Most 6A schools have a local chapter for Model UN that’s dedicated to those interested in Global Affairs, politics and debate. However, Manhattan High school does not. Not yet anyways. Model UN is an official interest group at MHS.

Model UN is a simulation of the United Nations. As the name implies, members of the club will be modeling the delegates of the country. Researching how their countries act and votes will determine how the delegates will act

“I know that a lot of the students are interested in current events and just global affairs subject. This also gives experience for speech, making and giving speeches in front of a large group of people so you’re gaining a lot of interpersonal skills there,” club sponsor Sam Lehrman said. “It’s a really professional take at world politics environment and students that really care about this topic.”

Lehrman was a member of Model UN at his high school where he represented the Bahamas.

“[Sophomore] Rick Brown approached me early September and then we quickly tried to find as many people as we could,” Lehrman said. “We got a late start so a lot of it is having to happen in a scrunched amount of time. But it’s coming together pretty well. It’s going to be a good time.”

As president of Model UN, Brown decided to create one at the high school after hearing about it from his middle school teacher that’s starting one at the middle school.

“I’m hoping to get more people involved in thinking about what’s going on with the world. To be better debaters as well and to be better at writing resolutions,” Brown said. “I’m hoping that people will look at going into politics because of this or getting involved in their communities in other ways. Because that’s what Model UN is all about. So I’m excited about that.”

With 14 students participating, the club is currently working through meeting times and topics to discuss.

“It’s a lot of work looking at foreign policy and at the problem that exists in the country so they know why they’re going to be concerned about a certain problem in the UN,” Lehrman said.

As well as debates and keeping up with current events, the club is looking into writing letters to those who are in prison for an unjust reason in a different country.

“I heard about amnesty international which is the organization that we’re going to send letters through,” junior Angelica Lang said. “I signed up for their emails, and I got an email about their letter writing campaign. So then I thought it’d be cool for our group to do since we talk about other countries and human rights.”

Lang is representing Senegal. She followed her interest in politics and learning about other countries and joined to hopefully gain a little insight on how countries interact with each others on different issues.

“We’ve kind of decided that if people haven’t joined the group in time or met the deadline for the payment that certainly doesn’t exclude them from the group because we’d like to do more outside just the model UN in Topeka,” Lehrman said. “Feb. 29 and March 1, we’ll travel to Topeka and each of them will rep their country they’ll be each in different councils and in each council will have about 100 students in it. They’ll use parliamentary procedure to look at at different resolutions that students wrote.”