São Paulo – Model UN Simulation for High School (MONUEM-ERESP) is offering online lessons streaming live. The first lesson starts at 5 pm this Thursday (14). This is an opportunity for public high school students to learn more about international relations and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to work on skills such as argumentation, self-confidence, empathy and cooperation.
Lessons will be taught online as long as local, state and federal government-mandated self-isolation is in place to contain Covid-19 in São Paulo.
Roughly 80 students from São Paulo public schools EMEFM Antônio Alves Veríssimo, EMEFM Darcy Ribeiro, EMEFM Guiomar Cabral, and EMEFM Oswaldo Aranha Bandeira de Mello will join the simulation to get guidance on diplomacy and international relations. They will work with a current, hands-on example: coordinated action to address a global health crisis.
The program is being rolled out via a partnership between the Municipal Secretariat for Education, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry Representative Office in São Paulo (Eresp) and the Municipal Secretariat for International Relations, with implementation by Instituto Global Attitude. Implementation is also supported by law firm Pinheiro Neto Advogados, councilwoman Janaína Lima, and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.
MONUEM-ERESP EAD 2020 will be available to students via streaming, featuring videoconferencing stints by partners and supporters. Ambassador and Arab Chamber International Relations VP Osmar Chohfi will participate in the first class. He will stress the relevance of exercises of this kind, which are designed to spark interest from public school students, as well as the importance of International Relations to Brazil.
“I will discuss a bit of Brazil’s significance in the world as one of the ten biggest economies, boasting major natural resources and the biggest rainforest in the world; the relevance of our trade and how internationalization brings about progress and wellbeing; and I will note that Brazil’s involvement in international trade is key to creating and maintaining jobs in our country. International trade creates jobs and brings wealth to the country. So, in this context of international participation, getting students interested in the world and what goes on in it is of great significance, and it also conveys to them the importance of international cooperation, of seeking consensus, of seeking tandem actions for the good of mankind,” Chohfi told ANBA.
The live stream is available here.
The first São Paulo high school ever to join the MONUEM-ERESP project did so in the second half of last year, with an additional three joining in this year. A full-blown simulation of a United Nations Forum, the initiative is based on a model created by Harvard University with high school students in mind.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
