By Rohini Pillay
Over the last weekend of January, the BISB Model UN my delegation and I spent our weekend in heated debates, negotiations, and diplomatic discussions with students from all over the world at Harvard Model UN. The trip was successful, with one student winning an award, and several others gaining recognition for their public speaking, negotiating, and diplomatic skills. The four-day trip began with students arriving at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, where they had time to explore the Back Bay area and prepare for committees which started promptly at 7 pm. Students were able to enjoy some downtime with other BISB delegation members, but spent the majority of their time in their committees. Students debated about pressing global issues, and expanded their knowledge of geopolitics in their debates and negotiations. Their discussions and hard work culminated in the passing of many different resolutions that aimed to address certain global issues in a holistic manner.
All students had their own specific roles. Below are all the roles that the members of BISB's delegation had:
Faisal Khreis and Ethan Walsh
The Social Cultural and Humanitarian Committee - Financial Aid and Economic Sustainability
Tara Ossiani and Aria Khatib-Shahidi The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - Middle Eastern Refugee Crisis Sabrina Cohen Special Political and Decolonization Committee - Freedom of Information Rohini Pillay and Miguel Del Castillo Economic and Finance Committee - Decolonization and Amelioration of Inuit Tribes James Thomas McClennen and Harry Smith Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC) - Drone proliferation Anabelle Brunt Roman Senate, 63 BC. The Catiline Conspiracy.
Rohin Ariff
Commission on Science and Technological Development
The HMUN journey started several weeks before the conference, with our position papers. My co-delegate and I researched the topic at hand, formulated arguments and policies that we would like to work towards, and wrote the position paper for Switzerland, the nation that we represented. This research allowed us to understand the inner workings of the topic that we were dealing with in relation to Switzerland, and helped us formulate arguments for the conference.
Personally, my co-delegate and I were able to use our time effectively throughout the entire conference. On the first day, we were successful in delivering our point of view on the status of Inuit peoples, including their economic situation, as part of our opening speeches. Additionally, we were able to meet various members of our committee and discuss our general plans for the conference with them. By the morning’s end on the first day, we had a great understanding of where other people stood on economic assistance to the Inuit communities. We were able to work with other delegations who had similar ideas in order to develop a written resolution that aims to solve the issues at hand.
In the next two committee sessions, our debates centered more around the different elements of the solutions we had proposed earlier. These debates were informal in some cases, full of speechwriting, researched facts, and even some emotive language in others. This part was very enjoyable, as my co-delegate and I were able to work with other delegates towards further advancing and evaluating our ideas for solutions. The intense debate from these sessions was coupled with a lot of writing as our resolutions came to fruition.
BISB Delegation presenting their resolution to committee members.
The final two committee sessions saw us presenting and making amendments to our resolutions. We passed the resolution with overwhelming support, and we celebrated our success as a team.
At the very end of the conference, students were able to distribute roses to each other, sending roses to people who they found impressive or formed a strong relationship with.
Khreis with the roses he received.
Overall, the trip was an extremely interesting experience, one that we look forward to in 2023.