By Andrew Newman
Today I was given the Zulu name Mandla by Ditzwali (D.T) my guide through the South African township of Soweto. It is a translation of Andrew, greek for strong, brave and courageous. But D.T. had another reason for giving me that name that truly moved me. But let’s start with why I am in Africa.
My MUN students from Burroughs have made a lot of connections with students from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. There have not been a lot of students from African nations at our conferences. But there are numerous conferences in Africa. I wanted to see one for myself. The Johannesburg Model United Nations conference (JoMUN) run by the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) is a THIMUN affiliated conference. I figured I’d have a foot in the door and indeed they accepted my request to come as an observer and representative of MUN Impact. While the dates of this session would probably not work in our Burroughs calendar, I still wanted to see for myself this smaller and highly acclaimed conference.
Long flight to JNB booked? Check.
Invitation to JoMUN? Check.
Knowledge about African history? Clueless.
The least I could do before my visit was do some reading about Apartheid. Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime were powerful to say the least and incredibly informative. I would strongly recommend hearing the audio version of Born a Crime, as Noah does the narrating himself. While still feeling pretty ignorant, once I learned that the conference theme was Africa Connecting, I had no doubt I would learn so much more from the students through their resolutions on topics focused on issues relating to the Continent, eg. addressing the issue of soil degradation and its effects on the agricultural sector in Africa, ensuring the independence of the African economies from debts and bankruptcy to foster sustainability, and addressing and possibly inhibiting Foreign Direct Investment throughout Africa.
The conference was connecting 250+ students from fifteen schools and seven African nations. They came from Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. It was exciting to hear the students, some who were born, but all who live in Africa, talk with passion and curiosity about issues that affect their daily lives. In other words, I found the students took ownership of this theme and were invested in its outcome. I can’t think of a better recipe for success at an MUN conference. And they genuinely wanted to interact with each other. I believe this generation, more than ever, understands that connections made at meetings like this, in addition to connections made on social media platforms, can really make a difference to improve their schools, their community, and their society.
My connection to the conference was the MUN Coordinator and librarian at AISJ, John Kurtenbach, who knew me only from the research he’d done on the internet, probably finding a photo in my Waldo/Wally outfit. Yikes! Regardless, as I arrived on campus fresh off 20 hours of traveling we immediately connected when he threw his arms around me in a huge embrace and then threw me into a room with the advanced debaters as their keynote speaker. For an hour I connected with these students by letting them share with each other their experiences (successes and failures) at MUN conferences and then I shared stories of action/projects/initiatives that I believe inspired them to an understanding that their work over the course of the weekend could lead to positive and impactful work that supports the Global Goals and thus making the world a better place for humankind. We talked about Hope for Education and Leadership in Afghanistan (HELA), Plug Into Model UN (PiMUN) and the Burroughs Tampon Drive. The Secretary General of the conference made reference to the quote by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. While MUN students often silently think that there is no way a single, simple project could be so impactful as to receive recognition from the real UN, I was there to say that nothing could be further from the truth. The United Nations IS listening to the voice of our youth. More than seeing our youth rise up in protest, MUN students are putting forth real, tangible, sustainable solutions that support the SDGs and that work is so important even UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated at our UN/MUN Summit meeting in April that he saw the MUN youth as his colleagues, working towards a common goal.
I spent the next three days connecting to the students and teachers at JoMUN who wanted to learn more about MUN Impact. As we talked about their initiatives they started in school clubs and activities I helped them make connections to which of the 17 SDGs and targets their projects aligned. It was almost a game for them and once the connections were made they all lit up with excitement and pride. Going around the world, talking with MUN students and directors to help them make these connections……by golly I love my sabbatical work!!
For more of Andrew’s post on his visit to Soweto, go to his Where’s Newmo blog and check out the rest here.