Island School Hosts First Junior Model United Nations Conference
Island School hosted its first ever Junior Model United Nations (MUN) conference on Friday, 4th of June. In the conference, students from Years 7-9 debated two topics: ‘Ensuring Sustainable Development for an Ever-growing Senior Population’ and ‘International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Outerspace’. The students represented a range of nations in their delegations, debating and collaborating with each other to draft resolutions to combat the issues.
Before joining the conference, students had to join a series of training workshops, learning about MUN and familiarising themselves with conference procedure. Over the weeks, they researched about their topics from the perspective of their nations, drafting position papers and opening speeches before finally putting all of their skills to the test on Friday. It was also some of the Y10s’ first experience chairing a MUN conference.
The Year 10 leaders had a chance to chair conferences.
“It was a very unique experience where we saw delegates grow during the conference, working together even within different year groups in order to achieve a common goal.”. said Johnson Kwok (10F) .
Airi Tachino (10D) commented: “I was really surprised at how students (of which many were beginners) were actively engaging in fruitful debate, and I’m looking forward to seeing them prosper at external conferences in the near future!”
Kin Ching Ip (10N) also said that it was great to see students demonstrating communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills. And that many delegates engage in the conference with high level speeches, POIs and meaningful debates despite a lot of them being first timers.
“This was my first time chairing and I had an amazing time chairing for the beginner’s committee. They were quiet at first but slowly joined into debate and showed their understanding and enthusiasm for their topic.” recalled Nicole Cheng (10D).
From developing a better pension system for the elderly, to encouraging nations to increase efforts for the removal of space debris, students dived into the topics and debated a range of issues, big and small. This was most of the delegates’ first time participating in a MUN conference — having traditionally been an activity for more senior students, this was the first time the programme was offered to younger students.
This was also the last conference for the Year 12 student heads.
Ethan Yap (12W) commented, “It was great to see younger delegates leaving their comfort zones through engaging with MUN, considering this is a very advanced form of debate that even people my age struggle with!”
Dou Kim (12F) and Pirtyush Jhaveri (12E) both praised the delegates for their outstanding performance. Although majority of them were first timers, they displayed passion and interest towards the global issues discussed and saw a lot of amazing speeches and meaningful debates throughout.
Commendation was also given to the following delegates:
Chloe Leung 7R, Cyrus Ng 9F — Best Delegate
Jacob Flach 7F, Vijay Sathappan Narayanan 8F — Most Improved
Alexander Chen 8N, Lena Kim 8W, Kate Yoon 8W, Arnav Gupta 9R, Andy Chan 9E, Alexandra Lai 9W were also recognized for their outstanding performance during the conference.
Mr Budd, head teacher of MUN said: “We are always blown away by the professionalism and commitment that all MUN delegates put into preparing for the conferences. But it was amazing to see the younger students rise to the occasion. Public speaking is a challenging yet highly prized skill. Watching the next generation of MUN delegates perfect the art of diplomacy was rewarding to see. But they couldn’t have done it without the admirable time commitment and care given by the MUN student leadership team.”
Article and Photos by Grace Zheng, Media Team
