An MUN or Model United Nations is a usually student led conference, which concerns itself with attempting to solve worldwide issues, representing nations as delegates. There are rules to maintain decorum, and all the procedures of the real world UN are taken into account. Although as strict as it may sound, as the conference is entirely student organised, there is always room for having a little extra fun.
On February 28th our senior students organised a school MUN. This year’s SGMUN was concerned with the issue of women and men not being treated equally within work environments. We attempted to resolve this issue with a variety of solutions, some less ethical than others, but for a few select countries that was less of a concern than it probably should have been. Each delegation acted with accordance with their nation’s real opinions, Afghanistan recommending the upholding of traditional roles, whilst nations such as the US took on a more militaristic approach. A few nations were quite welcoming of the relaxed strictness of the rules and as such recommended more unconventional solutions, such as building metal boxes where in cases of unequal treatment the abused party may hide and report the incident to the proper authorities. Of course, even though solutions like these were allowed all was written in a proper manner and eventually passed through the voting successfully. But even then, there were some who broke the rules. The delegates of Afghanistan had to sing North Korean national anthem as a way of apology for damaging Kim Jong Un´s portrait, whilst the delegation of Germany had to recite a love poem, and Russia (voluntarily) danced to Rasputin. Now matter what fun the delegates had, they also seriously debated the issue of inequality between men and women, and our students had a great opportunity to experience the procedures of formal debating in the UN.
