by Jeffrey Troyer
Over the years, GESM’s Model United Nations Club has grown through participation in prestigious conferences like Yale MUN, Model UN Assembly, BMUN, XMUN and the list goes on. But on September 20-22nd, an amazing new chapter was born: the hosting of our very own Model UN Conference! The gathering together of over 140 delegates from 28 different schools in the Philippines made dreams turn into reality for our student leadership team.
Kicking off the event on Day 1, the students were treated to opening remarks by our very own German Ambassador, the honorable Dr.Andreas Michael Pfaffernoschke. With a wealth of personal experience and stories in actual United Nations and diplomatic arenas, what better way to start things off? But there were more professional speakers to come. In succession following the ambassador, the eager student-delegates heard from Paranaque City Government Attorney attorney Jet Frias, the Honorable Attorney Patricia Yvonne Caunan, Undersecretary for Policy and International Cooperation and finally, Ms. Ostelle Ople, representing he Blas Ople Policy Center and training institute. These addresses highlighted many personal and civic challenges they students might face in the course and in light of the conference theme ahead of them: “Resilience and Unity: Safeguarding and Ensuring Sovereignty During Times of Crisis”. Fun and entertainment followed as our talented GESM Band (Kai, Asha, Santino, Alex, and Shivank) took the stage to performed some hits to get the crowd in a great mood to head off to committees.
Day 2 dawned and things were just beginning to heat up after the previous day’s committee openings. Creative offerings like the League of Gods and Historical Committee Axis/Allied powers at the Battle of Stalingrad allowed the delegates to role play while learning history and diplomacy. Other committee for the inaugural GESMUN included: ICJ (International Court of Justice); HRC, JCC and the UNSC. Capping off a day of passionate speech making and diplomacy was a time to let their hair down and have fun in the “Socials Night” where music and entertainment flowed.
Day 3 dawned and the last of the resolution debating done before it was time to head to the final plenary session for the awards ceremony and final speeches and hugs goodbye.
This momentous event, months in planning, was spearheaded by our very own talented and hard-working GESMUN Secretariat: Maria Cassandra Capinpin (Gr. 12), Navya Sharma (Gr. 12. Along with the chief leadership, the following stellar support made it all a huge success: Zara Van der Tak (Gr. 12) Director of Marketing and Social Media Manager; Ayaana Singh (Gr.12) Chief of Public Relations; Nathania “Jia” Chiu, Co-Chief of Press; along with Audrey Van Veldhuizen (Gr. 12); Yam Ben Ari (Gr. 12) Director of Human Resources; and finally the team of Jasmin Leicht and Bianca Froelich who served as Graphic Designers and interview team to round out this amazing leadership group. We would also be remiss not to credit the tireless work of Carlos Galvez IV Gr. 12) and Nelson Celis III (Gr. 11) as Operations Managers to make the event flow smoothly from start to finish.
GESM students also participating as chairs or the DAIS for the full three-day conference were Nathania “Jia” Chu (Gr. 12), overseeing the League of Olympian Gods; Navya Sharma and Cassie Capinpin for the JCC committee and Crisis Managers; Hanna Seo as a rapporteur for the HRC Committee and Reeja Subramanian (Gr. 12), who served as head chair for the JCC Committee. Finally, Nadreen Khadur (Gr. 12) and Muhammed Saad (Gr. 8) served well as committee delegates for the conference.
On the whole, the GESM students and staff who organized, volunteered, attended and participated walked away with a great deal of satisfaction and confidence, not to mention lasting relationships and memories. We look forward to many other Model UN events this school year including the Model UN Assembly we have participated in each of the last eight years. This has traditionally been held at the stately United Nations WHO building in downtown Manila, always a pleasurable venue and well-run conference!
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