By Emilie Buijtendijk, student DP1
MUN is a great experience that I have been able to share with a few wonderful people. When it first started with MUN, I signed up with 2 of my best friends for something new, which I had never done before. We went into the experience with no idea what was to come, yet with an open mind and ready to learn. The first experience was difficult. I wasn’t as thrilled with how the conference went as it was a bit boring, and I wasn’t confident enough to actually go up and speak, yet somehow, I was excited about more opportunities like this.
Community of MUN fanatics
When the opportunity came up to join other MUNs around the Netherlands and be a delegate or student officer I was overjoyed as I was not only excited for the experience itself, but I was also excited to do this with my friends. We built a little bit of a community of MUN fanatics that would go to all the MUNs together. With this group we attended multiple MUNs either as delegates or student officers and we eventually even went on a trip to Rome. We fuelled our excitement into planning and somehow managed to plan a trip all the way to Rome. During the Spring Break we attended the huge and very professional conference in Rome. Fortunately we also had time to explore the city!
Our love for MUN spread so far that Teja and I decided it would be a fun project to host our own at school. We started it as a little joke idea, thinking it would be fun, but it somehow became a lot bigger once we started learning about CAS projects. People around us doubted us as there were only a few months left until the date we had set, but we were determined. We planned everything quickly, built a team, and made sure to think of every detail. We also took the time to trained the students who signed up, teaching them how to be a delegate.
A passion for global relations
In the end we somehow pulled it off and hosted our very own Model United Nations. It was a huge success, with students truly representing their assigned countries, and young students with no experience putting in the effort and doing so much better than I ever did when I started. To say I am proud of the people who joined is an understatement. It is beautiful to see how signing up for a small thing that looked like fun became a huge project only a year later. Now we are hoping for the next generation of MUN fanatics to continue the tradition and hopefully host another conference next year as I belief that ISUMUN is the first step to developing a passion for global relations, learning about relevant topics, and practicing diplomacy.
