The High School MUN Triumph

 

On 13 and 14 April, 150 pupils from fourteen schools were welcomed to The High School to participate in our second annual Model United Nations Conference. Model United Nations, or as we often refer to it, MUN, involves each school being assigned a country and each pupil debating topics, representing that country. At our conference we had seven committee rooms, ranging from Security Council to Health and Youth, Disarmament and Security to Social Cultural and Humanitarian. We also had a Historical Committee, which debated topics such as the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the Soviet Blockade of Berlin. MUN is a fantastic opportunity for pupils to learn how to collaborate and compromise to solve some of the biggest issues that face our world, such as Nuclear Energy, Terrorism, and the Role of Social Media.  

For our opening ceremony we managed to get a special guest, Ivana Bacik TD, to share her wisdom on the importance of involvement in political affairs. The inspirational speech set the tone for a very productive weekend of debating. The debating was at an extraordinary standard and every delegate was well-prepared on the range of topics we were debating. Although it was an event discussing serious issues, plenty of fun was also had with our in house magazine and joke awards for "best dressed" and "best ship"! 

On Saturday we had a General Assembly which allowed all the attendees to show off the knowledge they had gathered over the weekend and find out what had happened in the other committee rooms. At General Assembly we debated a range of topics such as Soil Degradation, Vaccine Supply and Uptake, and Piracy in International Waters. As is customary, we concluded the conference with prizegiving, which was exceptionally difficult due to the excellent participation of all attendees. The conference was closed in classic MUN style, with the bang of a gavel, signifying the end to another fantastic weekend.  

This conference was a fantastic end to a busy year of Model United Nations. All the pupils and teachers who attended had a fantastic time and we are all looking forward to next year! 
Ciara Morton