The United Nations is an organization that brings most of the countries in the world together to discuss peace and well being. Model United Nations is a variation of the regular UN, except instead of actual representatives, students play the role of delegates from around the world. It is usually an extracurricular activity that students have the choice to participate in if their school offers it. Students are assigned a country to research and figure out specific values in order to write policy papers and resolutions on a certain topic. Once the student is an expert on their country, an issue is assigned. The delegates will write a policy paper about the issue which includes the background information about the topic, their country’s view on it and how they can help/contribute, and a short paragraph to brainstorm resolution. After policy papers are written, delegates move into creating detailed resolutions. Resolutions have two parts called preambular phrases and operative clauses. In the preambular phrases, the issue is addressed, much like the first paragraph in a policy paper. After you have educated readers about the issue resolutions are created in specific wording with details is separate sub-operative clauses. After each delegate has thought about realistic ways to help the issue, delegates have a conference, lead by chairs. During the conference, the issue is discussed then a solution is elected in motion.
During this project, I strengthened skills but I also can keep working on some as well. I think that I strengthened my critical thinking skill and have room for improvement with my perspective skills. I had to critically think about solutions to solve hard topics and shift my perspective to another country. Critically thinking was very hard because I always had obvious answers to each question, but thinking deeper and harder was a challenge that I got to work on in this project and strengthened. During this project, I also got to experience another perspective of a whole new country. I learned a lot about Turkey and the culture of the country. It was hard to completely shift my ideas and solutions to a new country and think of resolutions to solve a worldwide issue. I could’ve worked on this more because I do not believe that I was an expert on my country and if I would’ve done more research I could’ve been a more educated delegate. Turkey has very strong opinions about both of the issues that our class looked at so that was easy for me to understand and react on.
This project changed my thinking about global issues by making me think a lot more about other country’s values and how they handle issues. It was interesting to think about how Turkey reacts to refugees and how they deal with them. I learned a lot more about climate change and how Turkey is affecting it. At the beginning of this project I thought that the United States was the biggest contributor to global warming but after discussing climate change with my peers and how their countries contributed and handled it I found out that the United States is not the one to be concerned about. In fact, Turkey is heavily reliant on coal-fired power so they are huge contributors to changing the climate. Plus, they are not looking to change that anytime soon so when we conference about climate change, I had to be very stubborn and limited to ideas. Something I will take away from this project is how many of the countries are allies. In order to propose amendments, you had to have a team behind you that supported your change and ideas. Turkey is allied with surrounding countries like Iraq and Jordan. So it was fun to discuss amendments and resolutions with people that my country values.