This is an article from the latest issue of Linkiesta Magazine + New York Times Turning Points 2022 on newsstands in Milan and Rome and can be ordered here.
Let’s talk about guys. And of a great game, which for once shuns weak thinking. Rest assured: nothing to worry about, no new esoteric frontier of youth communication to explore and try to decode. On the contrary, for once a declination of the concept of “social”Which travels on dynamics and finalizations that are not digital at all, indeed, so analogous as to be made up of words, speeches, comparisons, negotiations and written documents.
Yet everything can still be – don’t be incredulous – a game, even though a game can represent an educational activity and an experience that could even become unforgettable. Is it a speech that sounds strange, in the scenario of consumption and behaviors of 2022? Follow us.
“Model United Nations”, abbreviated to MUN is the name given to the educational simulation in which students learn the rudiments of diplomacy, international relations and the functioning of an organization such as the United Nations. By participating in one of these events, called the “MUN conference”, students work in small groups, each one charged with representing the interests of the nation that has been entrusted to them, in order to solve a series of international issues by simulating negotiations to be undertaken. with the delegates representing the other nations of the world.
Participants in a MUN include middle school, high school and college students. English is the official language of the simulation and delegates are required to wear formal attire for conference work. The MUN teaches participants the skills of research, relationship building, conversation, discussion and writing. Even more, it challenges them in developing critical thinking, teamwork and honing their skills leadership, as well as developing a deeper understanding of major international issues in students. It is practically impossible to participate in a Model UN session with a passive or non-participatory approach: for the students involved it is an immersion in a new and collective world, which resembles nothing that has been experienced in the school experience up to then. .
Before the actual conference, the student-delegates conduct in-depth research on the issues they will have to face and the crisis situations they will have to help solve: they formulate position papers and create policy proposals that they will discuss with the other delegates of their committee. At the end of a conference, which lasts 2 or 3 days, all delegates will vote on political proposals, called draft resolutions, with the aim of seeing them pass by majority vote. The best performing delegates on each committee, as well as the most effective delegations, will receive awards.
The UN model was born in the 1920s as a series of student simulations of the League of Nations. The first was held at the University of Oxford in November 1921. In 1922 the president of the first Oxford International Assembly, Mir Mahmood, went to Harvard to present the idea. The Harvard Liberal Club organizes the first American international assembly in 1923 and it will be Harvard itself that will take up the baton in the dissemination of this educational module in other countries of the world. After the Second World War, the model takes inspiration from the newborn United Nations.
The first United Nations Model Conference takes place at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1947, with the participation of 150 students from 41 college Americans. On the occasion, the delegates simulated a General Assembly through the confrontation between the delegates of the Member States on the issues of “international control and development of atomic energy” and the creation of “a treaty on disarmament” and for the promotion of the “reconstruction of areas devastated by war “.
For over twenty years in Italy, MUNs have been organized under the name of “Change the World Program” by the Diplomatic Association, an NGO with status consultant at Ecosoc founded by Claudio Corbino and specialized in the training of young people from all over the world through highly specialized training courses. Every year over 6 thousand international students participate in CW-MUN and, with them, experts, ambassadors, former ministers, former heads of state and government, sports champions and artists, who discuss with young people on current issues of international geopolitics, in the offices of New York (at the UN Headquarters), Dubai, Rome, Brussels and Singapore.
Students are offered the enrichment of skills necessary for an entry into the world of global work, in a perspective that takes into account chances in the world of diplomatic careers and international study paths. So far the method and the training offer.
There is something more, though. Let’s call it the “youth factor”. If a guy decides to add to his own routine scholastic effort necessary to become a serious part of such an experience means that he will live it with all the trappings of exceptionality. The journey to reach the venue, the knowledge and contact with dozens of colleagues from all corners of the planet, the solemnity of the places starting from the United Nations General Assembly Hall, and the presences that await them – the former president of the United States Bill Clinton, to make a name – project these days and the moments that make them up in a sphere of exceptionality with which even the thousand lights of New York or the futuristic wonders of Dubai struggle to rival.
It is an experience contained in a few days but destined to become memorable and it is a growth factor that can produce acknowledgments in the head of a teenager looking for their own directions. It means finding yourself projected for a weekend in the center of the world, still wearing the education seat belt in progress. It may be that in the next day things will no longer be the same.
Linkiesta Magazine + New York Times World Review on newsstands in Milan and Rome and can be ordered here.
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