Model United Nations
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization meant to create peace and maintain international order. The entire Sophomore class participated in the United Nations simulation, focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis. Each student represented a country that was in any way related to this topic. We studied our countries and the stance they had on this current issue. I represented Israel, who had a very interesting point of view on the refugee situation. The students were split up into 6 committees, each one containing one representative of each country involved in the subject at hand. I was Committee #6's Israel representative.
Israel information
Israel is a very small Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean sea. This country has a 75% Jewish population, making them the large majority. Israel is considered the "Biblical Holy land" by the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religions. Israel happens to be one of the very minimum Middle Eastern countries run by democracy, this makes them good allies with the United States. Currently, Israel is accepting very few refugees from Syria because to them it feels like a threat. Since this country is so largely Jewish, they fear that bringing in a large amount of non-Jewish people could change the majority, the character if the country and the way it is run. The Israeli citizens feel uneasy and overwhelmed around these people for this reason. However, they are not staying completely silent. When they take in refugees, if they are injured they will fully take care of them in their own hospitals.
An article I found useful
I found this article very useful because its not to long but it still gives you a good insight into Israels thoughts on the issue. I found this article by looking up "Israels opinion on Syrian refugees." then I went through each URL to make sure that the article came from a reliable source. From this website, I found out that 75% of Israelis are Jewish. I always knew that Israel is majority Jewish but it was cool to find out the exact percentage.
Position Paper
Writing my position paper was incredibly difficult. My first and second draft were not my best writing pieces. If I'm being completely honest, I'm most proud of being able to get it done and to have it make sense. My first draft had a lot of necessary information missing, because I couldn't find a way to incorporate them in without having it make my writing sound choppy. In my second draft, A lot of the gap holes were fixed but this time the information I was missing was in the shape of bullet points. After a while of struggling I was finally able to reach a point were I was happy with my paper I finally felt comfortable with the length and the amount of information in it. A very helpful critique I received, was that some of my information was repetitive and somewhat useless. This helped me realize that I was repeating things to add length to my paragraphs. I took out the repetition and ended up with a shorter but certainly more professional paper.
Opening Speech
My opening speech was similar to a condensed version of my position paper. Since my position paper was already written I found it very simple to write my opening speech. I didn't actually change much of my opening speech, the majority of my critiques were on the way I delivered it. Many mentioned that I had good information but it was hard to understand since I talked to fast. I worked on slowing down while speaking and I think it really did help me be more clear and confident in the conference.
My Conference Experience
Personally I am the most proud of myself for speaking more than I though I would. Events like this make me nervous and feel as if what I'm saying is wrong, especially when people don't understand the point I am trying to make. I did speak a couple of ties and I am proud of that. As a committee, I am proud of us for keeping peaceful (for the most part) even when we had to change our opinions in order to make more than just one resolution. If I were to do MUN again I would probably speak up more and If I had an opinion or an argument that I would share it rather than sit down and let the countries who were mainly speaking take care of it. For students next year that are going to do this project and want to be fully prepared, I would just recommend that they do as much research as possible and really have a full understanding of what their country has to do with and thinks of this issue.
Key Moment
I think a key moment from my committee personally would be when we were all speaking of our concerns with both resolutions and many people had different opinions but in the end we were all able to agree on a resolution. I liked this moment because it showed that even with everyone having a different opinion, we could still come together and form a resolution because in the end we wanted the same results which was to help the refugees.