United Nations Information Centres

Educational outreach

Introduction

Recognizing that today's youth will be tomorrow's leaders, UNICs involve young people in all their programmes. Educational outreach services provided by UNICs to educators and students around the world promote awareness of the role and work of the United Nations on priority issues. Many centres hold regular briefings for students, both on UNIC premises and in schools or at local libraries. UNICs also work with school administrators to help develop United Nations related-curricula for classroom use by elementary and secondary school teachers.



UN School Clubs

Centres also organize United Nations school clubs, where students plan after-school activities, such as environmental campaigns and essay and poster contests highlighting global problems as seen from the local perspective. In Peru, for example, UNIC Lima has organized a large network of these after-school groups called "Friends of the United Nations" to help students learn more about the Organization while enjoying activities based on information materials developed for teaching purposes (for more information, please see UN Clubs).



Model UN

UNICs also provide background information materials and their expertise in the organization of Model United Nations conferences conducted in high schools and universities around the world. Model United Nations programmes offer a simulation of the UN General Assembly and other multilateral bodies. More than 200,000 high school and university students participate every year in 400 Model UN conferences held worldwide. Model United Nations conferences not only give students first-hand knowledge about the work of the United Nations, but also help prepare tomorrow's leaders to deal with global challenges. At present, some 29 UNICs actively support Model United Nations conferences held in their countries of operation.