Aryan Arora
As someone who didn’t know anything about organizing events, especially Model United Nations ( MUN ), I was intrigued by the idea of volunteering in one and getting to know how a MUN works and what are the skill sets that are required for one to organize a MUN. CAS in grades 11 and 12 gave me the opportunity to try something new, something I wasn’t familiar with hence I volunteered in the International Peace MUN that was held in Surat. MUN is a simulation of an actual United Nations conference, where students are tasked with solving a global issue through research, drafting, lobbying, and debate to pass a suitable ‘resolution’. While the conferences were going on I had to make sure that conferences run as smoothly as possible. As this was an International Peace MUN it is very obvious that it had some connection with the 16th SDG which is peace, justice, and strong institutions. Also, IPMUN is recognized and supported by UNHRC.
LO1:- During the event my strengths were that I did not have a problem working with others whereas my weaknesses were that I had a problem keeping up with everything that was going on around me hence it was a bit hard to manage. It is very important for us to know our strengths and weaknesses so that we can work upon our weaker areas in the future. I’d love to work upon my weakness as working upon it would help me immensely in organizing such events in the future.
LO2:- One of the biggest challenges was that this was my first time volunteering in something like this hence I wasn’t aware of what is what and how it is supposed to be done. I overcame these challenges by clearing my doubts and then working accordingly. It is important for us to take up new challenges in order to overcome our fear.
LO3: For MUN it was little hectic to manage my studies. Hence I could organize well using few reminders on google calendars. Also I could understand how I can smartly save time of event using email.
LO4:- Commitment is one of the key components that make an event successful hence like any other event this was needed. For me, this was something that I took up myself hence it was necessary for me to commit to the tasks that were given to me during the MUN. For me sometimes it is hard to commit to things but things get easier when I get a hang of it.
LO5:- Working with others is generally easy for me as I tend to gel up with others easily, so for me working with others isn’t that big of a deal. During this event working with others for me was easy as I was able to communicate with others and I am an open-minded listener hence I was able to work with them as a team. I didn’t have to work with anyone difficult. it is important to be able to work collaboratively as it helps us work in a team together with different people. In this particular case, teamwork was important as we had to come to a conclusion unanimously hence working as a whole was important.
LO6:- In this very event, the global issues that were associated were peace and justice, as this was an International Peace MUN it is very obvious that it had something to do with international peace. In some of the committees, the topics that were brought up were human rights security which is connected to peace and justice also another topic was the conflicts going on in Kashmir. Peace and justice are important for everything in the world to run smoothly. My work in the CAS helped me gain an opinion and a resolution about the current global issues and how they can be resolved.
LO7:- There were no ethical issues involved in this very activity but there were some in the discussions that took place in committee sessions of different committees. The ethical issues were that not all of the resolutions followed the ethical code of conduct and did affect some of the countries that were represented by delegates. Although these issues were resolved later by communicating and making unanimous decisions initially these issues got me thinking that this is not going the way it should.
All in all, being a part of the volunteering team for IPMUN was a great experience and I learned many things from this very experience one of which was how to successfully organize a MUN also my key takeaways from this experience were making effective use of my time, being open-minded also being able to work with other people. The learner profile that I developed during this was risk-taker as this was something very new to me and taking part in it helped me overcome the issues and doubts that I had.
