MUN@UWCSEA 2017

MUN has been a huge part of my non-academic life at UWC. I was first introduced to MUN back in Grade 9, and have now come a long way from the nervous delegate who only spoke once at his first conference.

This year I had the opportunity to be the Head Chair for the Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC) at MUN@UWCSEA 2017.

Full DISEC Committee Picture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through this conference I explored a new aspect of MUN, which is a leadership role (up until now I had only ever been a delegate meaning I was involved in debate, but this time I was a chair meaning I was in charge of debate for an entire committee). I felt that this experience links to Learning Outcomes 6 and 7.

Learning Outcome 6 (#LO6) is: Engaging with issues of Global importance. MUN stands for Model United Nations. the sole purpose of MUN is to address and find viable solutions for issues that affect our world, from proliferation of nuclear missiles in DPRK, to the millions of people in dire need of help in Puerto Rico. While MUN does not allow me to directly implement my solutions in the real world I can submit my resolutions to the UN which could then be used one day. Furthermore, being in MUN helps expand one’s mindset, and therefore allows me to understand varying viewpoints, which is very valuable. Lastly, and most importantly, I am educated by MUN, numerous issues that I am unaware of are brought to light, thus providing me with the ideal platform to learn about issues of global importance, and also raise awareness about the same.

Learning Outcome 7 (#LO7) is: Considering the ethical implications of actions. One of the key components of MUN is representing a country, or a certain entity and with that comes bias, opinions, varying moral compasses and ethical standpoints. Being a chair at this MUN conference provided me with ample situations in which I was faced with ethical dilemmas. It is a chair’s job to keep debate interesting, while trying to remain diplomatic, all while respecting the one’s own opinion and everyone else in the committee’s opinion. I had to choose between allowing delegate to make unethical solutions, but risk letting the pace of debate slow down, and sometimes I had to choose the unethical standpoint over what my moral compass told me to do. While being a chair does not enable me to take part in debate, it does however allow me to still observe others’ opinions and monitor that they maintain proper decorum (i.e keep a diplomatic and ethical stand on issues being debated), and therefore there were times where I had conflicting views with others about what the ethical thing to do is, and had to either compromise or further establish my argument as to why I believe is ethical.

Therefore, after reflecting on MUN I have realised that engaging with issues of global importance is essential to our understanding of important events in the world, and how my ethical standpoints often need to shift to accommodate the situation I am in.

 

 

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