Saint Maur's Model United Nations (MUN) Club took part in their first conference this year. On the 25th and 26th of March, the students attended JMMUN (Japan Metropolitan Model United Nations), a conference hosted by Senzoku Gakuen. They had the task of representing DR Congo and Singapore in the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights) where they discussed how to solve the issue of modern slavery with students from all over Japan.

These are their impressions:

"Attending JMMUN was a very insightful and stimulating experience, providing me with a new level of discipline and diplomacy I had never developed before. I was tasked with representing DR Congo, a country that had historically infamous cases of modern slavery. As soon as our first unmoderated caucus (informal discussion) began, I was grouped with the developing nations bloc, where we further discussed our wants, mainly in the form of financial support from developed nations. Continuing this, through many moderated and unmoderated caucuses, we formed a draft resolution, eventually merging with another bloc to compete with the other group forming on the other side. Consequently, due to the equal number of countries involved and the effort put into both draft resolutions, they both passed, resulting in a closure to the two-day event. This was a very memorable experience since I was genuinely amazed at the amount of maturity and diplomacy the students at the conference had, providing a great networking opportunity not only with students from other international schools but also students from Japanese high schools."

"The MUN conference was nothing like what I expected. It was very interesting because although you meet students from other schools, you don’t get to know them as themselves, but as a delegate of the country they are representing. During the conference we got to listen to many ideas and different perspectives towards a problem that the world is facing. It was very interesting, especially when countries opposing each other politically consist of the same opinions and positions on a problem. Overall, even though it was very difficult to understand the whole process of being at an MUN conference, with time, I was able to adapt to the environment, take action, and enjoy the new experience."

"Before participating in the conference, I was very nervous because we did not know what the conference would look like, but because the JMMUN conference we participated in was a two-day conference, I got to learn the flow as I experienced new things. The first speech I made with my other pair as delegates of Singapore allowed me to be more confident in joining group discussions later on. The group discussions were very valuable experiences as well because the interpretations and solutions the other delegates presented were ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of by myself. Overall, it was a memorable two-day conference as I was able to be involved in tackling the given global issue of modern slavery as a group of students coming from different schools."

Please come join us next year!