Discussing Democratic Values
The theme of this year’s MunoM conference was “Focusing on the principle of Equality and its meaning in relation to the structure of democratic values in the 21st century”. On the first day, the 20th of November, the conference was hosted at the Hans-Seidel-Stiftung. The other three days (21st, 22nd and 23rd of November) the conference proceeded at the European School of Munich. We were fortunate enough to have an amazingly smooth conference, as a result of everyone working well together and doing their jobs correctly.
As in the previous years, the event was opened with speeches. These were held by the Director of the European School of Munich Mr. Ensing, a guest speaker from the European Patent Office, the Head of the Board of Directors Mr. Allen, the Secretary General Lisa Deletioglu and finally Julia Leeb a freelance photojournalist, who all took to the podium to address the students and teachers from all over the world and inspire them with stories, encouraging words, memories from past conferences and memories to be made.
In a MunoM conference every single person has their own role, from a Chair leading the debate and keeping order, to the Administrative Staff who work relentlessly behind the scenes to make sure that debates are able to flow and that the conference runs smoothly. Obviously some positions are more important than others, such as the members of the Executive Staff and Board of Directors who spent a whole year preparing the conference. Nevertheless, without the collective work of absolutely all participants there wouldn’t have been someone to organize a conference for and so they play a vital role in a conference like MunoM taking place.
A massive part of MunoM is the social aspect of it. Meeting people from all over the world, be it from Sweden, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Belgium or Austria creating a wonderful possibility for you to connect with other students and make new friends. It gives you the opportunity to experience new cultures and embrace them.
Without delegates there wouldn’t be a MunoM conference and so possibly one of the vital points within the week is when the delegates debate their resolutions and come up with solutions to real life problems which reflect the opinion of the respective country.
So, when two delegates were asked why they participated in MunoM, they said they’d heard and that they were keen on learning about politics and learning all about how the United Nations works. The delegates also stated that the conference helped them to improve their ability to speak in public and defend their countries opinion on a topic. The delegates also thought that the process of the debate was a lot of fun and that it helped develop their debating skills. What they did not like quite so much was that a few delegates did not stick to their opinion of their respective country but instead adopted their own opinion or made one up completely as they weren’t properly prepared.
The last day consisted of a big gathering, which included all ECOSOC’s and all GA’s along with Security Council. To close off MunoM every Chair and Deputy chair held a touching but humorous speech along with all of the Heads of the Executive Staff and Mr. Allen who thanked all of the participants and reminded them how this was only possible through teamwork. After these, a well put together video of the conference, made by the Press Team was shown concluding MunoM for this year.
All in all we would like to thank everyone for contributing and for making such an incredible MunoM happen. We hope to see you all next year.