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The presenters were Donna Alexander, Halee Piasta and Matthew Stipanovic. Donna (who grew up in Minnedosa, MB) explained the intent of MUNA, how it has been run the past few years and how it is changing now. Her first MUNA experience was the year she was the counsellor for students from Balmoral Hall where she was teaching. The students were interested in the world, in seeking to change it, and looked forward to sharing the MUNA experience with 100 or so other students wishing to have their voices heard. When she moved back to Minnedosa to care for her parents, she had a chance to repeat her MUNA experience when the local Rotary Club sponsored a team from their high school. The three male students were terrified, nervous and concerned about their preparedness as they rode in the backseat of the car for two and a half hours to the Mennonite University in Winnipeg where MUNA was taking place. When they arrived, they were met by the MUNA delegation from Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, who started psyching out the Minnedosa team and terrifying them even more. Donna calmed them down by telling them just to have fun and to get involved with everything. Two days later, on the trip back to Minnedosa, the three boys didn’t stop talking about how great it was to be able to debate different ideas. This happens after every MUNA – even students who come more than once and are well versed in speaking and debating come out transformed. Donna thanked our Rotary Club for continuing to sponsor MUNA teams. The format of the Model UN was originally an in-person event where delegates are assigned a country and their first task is to understand that country, putting aside their own values and ideas to represent that country “truly and faithfully” in relation to the four resolutions on issues - like peace and conflict resolution, economic issues, women’s rights, trade and economic partners, climate change, etc. – that they debate. Each team faces different ideas from representatives of other countries and the participants then have to come to a consensus. MUNA has moved away from a parliament system (which involves debating and voting) to move to a UN position of listening, negotiating and coming to consensus – on two resolutions now instead of four. Halee (from Sanford Collegiate, and our club’s sponsored student to attend Adventures in Agriculture in 2019) was approached by our club’s youth chair Glenn about getting involved with MUNA. She was involved in preparing all the different resolutions and helping with the opening speech that her delegation representing Kuwait gave at MUNA. The delegation (namely Halee and Matthew) researched the economy, social traditions and COVID-19 response in Kuwait. Although an exam prevented Halee from actually attending MUNA, she learned a lot about the United Nations Assembly. She thanked the club for inviting her to participate in MUNA and was looking forward to using her new speaking skills and sharing her experience with others. Matthew not only represented Kuwait, he was also the rapporteur for one of the resolutions, reporting on that resolution to the large group – the plenary. He had come across Rotary’s involvement with MUNA by chance and immediately knew that this was something he wanted to be a part of. He had enjoyed a somewhat similar experience (which involved debating) when he was in Grade 8. Even though he and Halee had spent lots of time preparing for the event, initially, as he came into MUNA, he was thinking that he really had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. Model UN taught him about a lot of things - communication, debating, public speaking – but the best lesson was to go with the flow and learn on the fly. He enjoyed MUNA – especially his role as rapporteur, which kept him fully engaged, listening to what everyone else said and understanding what was being said. He appreciated having the opportunity to participate. In the Q&A that followed, we learned that - Using Zoom was a very smooth experience – it worked well in putting participants into breakout rooms for discussions.
- There were no actual names associated with the MUNA participants – just the name of the country they represented.
- The resolution that Matthew was involved with dealt with cybersecurity.
- Kuwait had invested in special cybersecurity systems in the past three years.
- As of early April, Kuwait’s COVID-19 response was very similar to that of Canada.
- Students are encouraged to put forward their own resolutions on matters of importance to them as well as the two main resolutions that had been picked by the MUNA organizing committee from the United Nation’s own list of resolutions.
- Normally MUNA runs with 70-75 teams (two people each plus the counsellor) – so about 200 people are involved. This year there were 52 teams.
- MUNA participation is open to students in Grades 9 to Grade 12.
- Halee’s sister Brooklyn will be participating in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) program this summer (a virtual event as well).
Glenn thanked our three speakers and expressed the hope that MUNA will once again be an in-person event in 2022. He mentioned that Matthew had been chosen by the club to take part in the Adventures in Citizenship program last year, but it had to be cancelled on short notice, so it was a pleasure to learn that Matthew enjoyed taking part in this year’s virtual MUNA. |
