United Nations Ambassador's Club Video Series: enhancing education about the United Nations.

The United Nations accomplishes a great deal of excellent work in solving problems facing the world, but, unfortunately, many people outside UN Headquarters have little idea of what it does. In recent years, educating the public about the work of the United Nations has become a goal that is almost as important as having the actual work done. Particularly in countries like the United States, where the world Organization is often politicized and good information is at a premium, educating the community at large is a key and formidable task. The benefits, however, could be enormous. If people know more about the United Nations, they are more likely to let political leaders know that UN activities are important to ordinary citizens, thus making it more likely that political will and resources would be made available for the Organization to succeed.

The United Nations has recently devoted some resources to enhancing its public image, mainly through its Department of Public Information (DPI) and related groups. In large part, this role falls primarily on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), often in the educational realm. This concept led to the creation of the United Nations Ambassador's Club Video Series, which started with a basic premise that students in the United States do not know enough about the United Nations. Very few students have heard about UN work or even seen its Headquarters due to limited national press coverage, and fewer still have access to the interesting and talented diplomats to the UN or to UN Secretariat staff members. Driven by a belief that the task of educating must fall on those who know more about and value the work of the United Nations, the Ambassador's Club was born. It represents a joint effort by UN Ambassadors, Secretariat staff and educators to inform students, Model UN participants and other interested parties about the work of the United Nations.

Ahmad Kamal, former Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations and currently Senior Fellow at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, was interested in enhancing education about the Organization, which led him to bring together diplomats to form the Ambassador's Club. Since 1998, this informal club has been conducting a unique series of video conferences with college campuses in the United States, allowing over 100 ambassadors and senior officials and members of the UN Secretariat to interact with students on several UN-focused topics, such as regulating marine pollution, Internet regulation and UN interventions. Three years after founding the Club. Ambassador Kamal realized that the scope of the project was inherently limited because of the small number of schools that could participate via video conferencing and the short time available to participants.

Consequently, the idea of extending the educational efforts on videotapes was conceived in early 2001 during a meeting between the Ambassador and the American Model United Nations (AMUN), an NGO affiliated with DPI.

Working with AMUN, the concept of continuing with several video series was born, allowing wider distribution of valuable information. Since the initial idea was to educate students, the role of AMUN in conducting Model UN events and providing educational materials to college and high schools students is key to expanding the project. AMUN produces, publicizes and distributes the videos, while the Ambassador's Club provides the content and lines up the speakers on each topic.

The first video series, released in the fall of 2001, focused on providing information about the basic workings of the United Nations to over 60,000 high school and college students involved each year in Model UN activities around the world. This included background information on the General Assembly from Ambassador Kamal, UN resolutions presented by veteran staff member Jean Gazarian, a section on UN diplomacy by Ambassadors Sir Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom and Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, and an interview with the President of the Fifty-sixth General Assembly, Han Seung-Soo of the Republic of Korea. The success of the first video, distributed to colleges, high schools and libraries around the United States and at several international locations, led to the creation of four more tapes over the past three years, which focus on the work of the United Nations in the areas of women's rights, racism and terrorism, as well as on financing of UN initiatives. Two tapes were released in late 2003 dealing with several "zones of conflict" under perennial discussion at the United Nations, including in the Middle East, the India-Pakistan conflict, the Great Lakes Region of Africa and West Africa.

The Ambassador's Club and AMUN firmly believe that support for the United Nations and its efforts in the public eye begins with education, and these videotapes are just one of many steps along that road. Given the many important issues facing the world Organization, they look forward to continuing these educational efforts long into the future.

For full details and information regarding the video series, visit the AMUN web site at www.amun.org and on the Ambassador's Club at www.un.int/kamal/club

Brian Endless is the Executive Director of AMUN International, based in Chicago, Illinois (United States). He is also a visiting faculty member in the Department of Political Science at North Central College and a lecturer at Loyola University Chicago. He has organized two Model United Nations conferences.

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