Category Archives: Model Arab League

Model Arab League Update – January & February 2013

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2013 Ohio Valley Model Arab League

Students at the 2013 Ohio Valley Model Arab League, held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ Model Arab League program saw the successful completion of 5 Models during January and February. High school conferences were held in Atlanta, Georgia (January 24-25) and Little Rock, Arkansas (February 22-23), and university conferences were held in Grand Rapids, Michigan (February 14-16), Houston, Texas (February 16-17), and Oxford, Ohio (February 21-23). Below are a collection of stories detailing some schools’ experience at these recent Models.

Additional Model Arab League conferences will continue to be held across the United States through April. Students and schools wishing to participate in the Model Arab League program this year or in future school years should contact the National Council’s Director of Student Programs Megan Geissler or Deputy Director of Student Programs Josh Hilbrand to learn how to get involved.

NCUSAR Model Arab League Study Visit to Saudi Arabia, Winter 2013

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The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission and Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education, escorted a delegation of Model Arab League students on a cultural immersion study visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, December 27, 2012-January 7, 2013. During the course of the visit, the students met Saudi Arabian educators, business representatives, civil society leaders, and American diplomats in addition to visiting numerous sites of cultural and historical interest. The study visit provided the young American leaders a hands-on experience in the Arab world that few others their age have had.

Model Arab League Study Visit to Saudi Arabia, January 2013

Video Introduction to Model Arab League

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From January through April 2013, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations will host fifteen Model Arab League conferences across the United States. Watch the video below to learn more about this educational, leadership development program and visit the Model Arab League homepage, ncusar.org/modelarableague, to find out how to get involved.

Model Arab League Home

2012 Northeast Regional Model Arab League

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The November 2-4, 2012 Northeast Regional Model Arab League, convened at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, gathered students from 13 schools to learn about the politics and history of the Arab world, and the arts of diplomacy and public speech. Student delegates debated and passed resolutions on numerous diverse topics reflecting the real-life domestic dynamics and policy challenges presently facing all 22 of the League’s Arab member-states.

Students interested in learning more and participating in Model Arab League should visit ncusar.org/modelarableague.

NCUSAR Model Arab League Student Leaders Prepare to Travel to Saudi Arabia

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Later in December the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations will escort a delegation of student leaders from the Council’s Model Arab League program on a cultural immersion study visit to Saudi Arabia. The visit will provide the young American leaders a hands-on experience in the Arab world that few others their age have had.

2012 Capital Area Regional Model Arab League

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The National Council’s 2012 Capital Area Regional Model Arab League took place November 10-11 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Over one hundred students from twelve schools took part in the conference where they learned about the politics and history of the Arab world, and the arts of diplomacy and public speech. The Opening Session of the conference featured H.E. Mohamed M. Tawfik, Ambassador of Egypt to the United States, as keynote speaker.

Students interested in learning more and participating in Model Arab League should visit ncusar.org/modelarableague.

2011-12 Model Arab League Youth Leadership Development Program

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2011-2012 marked the 29th year of the National Council’s flagship Arab-U.S. Student Leadership Development Program, the Model Arab League (MAL). The Models are similar in organization and format to the older and more widely recognized Model United Nations, with its 193 members. An important difference between the two is that the MAL focuses only on the 22 member countries that comprise the League of Arab States. Established in February 1945, and thereby pre-dating the founding of the United Nations, the Arab League is the world’s oldest regional political organization dedicated to, among other things, the diplomatic and peaceful settlement of disputes.

Student delegates from Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, VA, with faculty advisor Mr. Michael Rauer, display their award certificates after the National High School Model Arab League.

The Models provide primarily American but also Arab and other international students’ opportunities to develop invaluable leadership skills. In few if any other ways do the student participants have a comparable chance to work with their fellows for common goals and shared interests. We know of no other opportunity that allows emerging leaders to learn firsthand what it is like to put themselves in the shoes of real-life Arab diplomats and other foreign affairs practitioners. In the process, the students come to realize unavoidably and inevitably how different these international relations realities are in comparison to what they previously thought and wrongly assumed to be true based on what they had read and “learned” or not read, “not learned” and therefore not known before.

Students vote on a resolution in the Political Affairs Council at the Atlanta High School Model.

Grappling with the international challenges of representing the needs, concerns, interests, and foreign policy objectives of a government other than their own, and especially that of an Arab country, has obvious merit in and of itself. In the process, students not only deepen their knowledge and understanding of the Arab world and its peoples. In addition, they develop and practice useful analytical, organizational, writing, editing, and public speaking skills. In so doing they strengthen their ability to engage in the art of reasoned argument and spirited debate. In the process, they have an unparalleled opportunity to hone and refine leadership attributes that for many are often unavailable or otherwise difficult to acquire in the course of reading a book, viewing films, videos or television, listening to a specialist, participating in academic classes, attending briefings, or accessing blogs and the Internet.

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NCUSAR Student Study Visit to Saudi Arabia, Winter 2012

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The National Council, in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM) and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), organized and escorted a delegation of ten Model Arab League students on a cultural immersion study visit to Saudi Arabia, December 27, 2011 to January 9, 2012. The visit provided the young American leaders a hands-on experience in the Arab world that few others their age have had.

The National Council’s university student study visit to Saudi Arabia provided the young American leaders — each one an alumnus of the Council’s Model Arab League Program and shown here enjoying Arabic coffee and dates — a hands-on experience in the Arab world that many may have dreamed of but few others their age have had.

In the 2010-2011 academic year, nearly 28,000 Saudi Arabian students, forty percent of them females, were enrolled in American universities across the United States.  Accompanying them were more than 40,000 spouses and dependents. In marked contrast, fewer than fifty American students in U.S. institutions of higher education were among those privileged over the same period of time in having a firsthand university level educational experience in Saudi Arabia.

In an effort to help narrow this “knowledge and understanding gap,” the National Council has partnered with the SACM and the MOHE. The goal:  to provide an empirical educational introduction to the kingdom’s culture and society for a select group of American students who have performed exceptionally well in the Council’s Model Arab League student leadership development program.  During the course of the visit, the students met Saudi Arabian educators, business representatives, civil society leaders, and American diplomats in addition to visiting numerous sites of cultural, developmental, and historical interest.

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