AIS Students Compete Successfully at The Hague International Model United Nations

By Sandy Ferko, Upper School Counselor

Thirty-one students and two advisors returned from an extraordinarily successful The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) experience this month. Because the World Forum Congress Center in The Hague can comfortably hold only so many students, the program has been cut from almost 4,000 students to almost 3,400 this year. Selection and invitation to THIMUN 2009 will be more competitive than ever, but our delegations’ successful participation should guarantee an invitation in 2009!

Only five high schools in the US are invited to participate, and AIS might be the only one whose students attend the program from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then spend about three hours daily on homework. Our kids have earlier curfews and less free time than the average THIMUN student, but to their credit, they worked very hard during the long sessions, finished up a great deal of homework, and maintained their smiles throughout. Mr. Rollins and Mrs. Ferko are very pleased with the group this year and certainly look forward to working with them next year.

Kudos especially to the seniors who were wonderful leaders and took special care with the first-year participants. Those seniors are Benji Schuttler who served as chair of GA First Committee; Ethan Lyle and Christina Theodore who served as delegation ambassadors; Lauren Olens, assistant ambassador who was wonderful at helping the new delegates find their way around The Hague; and Paige Enfinger who wrote the following of her first THIMUN experience, “I have heard more dialects in the past two days than I have in all my years on this earth: Flemish, Dutch, Romanian, Tanzanian, Indian, Afghanistani, Hungarian, Mandarin, Japanese, New "Zealandish," Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, and the list literally goes on and on. Tomorrow, I debut as a delegate in front of the special conference committee -- I have to deliver a one-minute speech where I will be cut off if I go one second too long. I’m scared but also psyched. It will probably be the first and last time I get to speak in front of such a diverse group of concerned and overly intelligent young people.”

We seldom take a senior for the first time, but our instinct was to extend this offer to Paige – and it was so worth it to see the look on her face and hear the excitement in her voice as she walked through a very exciting week.

Now we gear up for the UN/USA program in May in New York.