From 1st to 4th February the “Projektkurs-English” and IB course travelled to Amersfoort, the Netherlands, with a total of 15 students and accompanied by Mr. Becker and Mrs. Brinkmann, and we were welcomed at Farel College for an international Model United Nations Conference.
Model United Nations offers an opportunity for students interested in politics and debating to showcase and practise their skills in a simulation of a United Nations conference. Every student represents a delegate of a specific country from the UN member states and sits in one of the committees, assemblies or councils, which have been assigned to them before. Very popular committees were UNICEF, UN Women, the Human Rights Committee and the Economic and Social Council. Each committee is ruled by two chairs, who moderate the debate on resolutions on important political issues. Some examples were the problem of brain drain or green tourism, combatting international terrorism or tackling the issue of femicide or child marriage.
Since none of us had participated in any MUNs before, we were all pretty nervous at first. But during the debates together with our fellow delegates from all over Europe (e.g. Spain, Norway and Turkey) we experienced the formal structure of such a debate, were encouraged to speak and present our country’s point of view in front of the committee and learned how to interact with the other delegates to be able to pass or reject certain resolutions. It was an amazing experience but also great fun as our sessions were loosened up with some introductory games, gossip writing and funny mock debates so that we also made new friends.
The atmosphere at FAMUN was in general very friendly, harmonious and relaxed and the whole conference was organised very well, which was even more impressive as it was organised completely by students of Farel College.
Furthermore, in our free time we visited the beautiful city of Utrecht and took part in a party also organised by the FAMUN executive team.
All in all, we had a really fantastic trip with precious memories. It was definitely a great experience that no one of us will ever forget.
For further information see https://www.famun.nl/
