Frelinghuysen Model UN Club stands up for human rights

From the Frelinghuysen Model UN Club:

By Carigan McGuinn, Carmel Smith, Ethan Olidge-Evans, Abhay Benoy, and Matthew McDonald

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights containing 30 rights.

Two years later, a resolution was passed that declared that December 10h could be observed as Human Rights Day.

It is important for everyone around the world to celebrate and honor the day this declaration was passed: Humans Rights Day, because in doing so we are celebrating the rights we are entitled to have as humans, such as being obliged to life, liberty, security, and many freedoms, all of which we take for granted.

The Model UN club at Frelinghuysen Middle School decided help the school recognize this important day. This club will be assigned delegations with a country, and a topic, and have to write position papers and develop arguments to solve global issues.

Members also learn about the UN and how it works. Every year in New York City, a Model UN is hosted where students from around the globe get into teams and participate in a mock UN meeting. The Model UN club will be developing its positions throughout the year to attend this mock UN meeting.

To commemorate this special day, the students in Model UN spread awareness about the importance of human rights throughout their school during the week approaching December 10th.

Various activities they planned and implemented include: Daily speeches during the morning announcements by Model UN members about Human Rights all around the world, and how they are important; motivational post-it notes placed on lockers all around FMS to acknowledge that “we are one”; and posters created with images to advertise Human Rights Day.

A letter was written to be mailed to Mayor Tim Dougherty asking him to recognize this celebration. On Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, the day before Human Rights Day, members of Model UN wore blue and asked their peers to wear yellow, the colors of Human Rights Day.

And lastly, for more than 20 minutes in their classes, club members stood up and asked their classmates to join them to represent “standing up” for human rights, while reading a short excerpt.

Human Rights Day acknowledges that we all have basic rights that make us free to speak, love, practice religion, have security, equality and fairness, and be free from discrimination and slavery.

It is important to recognize Human Rights Day because it represents peace, diversity, and freedom in our community that we are so lucky to have — and the hope that someday everyone in the world will get to have these rights.

The students in Model UN look forward to this event next year, and hope that their recognition of this day will cause people all over Morristown to honor this special day. Nelson Mandela explained why human rights are so important when he said, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.”

The authors are students at Frelinghuysen Middle School.