BY AINDREE CHATTERJEE, HEAD OF SUMMIT PRESS TEAM
In our series of articles, we have repeatedly talked of the work of our amazing student leaders, but how can we not congratulate our amazing student presenters from MUN Impact Global? After a lot of careful deliberation and discussion, our Workshop Vetting team has decided on the amazing students, who will be presenting at our Global Summit 3.0 to elucidate to us the ways in which the youth are passionate towards various causes. We have received a ton of student applications, and have selected those, who have demonstrated unparalleled enthusiasm and have come up with a catchy concept.
Our Session 1.B will be hosted by Amaya Ranatunge, a 17 year old high school student from Sri Lanka, who is serving as Co-Lead of Plenaries and one of the South Asia Diplomats for MUNI Global. Her content will be focussed around marine pollution and ways & means of reducing marine pollution, and is called Think Blue and Go Green. Session 3.A will be conducted by three of our most promising student contributors of the 100K Deeds Challenge – Luna Mercuri, Komal Gupta and Tanisha Saxena and is called Climate change: impacted terrestrial ecosystems? When asked about their session they told us, “the workshop will talk about the impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. The main topics to be discussed are: what SDGs 13 and 15 are, the United Nations Environmental Programme, harmful impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems, such as vulnerable/extinct species, our field experience and a description of an action campaign organised by MUN Impact, the 100K Deeds Challenge.”
High school students: Meera Ranjan (Head of India, 100K Deeds Challenge) and Prince Santosh Kumar (Diplomat at MUNI Global) will be presenting Travel Responsibly! – Sustainable Tourism, on the very same day, 3rd September. “The COVID 19 Pandemic has set back sustainability by many years of efforts. The Tourism Industry is one of the worst hit and countries are working to revive it. During this revival, it is important that sustainability is ensured simultaneously with development. This workshop will inform participants about the importance of sustainable tourism, and how they can help as tourists/ citizens to foster sustainability in their communities”, they explained.
On Day 2, Session 10.A will be hosted by 17 year old Maria Teresa Egea Diaz and 14 year old Tanisha Saxena, of 100K Deeds Challenge. Their area of focus is SDG 8: What has COVID-19 changed?. “The aim of the workshop is to discuss different viewpoints on the topic and highlight the idea that all actions count to achieve the 2030 Agenda. At the end of the session, participants will be able to ask questions and take part in a quiz”, they have described. Day 3 will also see Maria and Meera host a workshop, this time on Equality? Equity? Take your pick! The workshop will explain the theme of equity and its relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals.
MUN@Home students, Chandrasnata Mohanty, Heidy Cho and Anastasia, will speak out on the positive aspects of MUN@Home in their workshop titled MUN@Home – Bringing Model United Nations Into the Future. “MUN@Home strives to bridge the gap between MUN and student initiative through an SDG-based approach. While taking from the traditional debate spirit of MUN, we want to empower students to not only discuss these issues, but take action within their communities and beyond. Come join us in our workshop, where we will talk more about the motivations, functioning during the pandemic, and the inner workings of MUN@Home.” they opined.
Shennon Sequeira, Zarya Sharma and Lois Lemmon of MUNI Global will be speaking on MUN Impact in their workshop, MUN Impact: Uniting the world through the SDG’s. Another fellow high schooler and South Asian Diplomat under MUNI Global, Naduni Kalungalla will be hosting Session 13A on 5th September itself, with “Education Is not A Luxury, But a Basic Need” as her main topic. MUNI Europe DSG Lois and our Summit’s Secretariat member and Assistant DSG of Europe, Rita Araújo, will be presenting their thoughts on The SDG library: how books and stories can help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the next session.
We have had students step in at the last minute to take part in the press team, admin team, social hour team and even to speak at the forums. We are really grateful to all our student presenters and speakers and hope to have an amazing Summit 3.0!