Have you ever felt that your lack of clarity in communication was the cause of your sharply declining social status? Or ever felt that your fear to communicate lead you to dissociate?
SSVM INSTITUTIONS- METTUPALAYAM Residential School
Well, I as a student was at first, petrified by the very idea of HMUN. To be assigned a country; to represent the country as a delegate and discuss world issues in order to come up with social solutions was not really my cup of tea. However, Harvard Model United Nations 2019 quickly changed that perception.
When our delegation from SSVM Institutions first stepped inside Hyderabad’s famed convention centre, we were marked by a sense of Foreboding what you could be expected and what could not?
The opening ceremony though put us at peace. Gone were the overly formal welcomes, gone were the stone-faced facade that blocked our pace. The Opening ceremony proved Invigorating and the Secretary General Ms. Jenna Wong inspired us with every word she spoke. Immediately after the opening ceremony, we proceeded with our very first committee session. My committee was (Disarmament and International Security Council), the biggest committee in the General Assembly. Walking into Committee hall was exhilarating, as delegates from various Schools representing around 193 countries walked into the hall.
A small briefing session followed, where our Chairperson, Mr. Michael J. Shafer pre-armed us with the tools required to traverse DISEC.After a roll-call of countries, entries for GSL (General Speaker’s List) opened up. This was a list of countries speaking on which Moderated Caucuses (formal debates) which opened up on various topics. After a few topic discussions like Narco-terrorism and natural resource terrorism, the committee was adjourned for the day.
The second day proved to be a whirlwind of the session as six and half hours of the committee made our formal debates turn into working papers. Those papers were then debated on to decide which ones would be lucky enough to be turned into draft resolutions. Our committee had stars rightly aligned as we witnessed mergers; wherein different countries in a ‘bloc’ working along merged together their papers which made a working paper, both accountable for, and effective for, by the merged blocs.
Thus these mergers were debated upon to form draft resolutions, where we witnessed four resolutions withstanding the test of time and the committee adjourned. We proceeded to witness MUN Clave, a function where elite people such as Mr. Chandrasekharan Ramakrishnan, Ex- CEO of Nestle India Shared his views on empowering the youth.
Next we had HMUN’s Got Talent 2019. This was a platform where many schools, including ours showcased our diverse talents. Our dance strategically placed at the end, wowed visitors and delegates alike. With this, the second day also came to a close.
The third day saw us pass the final resolution accentuating all the issues faced by most of the countries of the world community. This was to possibly end terror-financing and hence the resolution was thoughtfully targeted upon all aspects of the funding-network like Crypto currency, narcotics, extortion, and informal banking systems like ‘Hawala’. The essence of the solutions was to visibly enforce the rules of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) along with an international Consortium of organisation to check the flow of money-laundering and smuggling both humanly and through shell networks. This Resolution was an instant hit as it had laid out quite an ambitious plan to take down terrorism by the roots. The committee had long decided that killing terrorist was no way to end terrorism. Thus in the end, we had found resolution for a world problem.
India@75 followed, which was an Intra- debate program between very influential people in different fields. The Fourth day brought to a close this wonderful experience called HMUN.
What I learned from HMUN was a lot more than just speaking and communication. Diplomacy, empathy, cleverness, and resourcefulness were some of the qualities embedded on the package labeled ‘HMUN’
At the offset, I believe HMUN was able to leave me with essential questions and seedlings of values that will certainly be on my cap of character as rustling feathers, gallant in their beauty.
