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
... 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.
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