During April of junior year, another MUN conference occurred. I was chosen to be the ambassador and head of delegation. The MUN process was the same as that at THIMUN, however attending a conference in Istanbul was eyeopening. Attending the conference as an ambassador was an entirely new experience. I had to make a speech in the General Assembly, addressing the entire conference of 500+ people. I am a generally shy person, so speaking in front of a large audience was nerve wracking. I had to write my own speech, as the ambassador of Costa Rica. I was also able to leave my committee and enter those that my classmates were in.
Leading up to this conference, each of the delegates going to RCIMUN had to write a resolution on one of the topics in their committee. I had to ensure that each delegate had in fact completed a resolution and that it had not been plagiarized. In addition to writing my own resolution on "The Question of Ways to encourage rougue states to sign, ratify and implement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaties (CTBT)" for the Disarmament Committee I also had to edit all of the other resolutions my fellow delegates wrote.
I have chosen to include both the resolution and speech I wrote for the RCIMUN conference in two additional posts.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
MUN
From sophomore year I have been involved with Model United Nations. Each Friday during activities period the MUN club convenes. Towards the beginning of the year, as all conferences we participate in are towards the end, we pick random topics ie the question of disarmament, make up a country ie The Republic of Alessandra, choose a position and deliberate. As all MUN conferences test your public speaking and debating skills, we try to encourage all new members to fine tune these skills as early as possible.
Once we learn which country we are going to be representing and how many seats we have at the conference, interviews are held. As there are many students interested in being a part of MUN ~30 and we usually only have 10 seats at each conference, those who have developed the debating and public speaking skills along with having proven to be responsible and reliable (by completing all homework and attending each meeting) will be chosen for the conference.
In junior year I interviewed for a spot at the THIMUN conference where we represented UNHCHR (united nations high commission on human rights). Along with nine other students, 5 seniors and 5 juniors I was chosen to participate. As soon as we find out who the team will consist of and which committee we will be on, we start researching. Each committee is presented with four topics. Each delegate is required to research all four topics generally and then choose one to write a resolution on one. In my junior year, I chose to address "The Question of Compensation to civilian victims, or their surviving heirs of armed conflict".
Writing a resolution is a challenging process as there are extremely strict guidelines to adhere to. Furthermore, I had to keep in mind the views of the organization I was representing and ensure that I didn't say anything that clashed with their perspective on the issue.
The THIMUN conferences are extremely prestigious and each resolution goes through a screening for plagiarism. This is mainly because if a committee finds a resolution to be good enough, they can pass it into the General Assembly. If the General Assembly passes the resolution, often times it will be submitted to the real United Nations as a suggestion. Each resolution topic debated within each committee is a real issue taken from the UN panel.
Once we learn which country we are going to be representing and how many seats we have at the conference, interviews are held. As there are many students interested in being a part of MUN ~30 and we usually only have 10 seats at each conference, those who have developed the debating and public speaking skills along with having proven to be responsible and reliable (by completing all homework and attending each meeting) will be chosen for the conference.
In junior year I interviewed for a spot at the THIMUN conference where we represented UNHCHR (united nations high commission on human rights). Along with nine other students, 5 seniors and 5 juniors I was chosen to participate. As soon as we find out who the team will consist of and which committee we will be on, we start researching. Each committee is presented with four topics. Each delegate is required to research all four topics generally and then choose one to write a resolution on one. In my junior year, I chose to address "The Question of Compensation to civilian victims, or their surviving heirs of armed conflict".
Writing a resolution is a challenging process as there are extremely strict guidelines to adhere to. Furthermore, I had to keep in mind the views of the organization I was representing and ensure that I didn't say anything that clashed with their perspective on the issue.
The THIMUN conferences are extremely prestigious and each resolution goes through a screening for plagiarism. This is mainly because if a committee finds a resolution to be good enough, they can pass it into the General Assembly. If the General Assembly passes the resolution, often times it will be submitted to the real United Nations as a suggestion. Each resolution topic debated within each committee is a real issue taken from the UN panel.
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