Incirlik AB students debate world issues at international conference

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Eboni Reams
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Three Incirlik Unit School student delegates traveled to Prague, Czech Republic to participate in a international model United Nations debate last month.

The students individually selected a topic from the upcoming planned United Nations parliamentary debate and joined different committees with the goal of getting their resolution passed to the general assembly at the end of the conference.

"Each student delved deep into research to discover the causes and effects of their topic and to construct real world solutions," said Joseph Beard, IUS teacher. "They each wrote a resolution with their findings and solutions, which was a time consuming process."

The students prepared for the international debate at school by debating each other and continuously revising their plans.

"In class, we role played the process by taking the positions of different countries debating each students' resolution," said Beard. "At the event in Prague, each student delegate went to their respective committees and began the laborious process of lobbying with other students from all over the world, merging resolutions, and debating their revised resolution in committee."

These three students made history for IUS by getting three resolutions passed by the general assembly.

"To give some idea of the scope of [the international conference], there are 350 plus students present and each brings at least one resolution to debate," said Beard. "Out of those 350 plus resolutions, only 10 made it to general assembly and out of those 10, only eight passed. Out of those eight, three of them were from IUS, one of the smallest schools there. Big kudos to each of these delegates."

Aric, IUS student, shared his experience at the model UN debate.

"My role was to debate the topic of 'combating the growing connection between the arms and drug trades between terrorist and guerrilla groups' and was the unofficial spokesman for the smaller nations in the committee," said Aric. "My favorite part of the event was meeting all sorts of high school students from all over the world; there were people from Russia, Egypt, Italy, Germany and California. The event included a lot of sightseeing and tourist places. Getting to experience all of that with those new people was a lot of fun."