14 September 2016

The MUN Oakridge, Hyderabad, Arushi Lakhanpal of Gr 7

The MUN in Oakridge was definitely an exciting opportunity for
everyone, and even if some of us didn’t get awards, I’m sure we all enjoyed the experience. Since this was the first MUN for most of us, including me, we had to learn all the rules and procedures, make our speeches, and prepare everything in a very short time, but we managed it all. This helped us improve our time-management skills, and further helped us in Oakridge.

My first day went great; the chairs were extremely helpful and explained all the procedures before we started. The hardest part was probably framing the speeches in a short time limit. Our ultimate goal was to win an award, and to do that, we had to make as many speeches as possible. What was even more challenging, was to make our speeches, and have valid information, since the agenda requires deep research.

Model United Nations helped me get a deeper understanding of global problems since most of the topics given were current problems, just as in a real United Nations conference. It also improved my critical thinking skills, since it taught me how to think and research fast and in-depth. It especially taught me how to be more spontaneous, because with more than 40 people in the room, we wanted to be the people who spoke as much as possible, which meant being quick at speaking, framing, and delivering speeches.
My committee (ECOSOC) discussed about child marriage and its effects, everybody spoke their views on the AGENDA before getting into serious discussion about our sub-topics, such as solutions for the cause, how this affects girls, and many other interesting debates/discussions.

Other committees had different agendas, such as DISEC, which discussed Improving the humanitarian situation in regions affected by the Syrian Civil War, and HRC talked about Preventing the discrimination of physically or mentally disabled people, especially in cases of employment and inclusion in popular media. Other committees, like ILO worked on Protecting the rights of migrant and immigrant workers. SC suggested how to De-escalate the crisis in the South Sudanese region. All other committees included different agendas about world problems, which were discussed in debates, caucuses, and by lobbying.

The last day was probably the day with the most pressure. All our hard work had summed up to this. We had to make as many friends as possible, and make them sign our resolution. Although this didn’t help us win awards, it contributed to our marks a lot.

In the end, all of us were proud of our efforts, regardless of whether we won an award or not. This was definitely an enriching experience for all of us and I can’t wait to try again next year.