MUNs or Model United Nations are a way to simulate the United Nations and it helps teach students how international debate and diplomacy happen and help build confidence in public speaking.
Ekya and CMR ITPL decided to conduct an intra-MUN between the branches called the ECMRMUN. It had 4 committees, UNICEF, SGSC, SOCHUM, and DISEC and it happened on the 30th and 31st of October. UNICEF was a junior committee for 6th to 8th graders and the other committees were for 9th to 12th graders.
On day one, we had the opening ceremony with a few performances done by the students and was and a speech by the Secretary-General Algin Thomas of Ekya ITPL, the MUN was declared open. At 9 am the committees began, even though the turn up was low, there was still great debate, from tackling the ongoing crisis of Afghanistan in SGSC to the issues of Bio-weapons in the international community in DISEC to the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso in SOCHUM. UNICEF started later than the other committees at 10 am. So after the first break, UNICEF started with full swing tackling the issue of the provisions for children with disabilities.
However, this MUN didn’t happen without a few hiccups, one of the co-chairpersons of SOCHUM didn’t show up, it was being held up by the available co-chairperson and other Organising Committee members. In an interesting turn of events, the SOCHUM decided to impeach the co-chairperson who didn’t show up, with a unanimous vote they were impeached and one of the chairpersons from the DISEC took their place to help moderate the SOCHUM committee.
The committees went on with their debates and even though a lot of these committees were filled with people who had zero to no experience, the arguments and points brought up were still great, and so day one ended with both DISEC and SGSC becoming semi-crisis committees.
The delegates stopped for the day getting a break and being able to research more after for many of them getting their first taste of MUNs.
Day two began with an interesting decision, due to the low number of people in these committees, so low that feasible debate was not possible, they decided to merge SOCHUM and DISEC with SGSC. This could’ve caused issues as the delegates of the aforementioned committees were not prepared for this, however, the decision to merge came after a vote was held in the committees. So after the merging, the chairs of each committee still kept track of their own delegates and handed marks in their way, the only thing that changed was the topic. UNICEF was still going strong however with a good amount of delegates to facilitate debate.
The SGSC becoming more full and still remaining a crisis made the committee more lively and more exciting, there were many actions taken which made the committee turn their head. While over in UNICEF even though the committee was for younger students the research and debate were immensely great.
During the committee a much-awaited and dreaded part of MUNs, a Press Session happened, certain delegates will be asked about things pertaining to their portfolio, and the intensity the Press Heads asked these questions was akin to interviews. Merged SGSC was first and it was very intense with certain delegates getting very heated. Then they headed to UNICEF and even though they were younger they defended themselves incredibly well.
After a day of debate, the committees wrapped up, the SGSC failed and UNICEF made a resolution. After the delegates were able to get feedback about their performance in the MUN, we got into the closing ceremony. The closing ceremony was where the awards were given by the Chairs of each committee and after a concluding speech by the Secretary-General, the committee was declared closed.
I loved the experience that I had and I am so thankful for giving me the opportunity to play my role to the best of my ability.
