Our Stories – Page 20

Plug-in Model United Nations: connecting clubs through tech donations

By Evan Williams, MUN Impact Reporter

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We live in a world which is dominated by technology. Without access to computers, phones, or some other device with the capacity to connect us to the internet, we might as well make like Thoreau and settle in for the long haul of a hermit’s life. All jokes aside, it is a gravely serious matter. Students who are left without adequate resources to technology and the benefits that come with it can easily be left behind—can miss opportunities. What a great misfortune it would be for brilliant young people to remain hidden, for their ideas and creations to fall through the cracks merely due to lack of something as basic as a functioning computer.

Two years ago, Madison Swanson recognized just this possibility. Then a senior at John Burroughs School in Saint Louis, Missouri, she was inspired by her experiences at THIMUN, and in particular, her interaction with the HELA (Hope in Education and Leadership in Afghanistan) delegation, to start Plug-in Model United Nations (PiMUN). The mission of PiMUN, according to Madison, is to “further the MUN education of students in less developed countries (LDC’s) by giving them access to used, fully-functional laptop computers.” The business model is fairly simple, yet effective. In its essence, PiMUN works as such: schools, businesses, organizations, and individuals who have technology for which they no longer have any use can have the devices’ memories wiped, then send them to PiMUN. From there, the devices will be sent to those in need. Former recipients of PiMUN devices include HELA, the first MUN delegation in Afghanistan, as well as Skateistan, a group who strives to “empower youth through skateboarding and education.”

Madison and PiMUN embody what is great about MUN: it connects people. Whether these connections be emotional, intellectual, made in person, or made online, they work towards a global community working towards solutions to real world problems together. PiMUN allows students from all across the globe to confer via Skype, to chat about resolutions, breaking news, ideas, or just chat if they so please.

Today, Madison attends George Washington University in Washington D.C. Tomorrow, she could very well lead some unforeseen global initiative. The beauty of it? We’ll know when that happens—all of us will, HELA and Skateistan included, because we’ll get the news alert on our computers and/or phones—because we’ll be connected.

Peace and MUN: Salam Centre connects communities through Model United Nations

Salam Kedan is the Founder of Salam Centre for Peace. Salam is an international thought leader in the MUN Impact community, and fierce advocate for the use of Model United Nations to break down barriers and to promote intercultural dialogue, one delegate at a time.

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My name is Salam Kedan. I am 22 years old and I found my voice through MUN. My first experience joining an international conference was through an online organization called Online Model United Nations. Through this experience I’ve met, for the first time in my life, students from all around the world that led me to eventually discover my identity because of my interactions with them, and the questions that I got that otherwise, I would not think of if I didn’t travel outside my city.

This discovery made me feel ashamed of myself; I was living in ignorance which is very dangerous. I am a Palestinian born with Israeli citizenship, and was raised to believe that I was Israeli. I was left completely blind to my history and true identity. I thought that my situation was normal, that it’s ok to not be treated equally because I am not good enough, that there are different classes and my class is not respected. After joining international MUN conferences, meeting many students from all around the world, and saw how their lives were, I realised that my situation was not right. It was not ok for me to be treated this way. It was not ok for my community to forget their history and have their identity erased.

Often when I meet someone for the first time, they have no idea about my situation. We don’t have a voice, which is something I deeply believed needed to be changed. I started working with Online MUN as the Middle East and Africa Assistant Director. I then began to organize my own MUN travel teams, so that other students could have some of the same experiences I was having. I reached out to students from my community to travel and join international conferences-to have a stronger voice together. The first delegation I arranged with Online MUN was to THIMUN Qatar in 2014. I had two students from my community on the online team. Meeting and interacting with Arab and Muslim students was very interesting; both sides became more enlightened and knowledgeable about each other. My voice became more confident and story grew bigger in my community, and more students wanted to join. I’ve travelled with more than 20 students from my community to international MU N conferences. But I finally decided in 2016, along with the students that I had travelled with, to open our own organisation that would be aimed to raise awareness and connect students from all around the world. This was when we started Salam Centre for Peace, a non-profit organization based in my hometown of Baqa al Gharbiyye. We opened our Centre in September 2016.

Ever since we established the organization, we have been able to send more than 80 students to international conferences under the name of the Salam Centre. It’s been a great success, and we are still trying to do more, to raise awareness about the SDGs in our community, to be active members of society, to empower the youth and encourage them to make a difference and to improve our living standards. We found that MUN conferences create some of the best environments for students to connect regardless of who they are. We are planning to host our own conferences soon, to welcome students from all around the world to come and meet us and see how life is for young people in our community, but how beautiful (and changeling) it can sometimes be.

Joining MUN gave me a bigger purpose in my life and opened up many opportunities for me. Up until now I have joined more than 30 conferences. I have been invited to speak at seven international conferences as well as invited to join a meeting at the UN and represent my organization because of my experience with MUN. So all I can say now is that I am very grateful for all these opportunities that are now contributing to a much bigger difference. Grateful for meeting many inspirational people that inspired me to do more. To Ms Lisa Martin who always pushed me to do more from day one, who encouraged me to give my first speech at the Hague when I was shaking while delivering it. When I was extremely shy to even introduce myself to new people. So thank you very much! You made MUN impact me and my life the way it did. To Ryan Villanueva for the great summer course that taught me a lot about MUN, made me more confident, and for the inspiring conversations about MUN and its power. To Nabila Elassar for always being there and believing in me. To

Ibrahim ElKazaz, for learning about my existence from my first presentation at QLC, then challenging the norms and volunteering to visit and teach MUN to students in our community. To Maryam and Alya for starting their own charity at such a young age for refugee women who were some of my biggest inspirations. To Rahmat, Suliman, Mursal… The list could go on and on to the many many more inspiring people that I met through MUN. All these interactions got me to where I am today, doing the work that I am doing

A Life Changing Journey that started with MUN

By Océane Balbinot-Viale, Former MUN Delegate

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“What a life-changing journey“ I thought, as I was sat on the plane taking off from the international airport of Accra, Ghana. I started reminiscing about the past month I’d spent in the countryside bordering Kumasi, one of country’s largest metropolitan cities. Where I’d lived during my time there however, there was not a single sign of industrial life in sight. The muted-yellow savanna extended as far as the eye could see and a car driving past our house would be the most unusual event of the day, if not the week. When I say our house, I mean mine and eleven other volunteers’: I’d travelled to Ghana at the end of my first year at university in the hope to give life to the debates I’d found so fascinating in my high school MUN years. I’d become mesmerised by the idea of youth empowerment and sustainable livelihoods, and had thus applied to volunteer in Ghana through a locally-run organisation. I was unsure as to what to expect; I’d been so confidently debating the ways to go about concepts of environmental mitigation, human rights and systemic gender issues in MUN, that every conference had ended up feeling like a second home. Yet, here I was, in a new environment, without a microphone and resolution in hand, nervous but determined that I could contribute to meaningful change. After all, my MUN experience is what had convinced me to take a leap of faith and throw myself into the deep end. I reached the fundraising target required by ThriveAfrica, the organisation through which I’d applied, before the departure date and knew then that there was no turning back.

I’d be lying if I said the four weeks I spent in rural Ghana were easy. They weren’t. We all quickly realised that, with the twelve of us there, we’d need to cut down the numbers of showers to one per person per week, among other things. Yes – I know – that sounds ridiculously low. We were all having to move beyond the every day comfort we’d always taken for granted and realise that we were still luckier and in a better position than most people in the country. During my time there, I worked on developing children’s homes and providing environmental education. This experience gave me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apply my MUN experience to real life, and, vitally, help sew the seed of environmental conservation to the indigenous community. I had thorough knowledge of the multilateral governance of these issues, gained through the many conferences I had attended, but helping local peoples become agents of their own success was truly a journey I’ll never forget. The impact you make by helping to empower even only a couple of people, is priceless, for it transcends time and will be passed down from one generation to the next.

I wouldn’t have thought in a million years I’d one day have the confidence to get out of my comfort zone to this extent if I hadn’t done MUN. MUN empowered me, so I could empower others. And that’s where the success of these conferences lie; in the ability to create vision; for the people, for the planet, for the future. Vision will drive you, and it’ll drive progress. As writer Jorge Luis Borges puts it, “wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two”; I kindly invite you to reflect on this. MUN will not give you answers, it will do better: it’ll teach you to ask yourself the right questions. I was once an insecure, doubtful, overwhelmed middle-schooler, but I was lucky enough to engage in MUN somewhere along the way, and it challenged my perspectives forever. I grew, not only as an individual but also as a leader, I became a curious mind and an engaged soul. Six years after attending my first ever MUN conference, I started an internship at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya. Isn’t it incredible how some things come full circle? Regardless of what happens now, I know my journey won’t stop here and I hope you know yours won’t either. This generation has so much to offer to the worlds of research, diplomacy and policy-making, if only we gave ourselves a chance to succeed. MUN already has.

MUN for India: Back to the Basics

By Nikunj Agarwal, Worldview Staff

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High School Model UN in India is about a couple of decades old. In the past decade, there has been an explosion in the number of participants, and, consequently, in the number of conferences that are hosted in the country each year. Now almost every large school, college and university hosts its own annual conference, and the participation numbers are only growing.

Unfortunately, however, this trajectory has carried with it a large shift from the core values of Model UN. The focus on collaboration and knowledge sharing has been lost to extreme and fierce competition, boosted by increasingly aggressive debate and delegates. The overall quality of the learning experience has also deteriorated, due to an absence of knowledge leadership and consolidated approach. Meanwhile, the rapidly increasing number of conferences hosted with very little Model UN experience has also led to many of them having to offer extravagant social events, fantastical committees and – in certain cases – huge monetary awards, in a bid to attract more delegates.

Finally, the explosion of Model UN has also meant that more and more delegates, faculty, schools and even parents, now view Model UN as a checklist item on students’ profiles and do not, instead, focus on the students’ growth and learning. Many students attend over 10 conferences each year in an attempt to outdo their peers, but few truly use the platform as a stepping stone.

‘MUN for India’, an initiative by Worldview, is a refreshing effort to counter these challenges, by redefining the accessibility, quality and scope of Model UN in the country. The initiative comprises a series of free-of-cost local Model UN conferences that are being hosted in collaboration with local schools around the country. The series is already underway, having engaged over 1000 students across six conferences so far.

Worldview, through its initiative called MUNCafé, has been an early pioneer of Model UN and is responsible for some of the country’s respected high school conferences including Harvard MUN India, Ivy League MUN Conference India, and WFUNA International MUN India. Armed with the experience of hosting such conferences, and having witnessed the breadth of Model UN around the world, the organization felt the need to introduce such an initiative, which was officially launched on September 25 – the day that the global goals were adopted two years ago.

This initiative represents a radical shift in Model UN for India in that it is focused on empowering delegates, faculty members, parents and schools by providing knowledge leadership and learning resources, while building a new generation of delegates who view Model UN for what it is: a learning platform to improve one’s skills and awareness, share ideas and knowledge, build innovative solutions, and create a positive impact.

Worldview believes that platforms like Model UN must necessarily engage the current generation – Gen Z – and must afford them opportunities to develop their leadership skills. The incidence of impact must also gradually shift from mere awareness creation, to inspired and active solution building. It is only by becoming a Generation of Solvers – Gen S – that the youth can define the future of the country, and the world.

The conference series carries no registration cost, and is largely hosted in non-metropolitan cities to offer opportunities that transcend barriers of income and geography. Further, the initiative upholds international standards and quality, besides focusing on the training and development of not only the students, but also the faculty advisers, through immersive workshops and leadership forum sessions.

Thus far, the initiative has hosted workshops and lectures from the likes of the Georgetown International Relations Association, Coca-Cola India, The Takshashila Institute, the Guriya Foundation, Utkarsh Microfinance, and more, besides hosting distinguished educators, speakers and local changemakers. Such knowledge partnerships have helped not only in maintaining international quality standards, but also in expanding the Model UN ecosystem to include more stakeholders, especially from the areas of sustainable industry, education and non-governmental organizations.

Instead of paying a fee, delegates are encouraged to commit their time and knowledge towards creating a positive impact on their immediate communities, especially under the umbrella of the sustainable development goals. For instance, delegates may choose to translate the global goals into their mother tongue or local language as part of the SDG Translation Challenge, to create greater awareness. As part of the registration process, delegates also pledge to personally adopting any goal that they are most passionate about. The conference agendas also reflect the global goals closely, and revolve around the themes of poverty, gender, water, sanitation, climate change, and food security.

The response from delegates, faculty and schools for the initiative has been overwhelming, and the host schools have been extremely supportive of the vision, committing not only their resources but also, and more importantly, their time to in elevating the overall experience. The scope for such an initiative is vast, and seemingly unlimited, as it travels to different cities across the country, producing in its wake, a new generation of delegates and kick-starting a bottom-up movement in the ecosystem to refocus Model UN to its core objective: positive impact through people development.

The Munual: A Guide to MUN Program Development and Expansion Availability

By IMPACT staffwriter, Si Yun Ee

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The Munual was developed in Taiwan by a group of High School students two years ago, who were inspired by their passion for Model United Nations (MUN). It is a student led initiative with the primary goal to improve the local MUN community and environment. With their experience, members and student leaders of Munual aim to contribute to the MUN community by sharing their experiences, knowledge and key takeaways from the conferences that they have attended. This also includes the importance of helping their audience, Taiwan delegates, and to help them recognize that MUN is more than a debate society or social event. Rather, it is the experience to recognize each individual’s connectivity and responsibility to that entails them as a citizen of the global community. Ansen Lai, a participant at Hsinchu Model UN(HSINMUN), a local conference in Hsinchu, Taiwan, says that “Whether delegates are new or experienced in MUN, Munual comprehensively prepares each participant from start to end” such that, the initiative aims to not only promote MUN as an outlet for global association, but for MUNers to readily take on lessons from their own MUN experience to be impelled to make a difference in the world.

The Munual also provides MUN guides and tips in both English and Chinese for The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) and UNA-USA Model UN procedure. Doing so assists the attainment of sustainability for MUN programs throughout Taiwan. Especially in local schools where the issue is more prevalent, those lacking funding are able to establish an MUN program or team on their own without seeking external training for rising student leaders or interested directors. In doing so, these schools that are lacking in resources are able to provide their students interested in global issues and debate a new form of collaborative international program. The guides provided by Munual ranges from how to guides, to introducing what the United Nations is, as well as tips specific to different conference types. For example, the preparation process detailing the difference between THIMUN and UNA-USA.

Audrey Hsu, one of Munual’s founding student leaders when asked why she joined Munual, says, “ I believe that MUN is a great activity that connects you to the rest of the world. There are a lot of criticisms in regards to the MUN community in Taiwan and I recognize this to a certain degree, that’s why I joined the Munual, to make the environment better.” Such criticisms include the divide between local and international schools MUN programs in Taiwan, wherein, local schools don’t have enough resources and lack of accessibility to these resources due to language barriers. Munual took upon the initiative to provide bilingual guides and everything publishes is available in both English and Mandarin. In her years in high school, she has worked to continuously improve the online site Munual provides but also through her experiences, enforce to future MUNers especially in Taiwan that “MUN is a great way to connect with others locally and to find a common interest with your peers.”

The Personal Impact of MUN-My Story

By Nick Yeh

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In International Relations 101, students learn three different perspectives, worldviews or theories that are differentiated based on who plays the game. In realism, states are the main actors and agents that dominate the discourse. In liberalism, states and organizations share that realm. In constructivism, that level goes even further allowing individuals to have agency as well. Ever since I began studying IR, I’ve been always drawn to the constructivist theory as I recognize how individuals make a difference in the world as well as in my life. In this MUNImpact story, I want to share how certain individuals in my life made a difference, and led me down the career path that I’m on today.

Nick with Darby Sinclair and Kristin Rowe of Taipei American School

My MUN journey began as an 8th grader, a member of a test-group, to see if middle schoolers had what it took to participate in MUN. I was nudged or pushed, by one individual who saw my potential and guided me into this brand new world. Mrs. Rowe, a 8th grade humanities teacher, and Mrs. Sinclair, a high school history teacher both whom I never had, invited me to join this new program. Little did I know that Mrs. Rowe and Mrs. Sinclair, would become more than just “MUN Directors” and “Club Sponsors” and actually be mentors that I continually look to for support and advice. Their passion for MUN easily transplanted itself into my life and I became a devoted MUN delegate. I became enamored by the crises we explored, the debate style, the rigor and the formalities. As I moved into high school, I entered into the high school MUN arena and found myself being pushed to explore new opportunities within that sphere. I took on leadership roles, organized conferences, introduced our school to an Online Model UN organization, and later helped build connections between my high school and THIMUN. With every step I took in MUN, I was backed by the support and care from these two individuals. To this day, they are people that I look up to when I explore my own teaching and pedagogical style. They weren’t teachers that I actually had in class, but I still learned way more in my interactions with them, than in some of my classes.

It goes without saying that when I talk about my MUN career, I have to talk about Ms. Martin and how she changed my perspective of MUN from just Taiwan and East Asia to the world. After briefly engaging with her on e-mail and skype, I found myself in charge of the regional wing of Online Model United Nations in Taiwan, focused on outreach and program development. Because of my commitment, Ms. Martin invited me to join the first O-MUN travel team. As the years went on, and I became more involved and rose the ranks of O-MUN, I continually relied on Ms. Martin as a mentor and as a colleague. When I became Director, I found myself constantly asking questions about how I could continue her vision. Her commitment to students around the world, and not just within her own classroom, has inspired me to be a teacher like her. Because of the opportunities she provided me, I have been able to travel to The Hague, run an international non-profit and meet and work with amazing students all around the world.

I’ve often said that I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher since middle school and that sentiment is true. However, I feel like I would be a very different teacher than I am now without those three individuals in my life. I’ve had the opportunity to mentor and work with students throughout my high school and college career and I constantly look to my mentors for inspiration and advice. My story is very much indicative of those who were there to shape me into the person I am today.

The beauty of MUN is that it pushes students, adults, members of a greater community to strive to make an impact in the world they live in, whether as delegates, problem-solvers, activists, educators and more. MUN has made a huge impact on my life, but it is really the individuals behind the conferences, the classes and the debates that have cemented my drive to be like them. It is my goal, to make a similar impact on my students, to allow them to share their story of how MUN has changed their lives. Years ago, I was a naive student who walked into a room with 15 or so other nerds looking to change the world. Today, I’m a Masters candidate at Tufts University for my teaching degree in High School Social Studies, excited to change the world, one student at a time. That’s my MUNImpact.

American School of Doha’s MUN Club supports youth empowerment in Afghanistan

By Neil Udassi and Nada Haddad

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This year, we set out with the goal of transforming our ASD MUN club from an advocacy group into an activist organization. Our delegates come together to debate some of the world’s most pressing issues, yet, we, ourselves, do little to effectuate the change we so passionately advocate for. It simply isn’t enough to debate these issues when we can play an active role in contributing to their resolve. This vision garnered support from both our faculty advisors and students members who, too, saw it as a means of bringing to fruition the solutions we avidly debate. Our club’s leadership decided to pursue a service initiative in hopes of doing our part to support positive development in the MENA region and set up a sustainable system that may continually support such projects now and into the foreseeable future.

Our efforts were put towards supporting HELA – a youth non-governmental organization based in Kabul, Afghanistan that focuses on providing opportunity for underprivileged but ambitious students in the field of International Affairs through Model United Nations. The HELA story, their work against the forces of war, corruption, poverty, and terrorism in Afghanistan to create a meaningful change within their communities, has served as an inspiration to us all.

American School of Doha parents and students supporting HELA’s MUN program

Our club’s goal for this year was to sponsoring the passage of a full delegation of HELA students to THIMUN Qatar – the 3rd largest MUN conference in the world. We did, however, encounter an unprecedented challenge: the current GCC crisis. The Saudi led blockade against Qatar restricted air routes and thus left our service group with tripled ticket price to subsidize. We had to reevaluate our plan of action from bringing in monetary contributions through student led workshops and conferences to contacting corporations, airlines, parent-groups, and private-donors in hopes of raising the sufficient funds. Working with external groups was a challenge in itself, as the US embassy had to sanction which organizations we could work with. Nevertheless, after many written proposals, presentations, meetings, negotiations, and emails, $19,500 was secured to bring a full delegation in January thanks to contributions from ASD’s Parent-Teacher Association and Arab Mothers Association, MyGym, Jazz Cafe, Turkish Airlines and Nakheel Landscapes.

HELA Graduates First Women’s Empowerment Cohort

By Rahmatullah Hamdard, Founder and CEO of HELA

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The Hope for Education and Leadership in Afghanistan (HELA) organization has successfully graduated the first 20 women of their Women Empowerment Project.

During this project which lasted for six months, the students learned managerial skills, leadership skills, entrepreneurial skills, and negotiation and marketing skills. These will enable them to start their own initiatives, promote them on a large scale and serve their society as equals to men.

This project was led by a HELA leader Ms. Negina Shinwary, so the project was “by women for women!”

“We learned such skills which we never learned before and which are the most important skills for an Afghan women to contribute to her society” – Mahboba Karimi” – Graduated student of this project.

Ms. Negina Shinwary hopes to start this project next year again with new attendees.

HELA believes that women have equal rights to contribute to their society!

HELA is an NGO started by MUN delegates Rahmatullah Hamdard, Sulaiman Sulaimankhil, Mursal Saidali and Madina

You can see the entire HELA Leadership Team here.

MUN Thought Leaders Summit and the Launch of MUN Impact

Carried forward by the positive momentum of #QLC17, two dozen MUN thought leaders, educators and representatives from the United Nations met at Qatar Foundation’s Headquarters to discuss best practices around the idea of Model UN as an impactful and engaging activity, and to formulate a plan that would allow for a new community to develop around that IMPACT. Lively discussions emerged as participants grappled with how to define impact as evidenced through MUN engagement. It was also an opportunity discuss related topics that often become part of larger discussions around MUN: is it elitist, can it be made inclusive, and is there a way to bring different types of MUN under one community and find areas of commonality instead of focusing on differences.

In addition to thought provoking discussion, participants were treated to a visit to HQ’s 8th floor viewing platform, providing some incredible views of Education City and some pretty awesome photo ops. Qatar Foundation’s impressive and inspiring Headquarters, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was a fitting venue to bring together such a distinguished cohort of MUN leaders, pushing new boundaries and conceptualizing a new direction for MUN engagement and impact on a global scale.

What is MUN Impact?

MUN IMPACT

The Model United Nations community is an army of untapped foot soldiers, an enormous community of delegates who care deeply about the role of the UN in the world and the mandates it is tasked with carrying out. The MUN community is, however, a diverse one, with regional, procedural and institutional cultural identities that limits interaction between programs.

One thing many MUN programs do care about, no matter their operating procedures or conference structure, is IMPACT: promoting and working to make Model UN impactful for its participants. Impact can be personal, at the delegate level and leading to more informed, more skilled and more committed global citizens, or more outward focused, where MUN becomes a driver for community engagement and a commitment to promote and help the UN do its job. This external focus of IMPACT has many different looks, from a conference measuring food waste and getting participants to change their habits, to a group of MUN delegates who start an NGO in Afghanistan to teach Model UN, women’s empowerment and leadership. MUN programs have been impactful for a long time. MUN Impact, as a community and movement, aims to focus attention on these practices, and to act as a call to arms for all MUN programs to use their communities to put IMPACT at the center of what they do.

To this end, a group of MUN delegates, directors, and thought leaders, through meetings at the Qatar Leadership Conference, have conceptualized this new community around IMPACT. With your help, we aim to create the following:

Community: Through our presence on social media, we will rally around #MUNimpact, to share stories of the impactfulness of our programs, and to move a conversation on how impact might help unite us in support of UN mandates and goals, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals. Anyone can jump in, initiate, share or join a conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Resource Hub: Through a website ( currently in the planning stages), an MUN Impact blog and website will give us a platform to share stories, and to act as a repository for resources to be shared with others. If your MUN club ran a great service project, you can share that idea so that others might adopt it? If you were inspired to start a Peace Center, tell us how that happened? If you made a commitment that your conference would reach out to under-served students to get them involved in MUN, how did you do it? A resource hub can be a home of MUN initiatives with the hope of sharing our best practices.

UN Gateway: Even though MUN delegates and organizers think or hope they are doing the work of the UN, they often aren’t. Even with good intentions, finding resources, or staying true to what the UN is doing can be challenging. Often UN resources are hard to find, or packaged in a way that make them inaccessible to the general public. The MUN community would also like the UN to know what IT is doing, and to engage in a dialogue so that this army of delegates can mobilize to support the United Nations, particularly in advancing progress around the SDGs. In the months ahead we hope find that entry point, the place where that dialogue and exchange can take place.

Face 2 Face Impact: We need to find ways to come together around IMPACT. Setting our different procedural rules and MUN cultures aside, we need to find places, events and programs where we can work together, to talk about MUN, but most importantly, to make IMPACT. In the months ahead, we will begin to figure out this important piece of the puzzle. It will be an exciting one!

Right now we are starting where all movements need to start-at the beginning. We invite you to join us and others who are already doing great things and using Model UN to make a real difference in people’s lives. Follow us on social media, use the hashtag #MUNimpact, and sign up here if you’d like to help us in growing this movement.