (CIA Head) won Best Delegate.

IOMUN 18 will be held on April 14th. IOMUN is supported by the US Embassy in Jerusalem and run by an international Secretariat led by Nana, Yaniv, Ziva, Angjelina, Nevan, Sai, Anna, Sami, Ethan and Maria.