One issue unique to online conferences came up: internet connection. “The biggest challenge during this online conference was to keep up while having connection issues. I think the communication in general was a bigger challenge than it would usually be.”, said Maria, one of our delegates in CCPCJ. Jost, who was serving in CSW had a similar experience: “It was difficult to impossible to get in touch one-on-one and make plans for joint action, which is especially important for small states.”

Everyone still had a great time and said they wanted to participate again next year if their schedules allow it. “NMUN as a digital conference was already a unique experience. On site, these experiences are then supplemented by personal contact – in and after the conference”, said Jost.

Maria remarked: “I would absolutely love to attend in Person. That would be a dream come true. To only be able to experience this in person, in real life at least once would be an experience of a lifetime I will for sure never forget.” This really shows how even through the online format, everyone was able to have a unique and amazing experience.

Working together with the delegates from the Kobe University in Japan was great! We were able to meet them briefly on a Zoom call before the conference started. When we attend in New York delegates from both universities usually meet for the first time at the conference. During the conference we saw each other during the debriefing. It was amazing how much spirit and energy the students from Kobe brought into these meetings after working through the night. We all grew closer as the conference went on and the debriefings were always fun while also constructive.

I was very honoured to be able to serve as a chair in the UNAIDS committee. It was great to get to know some people from the NMUN staff and to see the delegates work. I was glad I could support my Director and keep the committee running during the sessions. I really enjoy being a delegate and representing a country but I realised more and more how great it can be to be guiding delegates within a committee and support them in their work.

NMUN 2021 has been a very different experience and we all had to learn to adapt. I think everyone learned to be more patient and adapt to new challenges. We all hope to be able to return to New York next year, but we know how amazing an online conference can be nonetheless. Everyone made new friends and got to meet people from all over the world. It was great to have a big part of the usual NMUN experience even though we all were separated by space.

Ruth Spickermann

Students from Westfälische Hochschule jointly with our friends from Kobe City University of Foreign Studies metamorphose into Cuban diplomates representing Cuban policies in different committees at the United Nations.

We are proud, that one of our delegates, Ruth Spickermann, will serve as Chair in the committee UNAIDs.

Students will gain and deepen their knowledge, and hopefully make new friends. Our wish for the future is to meet at NMUN 2022 in person again right in Midtown Manhattan.

Soon an idea developed. We all have been looking forward to meet the students from Japan who joined us in representing Argentina. We still wanted to get to know each other despite not being able to spent a week together in New York.

So we decided to meet in a video chat. Considering the time difference between Germany and Japan and also the fact that our sleeping schedules were very messed up when we could not leave the house, this meeting started fairly early. However, almost all of us were there on time and we started to get to know each other.

First we talked a little bit about how the situation in our countries are and how we are all doing at home. Then we played a very fun game. Everyone said three “facts” about themselves, but only one of these was actually true. It was a very cool and fun experience and we even learned new things about our fellow delegates with whom we had already spent a lot of time.

After that we had several online meetings within our own delegation and we kept each other updated on what has been going on during this time. We are very much looking forward to meeting each other again in person for a gettogether to be able to still celebrate the great time we had and all the things that we have learnt.

In addition to this, we also had some other great news!

The NMUN staff did read the position papers and awarded the best papers, even though we could not perform the conference. And for the first time since our university started this project, delegates from our university won an award for a position paper. Tobias and Ruth representing Argentina in the High Level Political Forum won an award for the paper they sent in. Congratulations!!!

We met at 6 am at the train station to go to Weimar, where the 2020 GerMUN conference took place. We were all very tired and happy to spent some time on the bus sleeping, but we were also excited and looking forward to our time in Weimar.

When we finally arrived in Weimar, we just had time to get our rooms ready, get dressed and leave for the opening ceremony. The ceremony as well as the General Assembly sessions took place in an old riding hall. We were all excited for the conference, but also very tired after the long day of traveling.

Our delegate Luis had the honour to become president of the German Model United Nations 2020 conference.

I was going to serve in the Security Council, which is the most exciting but also most challenging committee at any Model UN so when we finally started the sessions, I was very nervous. The work in the Security Council was very challenging, as there not even all Member States were present so we had to give speech after speech. However, it was still a lot of fun and a great exercise to improve our speaking skills.

The work on the resolutions was somehow difficult as we were discussing the difficult topic of how to get the youth involved in the prevention of terror attacks. The Security Council also has the difficult task to consider all the veto powers, that could destroy the work of multiple days with only one vote. As I was representing the UK, which is a veto power, I was approached by the other delegates a lot. It was pretty cool to be in this position and to potentially  be able to prevent anything the others were suggesting.

It was also great to meet some people I knew from last year and to get to know new people and to get to know them.

It’s always overcoming your own fears, when giving an inspiring speach on an Model UN conference.

The other committees also worked really hard, as we wanted to finish the voting process before the delegates dance, which took place on our last evening. The Security Council even managed to discuss the other topics on the agenda and pass a presidential statement on the situation in Myanmar. It was during our time in Weimar that Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria. This was brought to our attention and we tried to bring this into the Security Council as a crisis. It would have been amazing to be able to discuss a real life scenario like that. I brought in the idea to the Secretary General and we were allowed to consider it. However, due to a veto vote, we were not able to discuss the topic and kept working on our original agenda. Later on I found out that an hour after I brought in the motion to change the agenda, the real UK asked for a meeting of the actual Security Council. 

Outside of the sessions we had a great time. We got to get to know the other delegations and we also got to know our own delegation even better.

Sadly, not everyone had such a great time. During our free time in the evening some delegates were subjected to racist behavior of some other delegates. However horrible this was, our delegation stood together against this and we are very glad that all the responsible people in the more important positions, took the necessary steps to make sure that racism and other discrimination has no place at such an intercultural event as a Model UN conference. 

However at the end of these exhausting, yet exciting days, I think we had all learned a lot and had made some really great memories. Even though this turned out to be the end of this Model UN project, we can all be proud of ourselves and of what we have accomplished. Everyone was able to grow as a person and to learn new skills. We are looking forward to when we can all meet again in person and get to have a great end to the Model UN project of 2020.

On the evening of the 17th of February, we arrived in Berlin and checked into the hostel. After the evening for our own disposal, we got up early the next morning and went to the German parliament. It took some waiting but finally we were seated in the big plenary. We heard an interesting talk about the history of the building and the structures of our government in general. After that we had the chance to talk to two employees of the parliament. They had some interesting insights into working in the parliament. In the end, we took the chance to go up to the roof of the building. This time the dome was open, we went to the top and had a wonderful view over Berlin.

After a quick lunch we headed directly to the Argentine Embassy. As we get to represent the Argentine Republic in New York, we were very honoured to get to speak to a real-life Argentine diplomat. The Embassy was a floor of an unassuming building in the middle of Berlin. We got to spend two hours with Martín Suaya, who was very nice and answered all our questions we provided before the trip. He told us with lots of information and gave us a very deep insight into the Argentine way of thinking.

In the evening we enjoyed an Argentine meal together in a small restaurant. It was a great adventure with a rather unusual kind of food for us.

On Wednesday we checked out and went to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The gentleman talking to us was an expert on Argentine-related topics. He was able to explain certain aspects of the Argentine Republic from an external point of view and even had some advice for our upcoming conference.

Our last station in Berlin was the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. We arrived in the early afternoon and had a very nice talk to the Lady who is responsible for the Latin American countries. She gave us, in addition to the other conversation, some more neutral insights of the Argentine way of live.

After this conversation we started the journey home, after 2 very eventful and instructive days.

It was on the third Christmas weekend, that the students from the Westphalian University and from Trier University came together to have their first training conference at the youth hostel Burg Blankenheim in Blankenheim.

While we were given a short introduction about the upcoming days and rules of the hostel, everybody was more than ready to start.

The first session started on Friday after everyone had arrived and ate dinner. Each student represented a country and was very much in character for the sessions. We had delegations from all over the world, including Denmark, China, France, Armenia etc. In order to give the best possible performance, we prepared ourselves with given background guides about the topics we were going to discuss about. The two topics were “Peacebuilding and Post Conflict Recovery and Development” and “Building a Resilient World Through Disaster Risk Reduction”.

First, our job was to set the agenda in which order we would like to talk about the topics. It took us all night and a lot of informal sessions, where we can talk to other delegations about the agenda setting, until 10pm and even a little bit in the morning the next day to set the agenda. We had fruitful discussions about it.

After breakfast on Saturday, the following step was to continue right where we had stopped the night before. We had a very long day ahead of us. The agenda was finally set before noon, so we were then able to stand our opinion in front of every delegation when we were on the speaker’s list and upfront. The first topic to talk about was “Peacebuilding and Post Conflict Recovery and Development”. The discussions during informal sessions could get very heated and at lunchtime the conference room was filled with students who were hungry for more debates. However, the discussions could be exhausting so that concentration would eventually come back after a good meal and a small break.

Subsequently, we were back in formal sessions, hearing good speeches about for example protecting the youth, empowering women, helping countries in need and financing all of it. In the afternoon, some delegations were going into groups to work on a working paper that later on might be adopted as a draft resolution in the committee.

We were also provided with a couple of snacks, baked goods and coffee during informal sessions, which was very much appreciated.

In the following hours, the only thing you were able to see were students working together, discussing and compromising on their working papers. Until 11pm, we kept developing and acquired what’s most important for our country and fits the needs of other countries as well.

The day was long and everybody was ready to adjourn the meeting to Sunday.

The last day has started, we cleared our rooms and put the luggage in the back of the conference room, and the motivation and determination was at its highest. Every working group finished their working papers and the delegations had the chance to read each one of them. As a result, we had 3 working papers ready to be adopted as draft resolutions. Everything came to an end, we closed the speaker’s list and voted that two of the three resolutions were adopted.

Afterwards, we had some pictures taken and packed our cars for the drive home. It was a long but very productive and educational weekend for all students and we made a lot of new experiences for the upcoming conference in Weimar and especially for our trip to New York.

There were about 50 pupils from 4 Schools present at the final conference, every one of them had to act as a delegate from their respective countries, which were assigned to them before. Moreover pupils from Latvia and Poland were joining the German delegates from Kuniberg Berufskolleg, Berufskolleg Gladbeck, Freiherr von Stein Gymnasium und Petrinum.

We started our MUNIC conference early in the morning. First the delegates had to decide what topic they want to discuss. This took some time. The USA did not want to talk about the role of youth in achieving the climate goals. Many other countries said climate change is more important than the problems with violence against children these days. Everyone gave good speeches with compelling arguments. But finally the committee decided to talk about climate issues first.

Soon everyone was involved in fruitful discussions about what the international community can do to involve young people in fighting climate change. They all came up with a lot of amazing ideas. The resolutions really show what the youth expects our leaders to accomplish in the future. It was a great experience to see the students grow during our preparation time and to support them during the conference.

For our new delegates it was important to see how a conference works and for our senior delegates it was fun to take more responsibility as a chair or as a supporter during the informal sessions.

Our guests from Latvia and Poland didn’t have as much time to prepare for the conference, but it was amazing to accompany them during the week in Germany and see them become great delegates until friday!

All in all we are very proud of all the delegates and their hard work and we hope they all learned something about the work of the UN and also themselves.

The conference would not have been possible without some “helping hands” from our sponsors: The Sparkasse Vest Recklinghausen and the Westphalian University. A specially thank you for the Kreishaus Recklinghausen for hosting our conference.

The Kreishaus in Recklinghausen will be filled with good ideas and fruitful discussions to present a resolution in the end addressing whatever can be done about the issues at hand.

MUNIC 2019: Topics

• Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) – The Role of Youth in Achieving the Paris Agreement
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – Eliminating Violence against Children and Youth

MUNIC 2019: Schedule

• 8:30 am – 9:00 am 
  Conference Registration
• 9:00 am – 9:30 am   
  Opening Ceremony | Welcome Address by Sponsors
• 9:30 am – 13:00 am 
  Committee Session
• 13:00 am – 13:45 am
  Lunch Break
• 13:45 am – 5 pm   
  Committee Session and Voting
• 5:15 pm – 6 pm
  Closing Ceremony / Guest Speaker

MUNIC 2019: Background Guide

Download Guide (PDF)

The delegation was reinforced by students from Japan

Since in the years before our delegation was joint by co-delegates from the Kobe City University of Foreign Studies from Japan. For a few years were working together with them at the NMUN conference.

It is always a special moment when the students from both Universities meet for the first time. The first meet as strangers, become great co-workers and often leave the big apple as friends. An multicultural experience we won’t miss.

First appointment: Permanent Mission of Iran

Before the conference really started, we were invited by the Permant Mission to the UN of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A great honour and great hospitality brought to us by Nabi Sonboli (Counselor) and Khodadada Seifi Pargou (First Counselor). They were spending almost 2 hours of their precious time to give us an deeper view of Iran and answer our questions in an open Q and A.

Conference days are exhausting, but fruitful

It doesn’t need much time to experience first-hand how hard the work on a common goal is, when there are so many member states present and handing in their own opinion and ideas. The fact to represent Iran, which we have applied before, was as we did expect it: Challenging but Exhausting as well!

The fact we were very well prepared made it possible to become penholder for different working groups in several committees. Topics we were discussing about were diversified: Preventing Microplastics, strengthen the rights of women and kids, regulating nuclear disarmament … just to mention a few.

After long working days and sleepless night strong resolutions were adopted which included the opion of Iran, which we had to endeavor for during these days.

Special moment at the UN headquarter

Entering the General Assembly hall at the UN headquarter was a magical moment. Sitting right there in the room where world politics actually happen was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all delegates.

Our delegate Luis had the honour to adress a short speech about the importance of the Substainable development goals to the audience. Well choosen words!

Recognization as Distinguish Delegation

The closing ceremony took part in a ballroom of the Sheraton Times Square hotel. During the emotional last words before our journey ended, our delegation was awarded as “Distinguish Delegation”. This honour is only granted to a few of the students, which came this year from more than 125 universities and more than 100 countries.

Absolutely right that we celebrated our joint success at the evening at a Thai restaurant in Midtown.

Do you want to be part of NMUN2020?

The online application form for next years’ delegation is available now. If you are studying at the Westphalian University, check out this link and maybe you will become a member of our next NMUN adventure in 2020.

Photos

Right after we arrived in Berlin at 26^th of February we headed directly to the Iranian Embassy. As we get to represent the Islamic Republic of Iran in New York, we were very honoured to get to speak to a real-life Iranian diplomat. The Embassy is a beautiful white building in a very normal-looking neighbourhood in Berlin. We got to spend three hours with Mr. Gholipour, who was very nice and answered all our questions. He provided us with lots of information and a small view into the mind of an Iranian. Personally, I feel confident about being able to stay “in character” as our professor likes to put it. As I am writing this, I am still trying to process all the impressions I got.

On Wednesday we had to leave our beds early to go to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The gentleman talking to us was not only an expert on Iran-related topics, but also has been a part of the NMUN project some years before. He was able to explain certain aspects of the Islamic Republic of Iran from an external point of view and even had some advice for our upcoming conference. Another plus was, that we got bags with gifts and snacks like gummy bears.

As we left the Ministry, we headed to the German parliament. It took some waiting but finally we were seated in the big plenary. We heard an interesting talk about the history of the building and the structures of our government in general. In the end, we took the chance to go up to the roof of the building. Sadly, the dome was closed, but we had a wonderful view over Berlin.

In the evening we enjoyed an Iranian meal together in a small restaurant. It was a great adventure with a rather unusual kind of food for us. And some Safran ice cream for dessert.

Full concentration on GerMUN 2019

On Thursday we left for the GerMUN conference at Wannsee. I was very happy to meet some of the people from Trier that we had already met in Blankenheim. But I also got nervous as the first session came closer. There were so many different delegations that seemed well prepared. Then, after I totally screwed up my first speech in front of 50 delegates and others, the last bit of confidence had left me. But the session went on. The agenda was set, and I found a working group with some great ideas. As the sessions went by, we developed good ideas and even a strategy to achieve our goals.

And then it was time to find merging partners, as we were told to reduce our 8 working papers to 3 draft resolutions. I talked to many different delegates and working groups. They all said, they didn’t see any way they could merge with us. I found myself getting really frustrated as the time went by and the deadline was getting closer and still, we had our very lonely working paper. It was exhausting to keep up talking to people without getting advice even when we asked for it. Finally, we found another paper to merge with and I could feel the stress leaving my body.

It’s not always easy to be a delegate

But not only for me it was quite an exciting time. For two of our delegates it was their first conference as they were not able to attend the conference in Blankenheim. It was great to see how everyone tried to help them as good as possible. Others had a hard time representing their assigned Member State. I will not forget one of the most relaxed delegates telling me that he cried for 30 minutes after he felt like all the pressure was gone. I think everyone was able to learn something about themselves and we all saw how we could make it through a stressful and exhausting conference.

The most fun we had, of course, at night. I had some great talks and discussions with other delegates. Not only about the conference but also about the bible, gender-roles and racism, to name just a few topics. Everyone there was very openminded and had a great way of explaining their point of view which led to very enjoyable discussions. I made some great connections and I am looking forward to seeing them again in New York.

At our last lunch after the closing ceremony, I think most of us felt exhausted and were looking forward to our beds at home, but we were also very euphoric and proud of ourselves.

We had some very exhausting days with much to less sleep and some very long days. I feel very proud to be a part of this project and this delegation. It was some very hard work, but I was able to learn a lot about myself and others and I made some friends from all over Germany and even the UK (as there was one delegation form Southampton).

Gallery: GerMUN 2019