MUNA


Last week, Michael Eldred and I attended a MUNA being held in Canberra. MUNA is a Model United Nations. Held globally, they are run by the Rotary Organization. Introduced to Australia in the 1980s MUNA’s are now run across Australia.

A Model united nations provides an opportunity for young people like us to experience how a real united nations assembly takes place. We attended the MUNA held in Canberra, which is run by the Sunrise rotary club. 27 schools from NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the Act attended.

Weeks before the event took place, all schools involved are given a country to represent within the Assembly. The countries are allocated to achieve a mixture of countries from all over the world. Countries included Samoa, North Korea, India, Cuba, France and many more. All countries are given topics in advance to prepare for the debate. Topics are based on real events that the United Nations is debating, and students are to debate as the country they are representing. The topics are resolutions to current world issues, such as: measures to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the north Korean Peninsula, and regulating international migration. All speeches given by students must be under 3 minutes in length and attempt to persuade other countries to be for or against the resolution.

Michael and I represented Australia which was a unique experience and meant we had to really research the topics. This was because all students present understood Australia’s foreign policy and other global relation issues. We spoke on 5 of the 6 different issues debated over the weekend. Reading speeches we prepared before leaving, and speeches we wrote the night before the event.

We left early on the Friday and once we arrived, were shown where we were staying for the weekend. We then got together in our country blocks, each consisting of five countries from a specific region, and voted for 6 topics to debate the following days. The topics were decided and speeches were written late into the night. The following morning, we left for Old Parliament house, and we took our seats for the weekends debates. Many students had dressed up into clothing that represented the country they were representing. On the Saturday, four topics were debated. We returned to our accommodation, before leaving for the formal dinner. The dinner was held at a part of ANU buildings, we were lucky to have a guest speaker for the night. Rick Smith was the Australian Ambassador to China and Indonesia, as well as being a special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He spoke about his experiences in these positions.

We would like to thank Miss Westphalen for all the help over the weekend, as well as Rotary for this great opportunity.


... Jono Clarke and Michael Eldred


For representing MSC at MUNA Jono and Michael have delivered further points to their House Tribes' tallies. The global political topics discussed and debated on the stage of the United Nations have impacts that affect everyone. It is wonderful to see youth participating and projecting their voices in a setting such as MUNA. Thank you for representing MSC Jono and Michael, MSC and no doubt Rotary are proud of your achievement.

The new House Tribes' tallies are:


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