On the 29 November, 2013 students of classes XI and XII, Vikramaditya Bhatnagar, Sanchari Banerjee and Ishan Mehandru, accompanied by their teachers, went for a three- day Model United Nations' Conference at St. Columbas School.
Model United Nation Conferences try to bring together students from all over the country to participate in constructive debate and dialogue. The students are allotted countries according to their preferences and participate in various mock committees of the United Nations.
The following are the experiences of the students while in session of their respective committees.
1. Sanchari Banerjee United Nations General Assembly UAE
The agenda of the committee was Territorial Dispute of Israel and Palestine. The delegates made an extraordinary effort to cover all aspects of the crisis. Israel and Palestine are in conflict in all ways imaginable from water disputes to refugee conflicts. The committee managed to discuss all the sub-topics at hand. Creative solutions to the conflict were presented in the form of Draft Resolutions asking for the unification of the two countries or a declaration suggesting that the region be governed under the aegis of the UN. Alas, none of the resolutions got a majority and were thus not passed in the assembly. As it was a SPECPOL assembly, the resolutions were turned into press releases all in a days work!
2. Ishan Mehandru United Nations Human Rights Council UAE
The agenda for discussion was Enabling Equal Rights to all: Ending Discrimination and Death Penalty against LGBT and Gender Identity. The discussion was intellectually stimulating and gave a good glimpse into the agenda at hand. Delegates representing the First World and those from the Middle East and other Third-World countries were at opposing ends on the issue. While the committee moved back and forth, discussing the various contexts and elements of the consistent countries and their people, the executive board was given the arduous task of keeping the delegates at their seats and the debate in order.
For lack of an exhaustive topic, the committee was interrupted with two crisis agendas- both concerning the violation of the UNHRC code and basic human rights. The committee also released a couple of press releases.
3. Vikramaditya Bhatnagar - UEFA
The UEFA Committee at the Modern United Nations hosted by St. Columbas School between the twenty ninth of November and the first of December, 2013, was well organized, exciting, a perfect combination of good debating and fun, and of course, the dream committee of every student who has ever loved football! The participant - delegates were expected to be the managers of their respective clubs. I was the manager of the Turkish Club, Galatasaray S.K., and thus responded to the name Roberto Mancini for the duration of these three days! Other clubs included Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona F.C., Celtic, Arsenal, and Ajax.
The Committee was quite innovative; since the UEFA is not an actual committee of the United Nations, it was just a simulated committee, so it was more casual as compared to the other committees. However, it turned out that it wasnt just the UEFA Committee that was chilled out; the entire lot of students at the MUN turned out to be pretty cool (or at least they pretended to be, sensing that they were in quite a sophisticated environment as compared to other MUNs). People had started socializing even during breakfast!
Overall, our experience at the Columban MUN 2013 was memorable. We look forward to changing the face of world politics.
Compiled by Sanchari Banerjee.
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