Model United Nation conferences (MUNs) are conferences that simulate a session of the United Nations. The idea is to give adolescents the opportunity to get a first impression of international politics and diplomacy. All conferences try to get as close as possible to the real UN. There are three main aspects which help to reach those standards.
- The structure
This is mostly about the debates and the committees. The debates have special rules of conversation and are always led by a chair, someone who is in charge of the procedures during a debate. Debates are either held in Forums (committees or commissions) where the participants debate about two to three issues with several other delegates of different delegations. These issues refer to the topic of each Forum, for example “Social and Humanitarian”, “Economic and Financial” or “Special Politics and Decolonization”. After that, all delegates either go to the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council Assembly, where they come together with delegates of the other committees or commissions
- The language
The language during the whole conference is English. This helps to make the conference more realistic but is a matter of course, since we’ll be having international students visting the conference.
- The dress code
This is something very important. The dress code defines, what delegates are allowed to wear during the conference – and what they’re not allowed to wear. The dress code mostly contains the term “western buisness clothing”. This has a simple meaning. Male participants need to wear a suit, tie, shirt and suit shoes. Female participants are allowed to choose: Dresses, suit trousers or skirts combined with a shirt or blouse are in order, which means that they fit the dress code. No matter what, all these things need to be combined with a a blazer with at least one button. If your clothes are not in order, you’ll get a punishment, which is a unusal but nice way to start off with the rather fun things.Having those three main aspects cleared up, let’s get to the additions around a MUN conference.
Punishments may not seem to be a fun part of MUNs but let me ensure you: They are part of the fun. That is, because Punishments at an MUN are to be self-thought by participating students and they’re used to punish misbehaviour like missing the Roll Call at the begin of a debate or not fitting the dress code. Those punishments can be everything: Stealing the cookies of other committees, make a proposal to someone you maybe never even talked to before or karaoke singing in front of the Forum. No matter what, the punishments are great fun for everyone watching them. And if you can show some humour, it’ll also be fun for you.
- New (international) friendships
MUNs are great to get to know new people. Many of the students from the Klosterschule have made lots of new friends and often they even taking long journeys just to visit each other. The best friendships often develop when delegates host each other.
Hosting is another essential part of the MUN Conferences. It is usual, that students who come to visit a conference in another city or abroad are hosted by local students for the time of the conference. This is where the really strong friendships grow. After spending a whole week together, you’ll be really sad that you or your guest has to leave – but you will be just as happy when you meet again.