Model United Nations showcased international insight at 59th annual Berkeley MUN Conference March 4-6
It’s speech, debate, and writing all wrapped into one nice, neat package.
Model United Nations provides students hands-on experience with the way the United Nations handles international relations between countries, comes to compromises, and resolves conflict. MVMUN is a relatively new club with only six years under its belt, but its members are enthusiastic about learning, competing, and perfecting the diplomatic skills needed for annual conferences. This year, MVMUN attended the Berkeley Model United Nations Conference. Around 1500 students from more than one hundred high schools came to the university’s campus on March 4 for a three-day competition. Berkeley holds one of the oldest high school level conferences, drawing top delegates from MUN clubs from all over the United States. MVMUN’s members also participate in other competitions such as those at Stanford University, Santa Teresa High School, and UC Davis.
Dedicated MVMUN member, senior Jin-min Nam, attended the Berkeley Conference as a delegate for the United Nations Security Council group.
“It’s a learning experience … your public speaking ability sharply rises, your writing ability rises because you have to write resolutions, and you get to know what’s going [on] in the world,” Nam said.
MUN conferences also simulate other international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations Development Programme. In all sections of the conference, delegates from different schools are all very competitive, and participants could find themselves speaking in front of a group of almost 200 people.
“We present our own ideas to the group and try and reach a resolution…it could be recent events, and also sometimes historical events, or even hypothetical, future situations,” president senior Robin Cheng said.
Berkeley is a double delegate conference, meaning that a pair of students represent one country. Delegates present a position paper on events like the Libyan crisis, the Israel-Palestine conflict, or even the conflict between Turkey and Cyprus back in the 1970s. The delegates are judged on their ideas and how those ideas are presented to the other participants at the conference. For MVMUN’s publicity manage senior Andrew Sabour, who won an award as a standing delegate for the ICC in a debate over a war criminal found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, being able to apply presentation skills to real-world problems makes the club.
“I wanted to join speech and debate, but it seemed quite boring to me. [In] MUN you actually represent a country, and you learn about that country, and I found that interesting and unique,” Sabour said.
MVMUN is attending the UC Davis MUN Conference in May. The club meets every Friday at lunch in D108.
