On October 22^nd and 23^rd, hundreds of students gathered from all over Iowa in the Des Moines capital for the 2019 Model UN Youth Symposium.

Student delegates split into four issue groups to discuss and create proposals to send to the United Nations. These four topics included international trade agreements (economic), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (political), human genetic engineering (science) and the convention on the rights of the child (social).

Seven representatives of Dubuque Senior attended the symposium in Des Moines after being selected as outstanding delegates from the regional conference at Keystone AEA. The representatives included Tressa Weimerskirch, Alyssa Ernst, AJ Murdah, Madilyn Deifell, Bella Nekvinda, Jillian Manternach, and Emma Kalb.

“We concluded that the United States should have a more refined trade approach, as in the United States should trade less with other countries,” said AJ Murdah, one of the outstanding delegates from the regional conference for the economic topic that attended the symposium.

Ms. Weiland has been the director of Dubuque Senior’s Model UN program since 2015 and chaperoned the students in Des Moines.

“It was really good practice for people to get ready for Spring [conference]. So, even though we didn’t have any outstanding delegates at that [State] conference, I think the confidence of the people that we took, and the experience of that conference will definitely translate into the Spring, and we’ll have good results then too,” Ms. Weiland said.

Ms. Weiland also orchestrated the fees and finances for the trip to Des Moines to reduce the cost for the regional outstanding delegates.

“We request money from the Booster Club, and they cover our hotel costs. Dr. Johnson covers the fee, as well as miscellaneous stuff. So, he covers some of the finances as well. And then your dinner is covered by our fundraising from last year. So, we kind-of pull [from] a lot of different sources,” Ms. Weiland said.