The Arlington Regional Model UN Club (ARMUN) is taking a group of our students to the Heifer Farm (Rutland, MA) for their 2-night, 2-day Global Gateway experience Columbus Day weekend (Saturday October 8 – Monday, October 10) and we have room for some additional students.

The program consists of interactive workshops in which you learn about Heifer’s Model for community building and how they empower people to get out of the cycle of extreme poverty and malnutrition and constant hunger, and interactively learning about the topics mentioned above while trying to solve a “real world” problem as a group.

The students will spend about 20 hours living in a country or countries in the Global Village set up on the farm, living as an extended family living in poverty in a dwelling typical of an impoverished family in another country (or Appalachia, USA) and they have to buy all the food they will eat at the Global Market, cook and prepare their food over either an open fire or possibly a wood stove (depending on the country they are in), and then solve a crisis that they are presented with after dinner is over to the best of their ability trying to think through what they have been given of the values and beliefs and situation of the family they are taking on the role of.

Finally, they go to sleep in their dwelling, waking up early in the morning to make breakfast, clean their dwelling, pack and move out, and do the  farm chores associated with their country’s site.  Finally, after chores are done and they are moved out and their site is cleaned up, they meet for a reflection on the experience and get to eat a snack (the first food other than that they bought at the Global Market and prepared in the Global Village that they will have had since lunch the day before — unless there is a medical need not to have some hunger over the 20 hour period of course).

The two days ends with a “Take Action” session in which the participants are helped to think about practical ways they can take action on the things they have learned and want to take back to their everyday lives.

If you are interested in having your student participate, please contact ARMUN Director Kim Holt at kimkayholt@gmail.com.

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