Success for Aldenham students at the Model United Nations Conference

Six boys and girls from Aldenham took part in the largest Model United Nations Conference in the UK which was held at Haileybury College in March. It was a great experience for our students as MUN conferences take place across the world and it was exciting to start with one where they were able to meet around 800 delegates from across Europe, Asia and South America as they debated 36 topics over three days.

The Friday evening started with the Opening Ceremony, where the Keynote speaker was Lieutenant Colonel Anton Gash, a UK Defence Attaché, who spoke about his career working in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and recently – during hurricane Irma- The Caribbean as well as his experiences working with the UN. After the formalities of the opening ceremony, the conference moved on to informal lobbying to win support for their resolutions with 10 unique signatories required for a resolution to go forward to the approvals panel. Only if it met the strict criteria of a United Nations Resolution Paper, was this then able to go forward for formal debate the following day. Michael Li lobbied hard and his resolution on The Question of Tax Havens was up for debate on Saturday morning.

All Six Students spoke eloquently about their topics and presented in front of their committees; debating the issues in order to pass resolutions to adequately address the needs of all the delegations – no easy feat.

On Sunday, four resolutions from the previous day were selected and these students had to present again, this time in front of the entire General Assembly. Michael Li’s hard work paid off and his was selected. Michael took to the podium again and took questions from the floor with ease; displaying a clear knowledge of the facts.

Everyone worked incredibly hard over the three days and they all deserve praise. They are now looking forward to taking part in further MUN opportunities in the future.