Introduction

On Friday 19th March 2010, the Year 10 students of Waddesdon COE took part in a Model United Nations General Assembly (MUNGA) day. The MUNGA day focuses on students learning about different countries, their problems and finding solutions to those problems. It is about leadership and empathy for others.

The students were placed in groups of 6/7 and allocated a country from the UN approximately four weeks prior to the MUNGA day. The groups were tasked with conducting their research on their country with a specific focus on the three biggest problem areas in the country. Each country chose a spokes person to deliver their country’s introductory speech, which was approximately 1 minute in length.

On the day, students were asked to wear smart clothing and a few took the opportunity to wear clothing representing their country. Each country had an assigned table with their respective flags.

The Agenda

The day consisted of student presentations and discussions on resolutions. The agenda for the day was:-

• 09.00 Welcome
• 09.10 Presentation by Mr Abbott
• 09.20 Individual country representations
• 10.10 World Vision presentation
• 10.35 Break and lobbying
• 11.05 Committees* debate resolutions (classroom)
• 12.25 Return to hall for HIV/Aids presentation
• 12.45 Lunch
• 13.30 Delegates register
• 13.40 The final five resolutions
• 14.00 discussions within countries
• 14.10 short break
• 14.20 Whole assembly debate and voting
• 14.35 final resolution
• 14.50 closing comments and thanks
• 15.10 delegates depart

Welcome and Introduction

The day opened with Mr Abbott (the Deputy Head), playing the role of the Chairman of the UN. He addressed the room as the delegates of the UN and thanked them all for attending this General Assembly. The Chairman stated that the aim of the day was “...to reduce the 72 resolutions we have before us, down to five and then to one, which will be voted on...” There was a gentle reminder that the work on The 7 Habits that the students have done may be an effective way of working together.

Individual country representations

All 24 countries were then given an opportunity to represent themselves and the 3 biggest issues currently facing them. The countries were called upon in alphabetical order starting with Australia. Some of the phrases used by the students were as follows:-

Australia

“we need to become more proactive in parliament”

Brazil

“you will help us as we will help you” “ ... there will be consequences”

Colombia

“diversity of culture can enrich...”

Egypt

“to help us, help you...”

Indonesia

“we are ready to reduce our carbon footprint and want others to follow our example”

Israel

“...it will help everyone if we reduce war and terror...”

Liberia

“these issues cannot be dealt with by us alone”

Russian Federation

“nothing can happen without your trust and support”

Saudi Arabia

“..to increase the freedom of choice through education”

S.Africa

“If we all work together, we can help each other”

UK

“if we work together, we can make our problems go away”

“we would like to help you and need your help to do this”

USA

“Together we can make a difference”

World Vision presentation

World Vision is an organisation which works to make a serious and sustainable impact on poverty and its causes. World Vision is committed to change and speak up for those who are marginalised, by influencing the policies of Governments and international bodies. It is able to address the underlying causes of poverty. Maggy Collins was a representative speaker for World Vision and she talked about how they have practically helped and given to the needy.

Committees debate resolutions

After a short break, the delegates from each country, were asked to go to the respective rooms where they wanted to be represented. The five committees were Health Epidemics, Conflict/State Security, Global Economics, Child Exploitation, and Climate Change. Certain countries choose not to send representatives to attend some committees as the issues were not prevalent in their country.

I observed the Child Exploitation committee debate and this is what happened:-

The delegates were informed that the purpose of the next 1hour and 20 minutes was to come up with one resolution on Child Exploitation that they wanted to take back to the Assembly. To do this, each country was given 10 minutes to prepare their recommended resolution to Child Exploitation and will have 1 minute to present this to the other countries in the committee. Delegates were asked to think Win-Win with reference to two questions they should be asking themselves:

• Does this help other countries?
• Does this help my country?
• During the 10 minute preparation time, a few countries had discussions about what a Win-Win could look like and Zimbabwe talked about giving food and farm produce to those who offered to help it. Iran? suggested that it would be willing to give economic aid to other countries for education, if other countries brought their oil.

When the countries were given their 1 minute to present their resolution, education and raising awareness was part of the resolution for 11 out of the 15 countries in that committee. As a result of hearing this from the majority of countries, the “them and us” divide started breaking down as there was a realisation that most people wanted the same thing for the children of their countries. Approximately 20 minutes into the committee debate, the focus had shifted from “what’s best for my country,” to “what’s best for the children”. This created a different debate about how to reduce/eliminate child exploitation, but more importantly what was causing it. The committee created a list of all the things that they believed would help reduce/eliminate child exploitation:-

• Advertising
• Free schooling/education for all children
• Shelters for prostitution (before and after)
• More targeted education
• Increased security systems to stop trafficking
• Benefits given to children in needy situations
• Raise the minimum wage as a lack of finances is the cause of prostitution
• Educate families
• Challenge the “sweat shop” trade
• Police training

Seeing this list in its entirety raised questions on whether the aim was to prevent child exploitation happening in the first place or was it to help those who were currently in it. This lead to the list above being divided into 2 key areas Education and raising the minimum wage. The delegates were asked to vote on which one they believed the resolution should focus on and the voting was as followed:

• Education – 56% in favour
• Raising the minimum wage – 44%



The voting established what the resolution will contain and the two sections that needed to be decided on were the Preamble (the broad facts about child exploitation) and the Operative Clauses (What will need to be done to reduce child exploitation)

After a healthy discussion, the following was agreed:

Resolution on Child Exploitation

Preamble:

• Children are badly treated across the world
• They are forced into prostitution
• They are trafficked
• They do not all have access to schools



Operative Clauses:

Members of the UN contribute money to countries in need. Countries where child exploitation takes place can use their money to:-

• Raise the min wage
• Stop child prostitution
• Stop child trafficking
• Invest in education



The Child Exploitation committee voted to carrying this resolution back to the Assembly and there was a vote 100% in favour of this resolution. A spokesperson was selected to share this with the Assembly.



Return to hall for HIV/Aids presentation

Upon returning to the Assembly, the delegates were given a presentation on HIV/Aids.

The final five resolutions

The Chairman asked the spokesperson from each committee if they had reached a resolution in their committees. The answer was Yes, all five committees had reached a single resolution to present to the assembly. Each committee was given 5 minutes to share their resolution and answer questions from the audience this is what happened:

Climate change:-

“Imagine if we all contributed to reducing climate change...what do you think could happen?”

Questions asked were about:

• The value of educating children on climate change, as the room was full of educated delegates, who still choose to pollute the world!
• Challenging that fact that there are bigger problems in the world than climate change
• How they proposed to get buy in to this resolution from the biggest polluters

Health Epidemics: - “we want to educate children on ways they can prevent the spread of viruses in Africa as a whole”

Questions asked were about:

• How they proposed to fund the education of children/adults during a global economic crisis

Conflict/State Security: - “we need to be able to trust that others are telling us the truth...”

Questions asked were about:

• How they proposed to get every country to honestly declare their nuclear weapons
• The value in having state security where the law enforcers are corrupt
• The importance of destroying nuclear weapons since we have never had a nuclear war

Global Economics:- “If every country saw themselves as a piece of the same jigsaw, we could all fit together” “...we need to sell and buy from each other to keep ourselves moving... every country has something to offer oil, produce, etc lets sell it and lets buy it”

Child Exploitation “we need to raise the min wage so that more money is earned by families and thus fewer children will be exploited to raise more money...” Here recognition of cause and effect was becoming very evident between all the committees such that the questions were not against the resolution, but about the best way to eliminate child exploitation as this was a “Big Rock.”

There were some questions and some statements and they were about:-

• What has min wage got to do with child exploitation?
• Raise the min wage of whom? (Children/adults?)
• The importance of educating the children of our world as they are the future leaders


Discussions within countries

The delegates were given 10 minutes to discuss which of the 5 proposed resolutions their country was going to vote for. They are challenged to increase their circle of influence by getting other countries they had existing partnerships with to come to their way of thinking during the short break.

Whole assembly debate and voting

The UN assembly was asked to vote on one of the five resolutions as individuals not as countries. The voting went as follows:

• Climate Change 14% in favour
• Health Epidemics 13% in favour
• Conflict/State Security 9% in favour
• Global Economics 2% in favour
• Child Exploitation 61% in favour

It was agreed that the one resolution to debate was Child Exploitation and one delegate said “today’s children will have to deal with the white waters of the future and it’s our job to equip them with the education that they will need to do so...”

Final resolution

The final discussion was about whether the UN was going to adopt the Child Exploitation resolution or not and this was opened up to the entire UN Assembly to debate. I noticed that a distinctive change had occurred in the language and paradigms of the delegates. In the morning, there was a lot of talk about “my country” “its’ problems” “you must help us”. By the final resolution this had changed into “our global problem” “our children” “all of us” “our future” “education gives freedom of choice” “empower our future generations.” There were a lot of opinions being expressed about the importance of education and our children and delegates started to respond to each other from across the hall, which was indicative of the high levels of listening amongst the delegates.

After a 20 minute discussion on Child Exploitation, each country was asked to vote in favour of the resolution or against it, and the voting was as follows:

• In favour 67%
• Not in favour 29%
• Abstaining 4%


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