At the end of January, 16 members of the school’s Model United Nations team travelled to The Netherlands to take part in the annual THIMUN conference in The Hague.
This year we were representing the delegation of Belarus, and students arrived ready with their UN-style resolutions on topics ranging from diplomatic immunity to promoting trust in democratic institutions.
Each delegate had to work in committees with separate agendas (Environment, Disarmament, Human Rights etc) negotiating and debating with over 3,500 students from around the world. Of our sixteen-strong delegation, ten were chosen to be Main Submitters of their resolutions, a fantastic achievement. Although this criterion is by no means the only measure of success in an MUN conference, this statistic put us second out of the 221 delegations present at the conference.
The team as a whole worked brilliantly together and with others, and their resolutions and debates showed they had a real understanding of global issues and had developed some innovative ideas for solutions. Our delegates were interviewed by the conference press team as a result of their success, and talked about the preparation they had undergone in the months leading up to the conference, and how they had appreciated learning how to work and interact with others via Model United Nations.
As well as the conference itself, we also visited the International Criminal Court, went to a screening of a documentary about China’s ‘New Silk Roads’ which was followed by a question and answer session with its director, spent some time looking around the historic centre of The Hague, and ate plenty of kipsate and chips.
All involved should be congratulated on their commitment, and the skills and abilities they demonstrated throughout the conference.
Chris Taylor
