Mundunsa in Madrid
Mundunsa in Madrid
Members of SIB Amsterdam who participate in the MUN and Personal Development Committee of SIB Amsterdam “MUNDUNSA” visited Madrid to participate in Harvard WorldMUN, the Olympics of Model United Nations. This is their experience.Last week Mundunsa spent 8 days in Madrid to participate in Harvard WorldMUN 2019. Harvard WorldMUN is the Olympics of Model United Nations. It is the most premier simulation of the United Nations, held in a different city each year. At such simulations, students pretend to be a country in the United Nations debating and negotiating with other students in a committee of the UN to agree (or not) on a resolution. MUNDUNSA got to represent the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.On a grey and drab Friday morning the members of Mundunsa were arriving at Schiphol Airport to take the plane. The conference wouldn’t start until Monday, but we decided to take an extra weekend to explore Madrid and prepare for the conference. We were hosted at “The Hat” in Madrid, a trendy hostel right off Plaza Mayor with an excellent rooftop terrace. We were welcomed with blue skies and a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius. Not bad after weeks of rain, wind and grey skies in the Netherlands.
During the weekend our delegates were busy preparing their speeches and strategies for the coming time. However, for those up for it there was also time to explore the city and visit sights such as the Royal Palace, the Prado Museum and some even went on a hiking trip to the Sierra de Guadarrama outside of Madrid. We all got to enjoy the great food of Spain and the amazing hospitality, helping to prepare us for the conference. On Sunday, the first social activity of the conference already started with a club night.The conference began with a rather chaotic process of registration as certain delegates were not yet fully recovered from the night before. There was a gap between registration and the opening conference which already led to the first round of lobbying and socializing between delegates before the conference had started. There were intense security procedures and screening as the opening conference featured a range of prominent speakers. These included the Mayor of Madrid, the Minister of Education (also a former astronaut) and notably the King of Spain.
Then the conference fully began. Many of our members were in “General Assembly” committees with 150 countries, each represented by two delegates. One is supposed to be in the committee debating aspects of a topic and a resolution while the other is outside of committee lobbying and writing a resolution. While before the conference some had been slightly disappointed with being Afghanistan – hoping for a more prominent country – this disappointment soon abated when our delegates saw that others were representing the Marshall Islands, Equatorial Guinea or the Holy See.
In between days of debate and lobbying – which were intense due to the academic level and the sheer size of committees - there were nights of social events. These included Global Village – where different countries showed off their culture. Quite often this came down to their local variety of hard yet cheap liquor. There was also Cabaret Night where different delegations showed off dance performances from their respective countries.In the end the delegation had a good time and found training for and participating in WorldMUN to be a great experience that they learned a lot from. Furthermore visiting Madrid and meeting delegates from across the world was fun. MUNDUNSA is currently looking towards future MUNs to participate in. Do you want to train your debate and negotiation skills while travelling the world and meeting people from different culture? Keep up to date with our activities and send us a message at mundunsa@sibamsterdam.nl