Sixteen-year-old Momin Ahmed, a member of Hinsdale Central High School’s Model UN Club, is finding great satisfaction in using his own experiences and advantages to help others find similar success.
Near the end of his sophomore year, Ahmed, now a junior, started Model UN Academy, a free online resource that has helped more than 10,000 students from about 150 high schools — reaching almost all 50 states and more than 30 countries — enhance their own Model UN experiences.
Model UN is a simulation of the real United Nations that takes place in schools around the globe and teaches students how the international organization works while challenging the youths to tackle real-world issues with diplomacy.
Ahmed’s Model UN Academy website instructs students on how to navigate the general assembly and different committees, offers tips and tricks for conferences and serves as a guide to help win awards.
Ahmed, who lives in Hinsdale, created the academy with the goal of sharing his expertise. He started by building the website then sent it to a few local Model UN programs last summer to get feedback, which he said was “really good and supportive.”
“People were telling me it’s a great resource for our newer delegates and the awards section is great for even experienced delegates to become the best delegates they can be,” Ahmed said.
Over the next few months, he got the website in front of more and more people, and a few even began to offer their own contributions for how-tos and the do’s and don’ts, he said.
Ahmed, who recently joined the executive board of Hinsdale Central’s Model UN Club, used Google translate to send the website to schools around the world, and Model UN Academy is now available in over 100 languages.
“It’s been such a cool way to impact the global Model UN community,” Ahmed said. “It’s a really beneficial experience for students professionally but also personally.”
Ahmed, who also plays violin and runs cross country and track, said Model UN is what he is “most passionate about.”
“I’ve met a lot of people through it, and I have some of my closest friends from Model UN,” he said.
Ahmed’s involvement with Model UN started the summer of sixth grade, he said, when his mom signed him up for a weeklong Model UN camp that had high schoolers working with younger students to teach the basics and practice discussions. Ahmed said the experience helped him grow as a public speaker and communicator. He knew by the end of the camp that this would be something he wanted to continue.
He participated in the Model UN summer camp for the rest of middle school and joined the club “right when I got to high school,” he said. His public speaking and communication skills soared, he said, along with his ability to think on his feet and collaborate with large groups of people.
“The coolest thing to me about Model UN is how different people from different backgrounds and different perspectives can come together, disagreeing on things and agreeing on other things, and they come together to make solutions that are really creative and innovative and real world,” Ahmed said.
Sanskruti Patel is a social studies teacher at Hinsdale Central and a faculty sponsor of the school’s Model UN club. She said Ahmed “stood out from the get-go.”
As for Ahmed’s Model UN Academy, she said it’s “really impressive how he’s led this as a grassroots initiative.”
She said the academy makes Model UN more approachable when the club may feel daunting at times to newcomers.
“Model UN Academy is so incredible because of the way that it’s accessible,” Patel said. “And if you’ve never done Model UN before it’s a great way to not just be introduced to it but really get skills that are going to help you be successful in and outside of the club.”
Ahmed said he’s been to 10 conferences and qualified four times for international conferences.
Conferences typically consist of one or two topics to be discussed, such as world hunger, nuclear weapons or refugee crises. Each student or delegate is assigned a country to represent at the conference and must relay that country’s opinions and interests. Throughout the conference, delegates deliberate with each other and their committees, give speeches and ultimately come up with solutions for the assembly as a whole to vote on.
“That’s my favorite part: coming up with the solutions and everyone working together,” Ahmed said. “Even if you have different perspectives, you know that, just like in the real United Nations, you need to work together to make progress on the problem.”
Conferences take place throughout the school year and range from smaller, local events to state, national and international events with anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand students. Ahmed said he has met students from across Illinois, the country and the world — and still keeps in touch with some of them.
His first conference in high school was an international one in Chicago, and he recalled meeting people from around the world, from Florida and New York to Jamaica and Japan.
One of Ahmed’s most memorable experiences was at an international conference at the University of Chicago during Ahmed’s sophomore year, when he was representing Timor-Leste, a country in southeast Asia. It was his first time having been assigned a country he didn’t know about, and he said he “kind of panicked” while doing his research leading up to the conference because he thought no one would take him seriously for representing a smaller country.
“I realized that even in the real United Nations, similar things happen, like the smaller countries get overshadowed by larger powers; but in the end it all worked out,” Ahmed said. “I was able to align myself with stronger countries and use that to propel myself to the front of the room and get speaking positions.”
Ahmed ultimately received an honorable delegate award at the conference, placing second overall.
“Even though I was worried at first, I enjoyed the process of learning how to be a small fish in a big pond and learning how to move up and be heard,” Ahmed said, “even if I wasn’t set up to be heard; and earning that award was really a great moment for me.”
Brad Donaldson, a social studies teacher at Addison Trail High School, is faculty sponsor of his school’s Model UN club. He said he first heard about the academy during the fall and found it to be an “amazing resource for us.”
“For those who aren’t familiar with politics and government and how that all works, I think having a resource that lays out how things operate and how each part works makes kids more comfortable,” Donaldson said.
Other resources similar to the academy are out there, he said, but some require payment to use and are too complex. Donaldson said he will continue using Model UN Academy as a resource for his club.
“It’s dialed in to what the point of Model UN and the (real) UN are about in terms of trying to problem solve and share the wealth and lift everyone up instead of using your own advantages to your own advantage,” Donaldson said. “It’s very laudable.”
Ahmed said that, in the beginning when he was creating Model UN Academy, it was “very laborious” and he wasn’t hearing back from people right away. He considered abandoning the project at times and focusing on himself, but chose to push through.
“Now, when I get emails thanking me and telling me how much it’s helped the students and telling me about the awards students have gotten or how well they did at a conference, that feedback is one of the most motivating things,” Ahmed said.
A lot of Ahmed’s work still consists of outreach and trying to widen the net as much as possible, he said. As he continues his academic journey, he hopes to grow the academy, he said. He also wants to expand to the college level.
“If anything, the community just grows as I get older,” he said.
“It’s a pretty cool journey that I’ve had going from the kid who just got signed up by their mom for a middle school summer camp to someone teaching other students how to do Model UN and be successful,” Ahmed said.
