Model United Nations

With MUN Students of Lahore International school

Colombo Model United Nations (COMUN) with over 500 representatives could be quite intimidating but having been a part of the process before I was ready with my research and eagerly waiting for the day. I hosted three girls from Lahore, Pakistan and that is definitely a new experience for me and an interesting personal learning. COMUN operated between 5/3/2010 to 7/3/2010 and it was an opportunity for me to develop my debating skills as I stated at the beginning of the year. I was in Committee One and I was the representative of Zimbabwe. It indeed was a challenge to represent Zimbabwe when the central topic of discussion is Human trafficking. I learnt so many facts about human trafficking such as, it is not done just for sex trade and not all the victims are women and children. Eventhough my country Zimbabwe was a challenging one to debate, I managed to talk few times. Below is the definition of Human Trafficking.

MUN is a creative activity because Every student need to do role play. We need to feel one with the country that we are representing. This Role play can be very challenging especially when you are representing a country that defies your beliefs. If we do not sound convincing in our argument for the country that we represent, we'll be shot down by the representatives of the developed countries in no time.

On day 1 we debated "combating the illicit trafficking of human beings caught in armed conflict" and on day 2 we debated "exercising the responsibility to protect". MUN gives us great insights into social issues that we do not really focus on, day to day. I attribute this for my social awareness and great interest in related world issues to a large extent. It gives us an opportunity to know and understand the horrendous crimes and grievences, that are inconceivable to us living normal lives in distant places. MUN also gives us an opportunity to come up with diplomatic resolutions and in the process helps us to develop our analytical skills and also to not be judgemental.

So, this experience of representing Zimbabwe taught me to research as much in detail as possible because to find their positive acts was rather difficult. I learnt to speak with conviction and also write resolutuins rather fast, in less than 45 minutes. I learnt to take a stand for Zimbabwe and supported war in the process, which is against my personal conviction. I said, "In a situation where Libya fails to hand over the persons responsible for the death on the Chinese Ambasodor, Zinbabwe would be willing to use its full military might against Libya."Thus I can say, MUN helped me develop my role playing skills.

On Days 1 and 2, each committee operated independently but on day 3 General Assembly convened at Water's Edge. A near nuclear war between China and Taiwan was the 'Emergence Topic' that was debated on the day. I did talk on the day and I am proud of my accomplishment. Public speaking, I have to say is not an easy task, especially if I have to speak in front of 500 delegates but once I am there I love it. It is something that I enjoy and in the process makes me confident about what I am speaking.

Overall, each day was challenging, with the sessions lasting around 10 hours but it great experience that helped me hone my research skills, debating skills, Speech skills, language skills while writing resolutions and last but not the least role-playing skills. However, in future, I would like to use my organizational skills in MUN and for that I want to be in the organizing committee. I feel that I am a responsible individual and I have the ability to plan an event such as this and to work collaboratively with members of organizing committee. I would like to develop my oraganisational skills further by being a part of the committee.

Week Without Walls

"Week Without Walls" (WWW) is a programme devised to Promote the core principles of CAS. It not only promotes community service but also action and creativity. Having taken part in the programme over the last two years, I was keenly looking forward to our week in Hambantota (8/2/2010 --12/2/2010). Our grade was divided into two groups to paint two pre-schools. Our group planned the mural before we left on the trip. Working collaboratively becomes critical for projects such as these. Hence we decided that the creative lot in our group would work on the mural while others like me would finish up painting walls (both inner and outer), doors, floors, play equipment and also to a mural on one of the walls of the assigned pre-school. We pooled in money (each student of grade 11 gave Rs.1000), with which we bought gifts such as back packs, pencils, dolls, t-shirts among other things, for the little kids studying in the pre-school and on the morning of 8 February, we were off to to Hambantota which lies close to the southern tip of Sri Lanka.

For the next 3 days we painted the pre-school that we were assigned from morning to evening (9am to 4pm). I was incharge of painting walls, one of which was the largest interior wall and also doors. Not being the most creative person on our team, I was not assigned the mural work but I would like to stress upon the fact that the architect that designs a building need not have the capability to paint the mural inside the building. I learnt that we need to sand before we actually paint and also that the painting starts looking good only after second coat. Painting the walls with roller brushes and achieving a smooth finish is artistic too. Deciding the colour combinations to paint the doors is artistic too. I am especially proud of the doors that I painted and loved my colour combinations. I had never performed this kind of task and I leant new skills like stripping, sanding and painting during the week. I was happy thinking that the children are going to have a cheerful learning environment, once we completed the work. This I see as the Creative aspect of our WWW.

I took great pleasure in painting the walls and doors even though it was physically challenging. Working for hours on end was exhausting but this clearly is the action part of our CAS requirement. Playing golf and running in the gym pale in comparison to the physically stressful job of painting.

However, Community service is at the heart of WWW. It was an amazing feeling to make a real difference to the learning environment of underprivileged children. The hours they spend in school are going to be more pleasurable due to the painting job we did. That somehow made all the exhaustion worthwhile and compelled me to do my best work. Ofcourse, the children are so young that they would not be excited only by our painting. We gave them the gifts we took and each day we played for about an hour with them. We conducted games and the joy on the faces of those little children was the reward we reaped that week. We put up a concert for the kids and puppet show was one that the kids loved and the children in turn put up a show for us which I would say was the cream of the cake. The village community was very appreciative and they treated us with local goodies. Our team worked wonderfully well and each and every one did their best. The co-operative spirit was evident through out the week.

I strogly believe that community service should not be only about donating money to a charity oraganization. This Project supports my belief and it was one of the many reasons for me to consider our WWW, a success. I was able to give my time and energy to make a small difference and I consider that as good progress towards making a tangible difference to the community. This experience raised my social awareness on the inequalities in society and the hardships experineced my certain classes for basic amenities like a pleasant school atmosphere. Hence, service to community will remain a top priority in my future.

One of the outside walls that I worked on

A door painted by me
One of the windows I painted
With the kids
Our Group in front of the painted school complete with mural

Playing golf is mentally challenging but I enjoy the game and I am committed to develop my skills further.
Precision, concentration and a planning needed on the putting green.
Co-ordination of body, mind and right club to drive the ball

I have been a regular in the gym and I I am happy to share that I have lost another kilo. It is encouraging to lose weight after working out and this further helps me to keep working out. I have not been training with my trainer as our timings are not working out. It is becoming increasingly challenging to manage my activities and studies in a given day. Hence, I have been following the old schedule and doing it on my own.

My golf on the other hand is progressing well and I should be able to get my handicap in about a month or so. Recently my father's friend from Dubai came to the driving range with us and watched me play (a good golf player with a handicap of 6) . He gave me some very important tips for short game and even gifted me a book "The Best Short Game". He also pointed out some mistakes that I was making, for example, I was lifting my head too early and this is one of the reasons why the ball was turning, instead of going straight. I realized that I need to develop my short game skills. It was an interesting session and very encouraging. He told me that, if I had started playing golf two years earlier, I would have got a golf scholarship to College. He also told me that golf is a life style and once you start playing refularly, it really becomes a way of life meaning, Commitment and perseverance will be keys to golfing success. Interesting session!! Above are some photos of me in the driving range and putting green.

Smile With Confidence

CLEFT LIP AND PALATE

My dream to plan and initiate a service activity which would make a difference to a child's life. I do not want the service activity to be something where we collect funds and donate to another charity for them to complete the task. My main goal is to make sure that the children benefit from our activity. Hence my research lead to me to children suffering from Cleft lip and palate. My commitment and perseverance over the last few months lead me to the doctor with whom we would be collaborating for this service.

Believing is one thing but doing what you believe is an entirely different thing. I learnt that it can be very challenging but perseverance will make it possible. I believed that I wanted to to make a real, tangible difference in my community service activity and due to this, my iniative to start my own service activity was delayed by a whole semester as it was extremely difficult to find doctors willing to conduct a cleft lip and palate surgery for less than RS. 25,000.


There are millions of children suffering from this syndrome in Asia especially in South Asia. It was extremely painful for me so look at the photos of these suffering children who cannot smile even if they wanted to, due to the gap in their upper lip or palate or both. Imagine That. They cannot smile, they are bullied constantly by others over and above the not being able to eat and sometimes hear clearly.


Fortunately there are charities like Operation smile and Smile Train amongst others, which are working constantly to help these underprevileged children and these charities have trained the local doctors to perform these surgeries efficiently. My research raised my awareness about cleft lip and palate and helped me understand that our service would make a difference to those underprivileged children.


I was clear about one thing from the begining and that is not to just collect funds and donate to existing charities. Finally I found a doctor who conducts cleft lip and palate surgeries for free (operation theatre and large scale equipment is offered free by Lady Rideway Hospital) and expenses are the disposable medical equipment and the nursing service which works upto 15,000 LKR. Now, I am ready to go. The research and my visits to the hospital helped me watch the underprivileged children in this society stuggle for basic medical attention. I became more determined to make this service project a success. I see this as a beginning of my personal development as service took on a whole new meaning.


Ms.Shamila approved our project and Rajindh was very keen to work with me on this project. Collaboration with doctors, teachers and other students would be the keys to the success fo this service. We talked to other students regarding this by presenting them the power point above. We managed to get 9 students to enroll in our service. Ms.Flynn is going to be our supervisor and we'll be meeting every Thursday after school.

Creativity - MUN

Living in a society as we do and studying at OSC taught me that social awareness is critical for us to give back to society. MUN developed this awareness within me. This semester we were briefed about the language of resolutions and writing process of resolutions from our MUN delegate manuals. We also spent a lesson where we were instructed about the structure of MUN and the manner in which we need to conduct ourselves during the conference. MUN taught me to work collaboratively with other delegates. It also focuses on the conduct of the delegates which I believe is relevant for my persoanl development. It is a life lesson that is of immense importance while working in formal environments.

As a practice resolution for MUN conference, we were asked to write a resolution regarding GM foods for our respective countries. I was the representing delegate for Thailand and a co-submitting nation for the resolution against the distribution of GM foods. We could not complete our resolution due to transformer explosion outside school and the work that was done thus far was lost.

Basically, not much has been accomplished in MUN so far, this semester. It is rather unfortunate that we have not had a single successful practice debate yet. We have not been assigned our countries for the official conference either. Having been a part of MUN last year, I know the kind of work that needs to be done in the first semester. To be honest, this elective has been disappointing so far due to lack of accomplishment, in spite investing my time in it. It lacks the challenge that I was looking forward to and the process is too monotonous.