Model leaders

Updated on: Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Stella Maris College now falls under a prestigious spectrum after the SMC-Model United Nations (MUN), the first of its kind to debut in the city.

Model diplomacy

MUNs are now a very significant part of the youth culture and practically speaking tops the youth event calendar list. And why not? It provides the valuable opportunity to understand globalisation in its true sense, apart from practically experiencing the chaos and confusion that world leaders face. It is quite popularly said, that the blame often carelessly directed towards leaders would reduce by a whale, following the MUN experience! This exposure also holds a lot of value on the international front, holding great credibility for the experienced.

Issues

The agendas and committees for the SMC MUN were World Hunger, Measures to Control Cyber War, and Environment and Livelihood. These were the respective agendas of the General Assembly, Security Council and the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council). All the resolutions passed were given to the United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan. There is also a motive behind choosing these issues in particular. They warrant immediate attention, but apart from that they also hold their individual importance. Cyber wars, according to the UN, might escalate into the third World war and world hunger, which happens to be one of the foremost reasons for world poverty, has been part of the UN's Millennium Development goals that is in its 10th year now.

It plans to eradicate poverty by 2015. Thirdly, this being the UN year for bio-diversity there could be no better time to discuss environment and livelihood. So these agendas were narrowed on keeping these research points as well as current statuses in mind. As for how the event went, this is what some of them had to say.

Iyappan Premkumar, a first timer, said, “SMC-MUN was fresh, invigorating, huge, intense and just awesome! Infact the best part of this MUN was that it made both the veterans and amateurs feel at ease and encourage a healthy competition between them”.

Divyam Nagpal, who has been to six MUN conferences before this one neatly, summed up his experience: “Stella Maris Model UN Conference was one of the finest MUN's I have attended so far. Besides being the most intellectually challenging conference, all other aspects of the conference were absolutely immaculate. With its first MUN Conference, not only has Stella managed to establish itself on India's national MUN circuit but has also kick started the Chennai debate circuit, which in itself is a great achievement”.

Going on these lines, Chennai does seem to have a bright future where national conferences are concerned.

NIHARIKA M., III Year, BA Literature, Stella Maris College

What's a MUN?

The MUN is an academic simulation of the original UN that “aims to educate participants about civics, current events, effective communication, globalisation and multilateral diplomacy. In a standard Model UN, students take on roles of diplomats and participate in a simulated session of an intergovernmental organisation (IGO).”

Participants research a country, take on roles as diplomats, investigate international issues, debate, deliberate, consult, and then develop solutions to world problems. This is especially relevant in today's world where students can discuss, debate and make their own policy decisions on various topics. And it goes without saying that the MUN is one of the hotspots for networking and building relationships.

The idea of MUN-ing is still in a nascent stage in the southern part of the country, specifically Chennai, with most of the quality ones being held in the North. However, this is a regular in most of the national law colleges and some engineering colleges that have experienced MUN-ers as students. In fact there are whole groups, communities across the electronic media solely dedicated to this cause.

Model leaders

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