THE UNITED NATIONS IS LIKE A TREASURE CHEST. One volunteer prepared a toy treasure chest to help first graders see the many roles of the United Nations. From this treasure chest, she pulled a series of children's toys, and told a brief story about each:
FOUNDERS OF THE UNITED NATIONS. Stories of Ralph Bunche and Eleanor Roosevelt helped middle-school history students understand the importance of the United Nations to African-Americans and to women.
SONGS OF PEACE. The flags of the United Nations and a videotape of earth from space set the stage at one after-school program. The children learned songs of peace and talked about peacemaking in their own homes and schools.
UNITED NATIONS - PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. One second grade class learned about the work of the United Nations while creating a collage of cutouts from National Geographics.
AN IMAGINARY TRIP TO THE UN. Third graders took an imaginary trip into space (after donning their space suits!) to gaze at the "big blue marble" of Earth. The voyage took them to New York City and the United Nations Building, where they met "Boutros Boutros-Ghali" and "Madeleine Albright," played by two volunteers. The characters described why the UN was created, and took the children on an imaginary tour through the UN building. A display of UN flags helped set the scene.
THE WORLD IS INTERDEPENDENT, one team of volunteers told third grade students. We're all part of one whole, like a candy bar -- with chocolate from Ghana, peanuts from the Sudan, corn syrup from Iowa, sugar from Ecuador, paper from trees in Canada, tin foil from tin mines in Thailand, and coconut from the palms in the Philippines. The candy bar is a global product; and we are world citizens."
THE UN BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER. A native American legend gave a fourth grade class a sense of diverse languages and nations. The UN flags represented the variety of people and languages, to the delight of the children. A second story, from a booklet created by one of the volunteers for this project, described the people of the world wanting to be united as "the biggest of all the teams."
CONFLICT RESOLUTION IS A WAY OF LIFE. One volunteer presented the topic of conflict resolution in a way that invited upper-elementary students to identify conflicts from global to personal levels. Then the students demonstrated how conflicts can be talked out at a peace table in homes, schools, communities, and the world. The UN's goal is to resolve global conflict peacefully.
FAMOUS PEACEMAKERS. One volunteer found library books about Eleanor Roosevelt and Ralphe Bunche. She told their stories to help fourth and fifth grade students understand the motivations of people who helped to create the United Nations. Discussion included what children can do to make a more peaceful world.
PARENTS AS PEACEMAKERS. A high school parent education class learned about creating peaceful homes as they looked at the International Year of the Family (1994) theme, "building the smallest democracy at the heart of society."
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE. High school economics students experienced the challenge of north-south economic disparities, and the importance of the United Nations as a place for dealing with these issues.
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. A high school history class examined each of the human rights and related conventions. The students asked why they had never heard a subject of such importance in any of their classes.
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS, MULTICULTURAL FAIRS. Several schools invited volunteers to participate in school-wide events with global themes. Volunteers from other countries shared their experiences; the complete set of flags of the United Nations stimulated excited conversation. These students were eager to know about their world, and about the United Nations!
REGISTER with your school or district volunteer coordinator as a United Nations Volunteer! For information about training activities, e-mail una-usa@afn.org
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