Model UN (MUN) is a niche extracurricular activity for many high school students, even more so for those from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not be able to afford the high cost to participate.
Castilleja School senior Amelia Yuan aims to fix this problem through her organization, EmpowerUp!.
Yuan founded EmpowerUp! in the summer of 2023 as a way to expose disadvantaged students to MUN. Yuan, a Town Crier intern, held workshops every subsequent summer at local libraries in the Bay Area.
“I gained a lot of life skills from MUN that I wanted to be able to share with other students in the community who might not always have access to programs at their own schools,” Yuan said.
Though she started the organization on her own, Yuan collaborated with peers to develop the curriculum, which consists of slides and hands-on activities. The lesson plans are designed to span across five days, but Yuan said she edits them depending on time constraints.
She held her latest EmpowerUp! workshop Sept. 20 at the Mountain View Library, in collaboration with the Amplify: Teen Voices program. Amplify is part of the city’s library program.
In order to hold the workshop, Yuan said she had to fill out a short application form and attend a trial session, walking library staff through the lesson.
Amplify founder, librarian Renee Ting, said this process was not to disqualify candidates, but rather to prepare teens for pitching ideas and holding events in the real world.
“Whatever (they) create is shared with anyone who wants to come and participate,” Ting said. “They’ll think that this is a great library program and then be more impressed when they discover that it is a teenager that’s running the program.”
In the workshop, Yuan said she introduced the 10 students to what MUN was about. They were assigned a topic, sustainability energy sources for schools, and given 30 minutes to research their countries’ stances on the issue and brainstorm solutions.
At the end, the students presented their policies to address the problem, Yuan said.
“The kids were super engaged and they were all willing to give a speech in front of the room,” Yuan said. “I think they also had a lot of fun with each other. They really enjoyed being able to debate with each other, and they all had different takes on issues.”
Attendee Abir Soman said he appreciated Yuan’s hands-on approach and thought she designed the activities very fairly.
“She gave really good countries (to us) and she helped us,” the fifth-grader at Landels Elementary School said. “She made sure everyone had a fair job.”
EmpowerUp! holds workshops throughout the school year and camps during the summer, according to Yuan, who has published the curriculum on the organization’s website for anyone interested in MUN to access. She is also in the early stages of passing the organization to younger students to continue its impact after she graduates high school.
“Our goal is just to make these life skills more accessible to students in an engaging way,” Yuan said. “By learning about issues from a global perspective, I hope that students are able to build their empathy and ability to make connections beyond their own life experience.”
For more information on EmpowerUp!, visit bit.ly/3WXdI9D. For more information on MUN, visit un.org/en/mun. For more information on Amplify: Teen Voices, visit tinyurl.com/Ampteen.
