Model UN – First mock debate at Brookhouse

Waking up at 6 o’clock to find out that there is no hot water in any tap or shower anywhere at the boarding is not the way I wanted to start the important day that yesterday was, but then again T.I.A.

15 people woke up at this ghastly hour on a Saturday, ate breakfast and were driven to Brookhose School for their first mock debate ever. 15 students who knew nothing about mock debates, resolutions or what the hell they were doing up that early, all 15 so nervous they thought they’d die, of course I was one of them.

This mock debate, and the others to come, are part of the coarse called Model UN that I’m taking, which is going to lead up to a huge role play in February where we’re supposed to pretend to be the UN voting for and against different resolution that we students have written. About 800 students or so from around the world will be apart of the February debates and the mock debates that we are going through now are there to prepare us for that. Every school has divided its students who are taking this coarse into groups of five and then been given countries to divide amongst the groups that the students then will represent. After being given a country you are supposed to choose a subject that your group will write your resolution within. These subjects are political, human rights, economy or ecology. Every person within the group are also expected to choose which subject they want to represent and appoint an ambassador who is to read the resolution that the group comes up with at the huge role play in February and also at the mock debates.

Does this sound complicated to you? Well it is, we’ve been trying to understand what we’re doing since we started this class but none of us really has a clue. We just play along.

My group got Bhutan as a country, 600 000 people live there, 12 000 of them are monks… We are working within the human rights subject with Frida as our ambassador. I am in the economy group most because I’m the only one who has read any economy at school (not nearly enough though). The worst part is trying to understand all the abbreviations being used, because seriously how am I supposed to know that GDP means BNP? I will be forced to sit all alone, cut of from my fellow countrymen in a huge hall with other economy delegates and in this hall I am expected to vote either for or against the economy resolutions that will be presented.

The best part is that usually students take this coarse 2-3 times just so that they’ll get the hang of it but we are thrown right into it. Also most of the participants have the advantage of having English as their mother tongue. Still yesterday went really well and 2 out of 3 resolutions from the Swedish school were passed! In the room I was sitting in 2 out of 14 resolution passed, the Saudi Arabia resolution being one of them (also from Swedish school) so you see very few resolution usually pass, maybe we do have a chance to do well in the real role play too.