THIMUN through Zoom?
Students featured in this article:
Johanne is currently in the 2IB class. She has been elected as the secretary of the MUN board here at Nesbru.
Aksel is in the 1STH class (which is intended for those who plan on applying to the DP for their last two years of high school). He has been elected as the Co-head of Drafts and Promotions.
The Nesbru Model United Nations (NESMUN) club is one of the most established student driven activities at Nesbru. Every week on Thursday, students from the IB classes, gather for MUN sessions, where they usually debate various hold debates on and make amendments for real-life world issues. This is all done through the perspectives of the countries they each represent.
It’s been a long standing tradition for students in the IB program at Nesbru to attend several MUN conferences both in Norway and outside of it.
However, due to the current situation regarding Covid 19 that has struck the world hard, this is no longer possible and most large conferences have been either cancelled or moved online.
One in particular is THIMUN (The Hague International Model United Nations), held at the end of January each year in The Hague. This is when students from Nesbru would normally travel all the way to the Netherlands to attend this conference for a week along with over 3,200 equally as engaged students from all over the world.
This year however, the event has been quite different. Instead of travelling over 1,000 km to attend THIMUN, it was done through the very screens of their computers.
Let’s see what two of the attendees of this conference have to say about the unusual circumstances in which it was held:
Aksel:
“Despite it being online, they managed it fairly well. The only problems were the servers crashing every two seconds, which was just a digital issue. Apart from that, THIMUN was a really good experience. We were in lobbying groups with people from Argentina, Kuwait and Taiwan, all over the world really!”
Johanne:
“A lot of time is wasted due to technical difficulties like setting up Zoom calls in different meeting rooms and such, so we definitely could have saved some time if it was in person.”
In case you still need an extra push to join NESMUN:
“It’s really great CAS, it’s Service because you are discussing world problems and their solutions and you’re also being creative through writing speeches, making amendments and contributing to the discussions.”
- Johanne
“If you already like debating, MUN is a good choice for you, because you get to do more of what you already like. If you are not as good at debating but you want to improve, MUN is also a really good opportunity to do that.”
- Aksel
Article by: Jessica Liu, Transcripts by: Helen Langridge