Author: Abheeshu

As I kept going to meetings and collaborating with my friends to work on some of the issues we have around school, I realised that I am helping the community with what I have to offer at these meetings. I enjoyed discussing different issues and how to solve them. Even when we found some inconvenience with the solutions, we ensured that we tackled those and were able to find a better, more feasible solution. I think this activity particularly strengthened my collaboration skills as well as raised my awareness to things around me that are issues for my peers. In a way this activity was very similar to MUN. Instead of representing countries, we represent our respective mentor groups and we discuss what issues we are having and how we can solve them. The only difference is that it is on a smaller scale but I can see the effects of my participation on my school community and I can see that people are recognising our efforts to improve the school life. The issues we talk about are much more relevant to us as students and much more directly applicable to our lives.

In this activity I believe that  I am helping the school community using my skills of collaboration and communication. I think that I have used and further developed these skills in myself through student voice. Understanding the other person’s point of view and trying to help their situation is also something that I am developing on through student voice because the issues we talk about are more personal. Often it can be hard trying to understand what the other person is going through and during stressful times such as those in IB it is important that we as students are there for each other to make our school lives easier. This is why whenever we make any decision we need to discuss it at length, analysing all of its possible affects on our community and what we can do to refine our choices that help those in our school. I look forward to doing student voice and further extending my reach to help my peers next season as well.

As I have been saying from the start, I have always been dedicated and have fully enjoyed all my MUN experiences and these two conferences have added to my list. For UWCMUN I was in the IMF committee and for MUNOFS I was in JCC. As I am told, both these committees are for more experienced delegates who are more adapted to the formal environment of a MUN conference. Both these committees were fun to take part in because each of them were unique and had their ow

n differences to a typical MUN committee. The IMF committee is the only committee which has the duty to openly speak of expenses and the delegates take form of “directors”. Although this is a slight difference, it changes the premise of the committee and is a unique experience of it’s own. Unfortunately, I had the SAT on the same day so I missed nearly half of the debate. However, despite this absence I was able to grasp the pace of the committee and I was able to develop my communication skills because I had to be more mindful because this committee was much more focused than any other committee I have been in before. We had talked about issues regarding the Chinese debt crisis all the way to cryptocurrencies. All these topics help me expand my base of knowledge regarding issues that are prevalent in our society.

MUNOFS was particularly fun because I had the opportunity to be in this specialised committee where we work in a team of 4. JCC is an exclusive committee where the procedure is nothing at all like nay other MUN committee because there is rarely any formal debate, it is much more informal and the topic of discussion was very interesting – “the nuclear threat posed by the DPRK”. Since we were representing the DPRK, there was a lot of pressure on us

beause the entire committee was focused on us and since it was informal, we felt the pressure. JCC is a very hyper-realistic committee where many different things can happen and I applaud the chairs for making various interesting events occur over the course of our conference. It was really fun because we all came up with creative solutions to issues or sometimes even propagate some other issues if they favoured our stance. This was a really fun committee to be in and I hope that I get the opportunity to be a part of this committee again in the future because I have learnt that in order to be proficient in this committee, I must be a more proactive member and be much more quicker than a normal MUN committee demands. I would also like to extend my MUN experience by being a chair once so that I can understand what that feels like too apart from being just a delegate.

I initially joined this club for 2 reasons. Firstly, because I play the guitar and I was hoping that I could use this skill to help the elderly. Which brings me to my second reason, I want to help the elderly people who are suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s in whichever way I can. At our first session I realised that it would be unlikely for me to incorporate the guitar into this service. We were also made aware of the fact that it is likely for the therapy to yield no results, so we mustn’t be disappointed if that were the case.

However, despite these setbacks and challenges, I am still eager to help these people because I can’t stand back and just watch it happen when we know that a possible solution is out there. Even if it doesn’t have any effect at the end, at least I would know that I tried my best and that if that weren’t enough, then there’s isn’t much more that I could do to help.

I am going into this service with the fact in mind that I have never directly helped elderly people except for running errands for my grandparents and helping them when they need it. Neither have I seen people with dementia or Alzheimer’s myself, much less help them. Undeterred by these facts, I am hopeful about this service and I hope that this experience will help me develop new skills and give me further insight on how my actions affect those around me.

In this activity, we discuss the implications of developments in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Every week a topic is presented and then the club discusses how the topic can effect people and change society. I found this to be much like the MUN club where we discuss global issues. However, in this club we don’t find any solutions, we merely discuss the state of the topics. This way I am able to utilise my MUN mindset in topics of STEM as well. Again, like MUN, we discuss these issues collaboratively, which makes people participative and different viewpoints are raised. However, I found this club to be rather disappointing so far because rather than discussing the actual science behind the topics and making something, we are just discussing these topics, which makes this club less focused than I hoped for it to be. I might have expected something and gotten something else from this club, which would make this issue a bit more subjective. However, I would like it if I could talk to the teacher in charge and request some changes to happen in this club so that the core of the club remains the same, but is becomes more focused and relevant to STEM.

For the past year I have been participating in MUN only to regret one thing- I never joined this club earlier. Ever since my first conference I knew that this would be one of the most memorable and enhancing experiences. Before joining this club I hadn’t been very effective at vocalising my thoughts and I hadn’t been much of a collaborating person either. Because of the experiences I had in the 4 MUN conferences I attended so far I have been able to boost my communicative and collaborative skills while developing my confidence as well. Because of MUN I have been able to see why collaborating on a subject is much more efficient because everyone gets to see different perspectives of people. To come to the best possible solution to anything, every perspective must be considered and the problem should be viewed from every angle before reaching the solution.

More than my interpersonal skills, my research capabilities have improved as well because of MUN. I research more about global and political issues and I am more engaged in discussions in general. I am more aware of global issues and I have also debated some potential solutions to the pressing issues in the conferences. This activity is even more exciting because we have to analyse the real-world implications of the solutions that we propose. Also, because the topics and committees change every conference, I get exposed to many different types of issues which help me develop a more wholistic approach to anything I encounter.

Right now I have only been a delegate in this activity but I am aiming at going up the ranks and becoming a chair soon so that I can also develop my leadership skills and get to know how it is to be a chair at one of these conferences. I am very passionate about MUN and I think that this will be one of my favourite and memorable experience (if not the most) of high school.

The Student Voice is a body that communicates any issues that the students of our grade have to the teachers and the administrative staff. I believe that I display qualities that a member of the Student voice should have such as being responsible, communicative and approachable. I was chosen as a member of the student voice in my previous school as well for these same qualities. Furthermore, I use these qualities in the meetings we have to contribute to the discussion and work collaboratively with my peers to figure out solutions. In these meetings we have to consider many different effects that our possible solutions can have if applied to the school. We have to carefully consider each and every possible plausible scenario that could occur if our solutions are implemented. Hence, I think that this is very important role that I have been given and I must work collaboratively and critically in order to fulfil my duty as a member of the Student Voice.

When I was browsing the activities and services website in search for a global concern that I would be interested in, I immediately felt drawn towards the ambitions of the Green Umbrella Global Concern. I have always felt passionate about helping the environment as well helping people in need. I also like to explain things to people, which generally relates to helping peers in the classroom. I saw that this GC focuses on educating children in Cambodia within a clean and green environment. What this GC is working towards is what I hope to see in the world, a greener, healthier environment and educating people in developing parts of the world. Following the words of Mahatma Gandhi “Be the change you want to see in the world”, I signed up for Green Umbrella because this experience would help me learn how to contribute to solving the concerns that exist all around the globe.

Although my experience is only in its initial phases, I aim to create an effective plan that can be implemented as well. As I will be working in a team, I will do this collaboratively with my peers and we will work towards a sustainable and effective solution to the issues we observe. However, we must be careful about what we do because people will actually be affected by our decisions. (No pressure) That’s why we will have to carefully evaluate any effects, good or bad, that could occur by what we decide to do.

I believe that this experience will be really good for me because I hope to develop a more caring and mindfully aware attitude through this experience which I can use to help more people in my future.