International UN Model
A Special UN Model
BDS has participated for the first time in the THIMUN (The Hague International Model United Nations) Latin America Conference, organized by the THIMUN Foundation, that took place on August 14th to 16th at the The British Schools in Montevideo, Uruguay. This was the fourth international THIMUN Conference after The Hague, Singapore and Qatar. The theme of the Conference was Latin America, transformations and challenges ahead.
The THIMUN Latin America Conference was a 3-day simulation of the United Nations for secondary school students, offering an excellent opportunity to expand, develop and put into practice English language skills, on an informal as well as a formal level. All the associated activities such as preparing resolutions, lobbying and debating were carried out in English. The object of the Conference was to seek through discussion, negotiation and debate, solutions to the various problems of the world: questions of human rights, protection of the environment, economic development, disarmament as well as the critical issue of war and peace.
Highlights
Our delegation was assigned Guatemala and was formed by the following students: Delfina Cappa and Alex Mysler from S6L, Sofia Terán from S5L and Martina Freire, Malena Fronza and Candela Kalaidjian from S5H. The conference started on the 14th at 10 am and ended on the16th at 4 pm. and took place at the beautiful campus of the British Schools in Montevideo. Around 25 schools were present from several Latin American countries and over 300 delegates. Our students did an excellent job debating, defending their resolutions and viewpoints. For example, Martina Freire, as delegate from Guatemala was main submitter of the resolution on the topic “Encouraging education about sexual health and behaviour” in her General Assembly committee, and Alex Mysler was able to lobby successfully and convince other delegations to vote against a resolution that did not make a point of protecting civilian population from drone attacks in the Disarmament Committee.
Our students profited immensely from this experience and had a lot of fun. This will encourage our younger students to participate in the future and thus get acquainted with the problems our XXI century world has to face and discuss solutions and attempt to solve those problems, even though it is role playing. Congratulations delegation of Guatemala!
Mónica Bruck – Head of Humanities, Middle & Senior