Salopian efforts recognised at Manchester MUN

Last weekend the Model United Nations team went to Manchester High School for Girls for an MUN conference involving 250 delegates from 16 schools. 

Nine Shrewsbury delegates were representing Italy and South Korea in various committees, and in the course of the weekend, some of our team members distinguished themselves in the various debates in different committees. 

• James N (Ph, III) got an Honourable Mention in his committee   
• Siena G (M, LVI) won a Commended Delegate award in the highly competitive Human Rights Council. 
• Oscar R (PH, LVI) won the Outstanding Delegate award in his committee

James reflects on the MUN conference. 

From the 5th to the 6th of February I attended a conference at Manchester High School For Girls with the Shrewsbury MUN team. At first, the whole experience was daunting, I was in a room with 250 other delegates from 16 different schools as part of the opening ceremony. I had not been to an event as big as this since the start of covid.  

The opening ceremony consisted of a number of speeches from the various organisers of the event such as the Secretary General and the Head Chair (all pupils at Manchester High), but to all of our surprise Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary appeared. She gave a very inspiring talk about the importance of young people speaking out on the things they care about, and she was the one to officially open MUNHIGH.  

From there onwards we all split up into our different committee rooms to start the debating. My committee was the EnviroSci (Environment and Science) Committee, and we mainly debated issues relating to climate change such as the issues of Deadwood and the Warming Atlantic. Whilst most of the other delegates there were much older than me, after a while, I was able to build up the confidence to get involved and eventually got to present the resolution that I had prepared and brought to the conference. Although my resolution eventually failed in the vote, everyone there was really supportive and was able to provide advice.  

On the second day of the conference, we took part in something called the “Crisis”. This is where all delegates have to work together to solve a problem. Along with partaking in some really tense debating, I was also able to have fun in the form of “joke amendments” and to meet new people.  

MUN is a really good place to improve and develop important skills such as public speaking and critical thinking, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who’s interested in debating or politics.