Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:10 This is the Owl Cast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. This is the Student edition. Listen to the exciting story of the American Community Schools of Athens. Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future. Here's John.
Speaker 2 00:00:44 Welcome to the second part of our discussion with the student delegates of the Model. United Nations teams of a acs Athens, multiple participations to m u n competitions offer unique experiences to the students, some of which are exposed to the issues of discussion and debate for the first time. As they all agree, participation in the m u N teams is a valuable experience as it provides an opportunity to develop important skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, research and negotiation. Through the process of researching and debating complex global issues, students can also gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and become more informed and engaged global citizens. The advisor of the group in this episode is Angela Hammus, Vadi Social Studies faculty in the Academy. So let's see what the second group of students have to say about joining M U N to travel, to learn the country of your AL'S history, or just for the fun of the dress code. Understanding the true nature of the United Nations and the difficulty of reaching a consensus, the political and diplomatic workings needed to pass a resolution, the bias factor of every side. Lessons learned from being an advocate of an issue, getting over the fear of growing up and becoming confident from making mistakes and the value of being open-minded and a good listener.
Speaker 3 00:02:29 We have, uh, with us today, delegates from the ac s delegation for the various conferences that we attended this year. One of which was C G S M U N cost, m n, uh, in which at least two delegates were there from our group today. And then we had thy, uh, which is the Hague International Conference, one of the biggest conferences, uh, in the world for M u n, uh, in which again, we had, uh, three people, people three delegates there. And the latest one was the P S M U N Platinum School M Un, which happened earlier this month, uh, in the beginning of March. And, uh, four people, four delegates were there. So today with us, we have Dimitri mek. Hello, uh, AC s Delegate. Hello. We have Nicki Forez, a ac s Delegate for all three conferences that happened this year. We have Lennis who was our, uh, youth assembly, uh, a c s delegate. We have Sydney Pina, who was with us for the C G S M N, in the P S M U N conference that happened earlier this month. And Iana Zi, who was with us for the Thy International Conference,
Speaker 2 00:03:45 So it's one of the students have gone to at least one Yes. Tournament. What was your experience in participating in these tournaments? First of all, why did you choose to go to these tournaments and try out and get into the team and travel and go wherever you went?
Speaker 4 00:04:02 I chose to go into M n uh, because all my friends were in M U N and they were going to thyman that year, and I really wanted to try out for it just for fun and for my cv. Um, I ended up not wanting to go to Thyman just because it was a bit too big for me, it being my first year in M u n. So I went to CGS and P S M U N CGS was my first conference and I was put into the Security council, which is like one of the hardest councils in M U n. And I had no idea what I was doing like at all.
Speaker 2 00:04:35 So how did you find out about it?
Speaker 4 00:04:37 Um, I found out about it from Yana. Okay. And Kathleen. Um, and just like in general, it's a big thing at acs, so I thought it would be fun to just do it. Uh, overall I learned, you know, rules of procedures and then at P sm n I did, I did well. So you represent a country inside the Security council? I was Gabon.
Speaker 2 00:04:55 So you represented the country? Yes. And the country was Gabon? Yes. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:04:58 Uh, so, uh, I, I fir I tried out for m n cuz uh, I like politics and, uh, relationship in general. And, um, fortunately for me, my first, uh, m u n conference was, uh, Thyman. And then in Thyman I was in, uh, general Assembly three, which a topic was a future borders and, uh, had represented Amist International as my first, uh, conference. It was, uh, pretty big for me since it's one of the biggest as had in the world. So I found it a bit, uh, difficult for me to write clauses and, uh, modify amendments. Um, but on my, uh, second, uh, conference, which was Psm n uh, I was part of the Security Council as, uh, Gabon.
Speaker 2 00:05:40 So you say the same country.
Speaker 4 00:05:42 They change every year depending on which countries are in the Security Council because it's first the P five countries who are always in it, which are like China, us, uk, France, and, uh, Russia. Yeah, Russia. Um, but then the other countries switch out every year. And
Speaker 5 00:05:57 Yeah. And uh, since I already went to one of the biggest ones, I kind of took some notes. Uh, so in PSM UN, even though procedures were way different, I, uh, I had, I understood what I had to do. Uh, my clauses, uh, I got, I got three of them passed with, uh, all, all four votes. Uh, so it was pretty nice. Uh, so I understood on how to do everything. And then how in general AM U works? Okay,
Speaker 6 00:06:22 This year I only went to Thyman, but last year I also did, um, Thyman and then PSM U one, but I like THYMAN a lot more, so that's why I only did thyman and I was S spc, which is like a special conference. So, um, every year, like the general topic of s BBC changes, so this year it was a special conference on the future of Borders and I was representing Mauritius, but like the thy team from ACS was split into like Mauritius and Amnesty International. So, and I general, I just tried out and I did it because I wanna get into political science and I also did an international relations course over the summer. So it relates and I'm in general interested in that stuff. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:07:03 <affirmative>,
Speaker 7 00:07:04 This is my first time doing M U n. So when I tried out, I was completely clueless and I just went there because I found it, like, I thought it was really fun how everybody wore suits and how everybody, um, was so formal and, and the whole thing really interested me. But, um, I went there and I was, I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2 00:07:25 Who suggested it to you?
Speaker 7 00:07:27 Um, actually I heard it over the announcements, um, in the school because that week they had announcements and they said that there's an m u N tryout and I felt why not?
Speaker 2 00:07:37 So, but what you ask someone to say what, what is that? M u n
Speaker 7 00:07:42 I think maybe a friend, but it was so long ago that I can't really
Speaker 2 00:07:45 Remember. Okay.
Speaker 7 00:07:47 Yeah. Um, but I did go and I'm really glad that I went because it was such like an enlightening experience going every day. And like you went there like prepared and you got to like do different stuff like debate and mm-hmm. <affirmative> lobbying and it was, I got to understand what it was. Finally,
Speaker 2 00:08:04 What country did you represent?
Speaker 7 00:08:06 I was in youth assembly, so I represented like my own opinion, but on the last day they gave me China and I had to represent the topics that we were given as um, China. Okay.
Speaker 8 00:08:17 So, uh, I went to three Ps to three M u n conferences this year. And what originally drove me to joining the m u n Club was traveling to another country because I heard that there was an M u N called the Thy m u n. And I went to travel to Holland cause I've never been there before. And because of lockdown, I haven't traveled to another country in four years. So I also really like diplomacy in politics in history. So that's another reason I tried out. And in C G S M U N, the first M u n I did, I represented the country of Kazakhstan, which I was honored to represent because I am an eighth Kaza. My great-grandfather was Kaza. Then in time in, I represented the country of Mauritius and I, there I discussed internet, I discussed protecting borders and increasing trade with landlock developing nations. And my last u n conference this year was the P S m U N, the platinum school. M n in Che was a judge and me and my fellow judges, uh, we discussed, uh, a Croatian man called Milian Gallic who was accused of committing domestic violence. And he claimed that his, that is human rights are violated by the Croatian state. And the conclusion was that his human rights were not violated, were not violated by the Croatian state after three days of debating mm-hmm. <affirmative> over him.
Speaker 2 00:09:45 Uh, if you think back through your experience, could you point out maybe one or two takeaways from each one of your cases? I mean, I'm pretty sure you did your research, you read, you know, you saw the different sources. What stood out? What stayed with you after you finished your trip to the m u n?
Speaker 4 00:10:06 One thing that really stuck with me throughout first at the beginning, c g s and P S M U N was that the UN is just a diplomatic relations organization and the actions it takes are not as effective as many may think. And I think people's belief that the UN is going to fix all the world's problems with these c STG goals. Sorry. Um, I think it's a bit farfetched to believe that just through diplomatic relations we're going to accomplish all these STGs, especially in like GA three or the general assembly, you cannot actually induce much action in getting everyone to agree in, in getting many countries to agree on one specific resolution is very difficult. So
Speaker 2 00:10:49 Why do you think that is?
Speaker 4 00:10:51 I think it's difficult because all these countries have different forms of foreign policy, different goals, and I think stronger and more strategic alliances and diplomatic relations could, they could produce more completed objectives because they're more focused on what benefits their foreign policy and not just many countries absorbed into one organization. But it is still like a beneficial organization in terms of like diplomatic relations. But I just don't think it's what everyone thinks it is.
Speaker 2 00:11:22 Interesting.
Speaker 6 00:11:23 Yeah, it, I totally agree with Sydnee, but um, or what actually was still with me most is more like the social aspect of um, m u N, especially Thyman cuz it's international, it's so big. You meet so, so many people from other countries and everything and it's like, it's really nice cuz like, it's not only people from Europe, which I will probably more normally socialize with, with other like school activities, but it's more international and it's really nice and there's like very nice memories from that trip as well. It was, it was very fun and like it's nice that you were able to Yes. Okay. Like involve yourself in like a school activity and do all these like, I guess more serious stuff and debate and all that and research, but like, there was that, that added plus of like the social aspect to it, which was really
Speaker 2 00:12:08 Nice. But this is something general from your experience. How about the stuff that you had to research the, you had to discuss with other and maybe try to convince them on something. Has there been something in your mind that stood out? If I told you, what were you proud of from your participation?
Speaker 6 00:12:26 Um, well first of all, uh, the entire process of lobbying and creating the resolution, um, I'm proud of my contribution to it because, um, you know, it's all the countries that have to get together. And the main takeaway I guess from that is, you know, there's always like countries that have, as Sydney said, specific like political affiliations and whatever goals they already have. So it's already like even before debating, you already know that certain countries will disagree with us in resolution, especially if they ha um, if they place themselves on a different part of the political spectrum, let's say they're not as democratic or not as, um, liberal, uh, with their policies. So, um, it's basically predetermined most of the time.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 So you had to actually consider that there is a bias in everything that you're talking about,
Speaker 6 00:13:12 Obviously.
Speaker 2 00:13:13 Yeah. From every side.
Speaker 6 00:13:14 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So basically the only people that you were trying to convince to agree with the resolution, which would, I had a more democratic country. So the more democratic resolution, I guess, um, would be I guess countries that are like on the verge of being authoritarian or like, you know, kind of on the fence. But like countries like Russia and China, North Korea were obviously gonna make their own alliance and not agree with yours. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's what I mean. Like it's already split up kind of. Sure.
Speaker 2 00:13:40 Well,
Speaker 5 00:13:41 Except from what, uh, Sydney said, I second with everything that Sydney said about that United Nations, uh, certain goals are not as effective as people might think. And I understood that from what the experience we had through M U N. But I, um, but also I understood on how much actual work and thinking and research partake within, uh, within something to be passed for the United Nations to, uh, take place. And, uh, what I mostly found, like as a difficult, that I managed to overcome and learn was in my first UN conference in, in, in Thyman, uh, which I presented the Amherst International, uh, I could not side with for or against or with any countries, uh, together since I had, since I was not a country, I was more of a non-profitable organization. Uh, so I had to, uh, think on what would be better since, uh, our topic was about borders and amnesty does not have exactly any authority or any kind of talk within borders, but mostly about humanitarian, uh, crisis. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I had to think on what would actual amnesty delegates do, uh, within the actual United Nations. So I had to understand that for certain stuff that I personally will be biased to go for or against, I had to, uh, be neutral or, and abstain, use my vote as I abstain, as I, as I believe that it wouldn't be realistic or it wouldn't, or it will be more of biased. And I tried remaining as neutral as
Speaker 2 00:15:09 Possible. Did you find this difficult to do, to try to be unbiased,
Speaker 5 00:15:13 Especially for J three? Yes, very, very and more of security council as well, but yeah.
Speaker 2 00:15:18 And how did you overcome
Speaker 5 00:15:19 This? It was very difficult, I
Speaker 2 00:15:21 Guess. What did you think?
Speaker 5 00:15:22 Uh, I thought that, uh, if X, Y, and Z topics came up within a conference that let's say I was representing the actual United Nations, would the people that I'm representing and the future generations like my vote, which will affect in any way, uh, shape and form, uh, the future or will they not?
Speaker 1 00:15:50 You are listening to the outcast, the official podcast of a c s Athens. This is the Student Edition.
Speaker 8 00:16:03 Um, so something I realized from going to the C G S M N conference was that politics are everywhere. There's always a political aspect to something. And I, what I wanna talk about is humanitarian disasters and trying to fix humanitarian issues, and specifically the pirates in Somali. And then the notion because
Speaker 2 00:16:26 Were you aware about the pirates in Somalia?
Speaker 8 00:16:28 I was
Speaker 2 00:16:28 Be before you went there. Yeah,
Speaker 8 00:16:30 I, I I already know a lot about history and politics, so, uh, about Somali and the Pirates, there were two alliances. I was Kazakhstan, so I cited with a cno cno Russian Alliance. And our resolution was voted against because the delegate of China said that they would like to donate ships to be used to kill and for
Speaker 2 00:16:54 The
Speaker 8 00:16:54 Defense, yeah. To defend the Indian notion against any pirates. However, many countries didn't like that suggestion because, uh, they believe that China would dominate the Indian notion. So there's always a political aspect, something, even if it's humanitarian.
Speaker 2 00:17:07 So what were your takeaway from all this?
Speaker 8 00:17:10 I thought, uh, that the UN was just trying to fix any issues that existed, especially humanitarian ones like hunger and drought and those issues. But there's always some sort of problem. There's, someone's always gonna disagree with you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 7 00:17:26 One of the highlights from, um, Froman for me was that, uh, when we walked into the opening ceremony, because I didn't, I never done it before, so it was so fun and like so weird that everybody was like in the same room and everybody was wearing suits. And this whole environment where people, like Yona said from all sorts of countries were gathered up in one, one room and we were like able to like sit down together. And in my committee there were people from Africa and there were people from all over the world. And it was very, it was very fun. And another thing that really stuck with me, uh, stuck with me with, um, with like the debate bit was, um, when we made speeches, um, my whole committee was like focused on discussing one aspect of the topic, but they didn't really go until, like, for example, my topic was, um, self-harm.
Speaker 7 00:18:19 And basically they were all talking about self mutilation, so like cutting. But, um, they weren't thinking about like the most common form of self-harm, which is normalized in society, which is, um, drugs like nicotine and tobacco and everything, which we can see people smoking all the time and using all the time, but nobody ever does anything. So, um, it was really like fun for me to like, go up there and make a speech and like address this another side of the topic and tell the group about it and how the resolution should have had a few clauses on that. And, um, it was very fun for me because, um, someone said that it wasn't related and then I was able to persuade and use my words in order to show how it was related to the topic. And, um, it was a good speech. And, okay.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 My last question, coming back from your tournaments, from that organization and all the things that you saw and you read, what do you think is going to affect your day-to-day lives? Uh, is it something that when you hear it again from the countries that you represented? Am I, I heard Gabon, I heard Kazakhstan, I heard, you know, different things from the two days that we're talking about this thing. What is going to stay with you in your daily life? Are you more willing to read a newspaper about the topic or research on in the internet or talk to someone and try to convince them about something? Maybe not for the particular topic, but in general to advocate?
Speaker 5 00:19:56 Um, something that, uh, I will be now doing probably for the rest of my life to, to m u n what I've learned is be more open-minded, uh, mostly in, uh, such political, political to, uh, topics, uh, as well as, uh, sensitive topics. And also understand the other side, uh, understand both sides of the conflict as, uh, from what I've experienced just by a model United Nations, is that even small things could change the whole story and the whole, the whole thing that will happen within the conflict. So I, so I believe that I'm gonna forever in my life from now on, like, uh, think on both sides, uh, think on the changes and think on what and who will be affected from, uh, certain, uh, actions are part that I also take both sides of the coin. Yes.
Speaker 6 00:20:52 Yeah. Basically what, um, the me that he just said, and also, um, the fact that it's just actually like helped me think, um, and to actually think about how certain things affect different, um, people and in general the world, um, as he said, but also as Nikki photo mentioned, like for example, where they tried to pass a resolution, um, to help with piracy and China, um, said to send, uh, defense ships or whatever, but that would cause China to have control over the Indian notion that something bad. I think before m u n I would've thought like, okay, China's doing something good. Like I would vote for that resolution because it just makes sense because it's solving the issue, but I wouldn't actually be able to think of like whatever could come out of it. Meanwhile, m n has kind of caused me to think more into things and about how, um, also true intentions and how that could impact our world in general. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 4 00:21:44 Um, yeah, I agree with what both of you guys are saying. Um, you know, it does help you see both sides of the coin see, help you understand what each, you know, country is trying to do for themselves. Because each country is just looking out for their best interest whenever they propose a resolution or disagree with the resolution. But also m u n in terms of deductive thinking, it's helped me a lot academically understand where each country is coming from and help me think about, you know, what I would do in a situation. And it also provides information of how these things work and how difficult it is to pass, like resolutions which actually enact change in the UN and yeah.
Speaker 7 00:22:27 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, one of the takeaways for me from m u n is like, it's um, to not be scared to be independent because, um, there's like so many people here and we all have such different experiences while we were in the same conference. And it was, um, I find like growing up scary because you get to like, have responsibilities, but with M U N I got to like be in an environment where everybody was like acting like many lawyers and, um, it was really fun and I learned that it's not that scary to like grow up and it's not, um, that scary to be independent and, um, it's good to like think about and um, to like construct your words on like speeches so it could be understandable by everyone and so it could persuade people. So it was really helpful in so many ways and I really did not want it to end when it did end. I was really sad actually.
Speaker 5 00:23:21 <laugh> well next
Speaker 7 00:23:22 Year, next year, but next year's a whole year away
Speaker 4 00:23:25 <laugh>.
Speaker 8 00:23:27 So it made me feel really confident because I did make many mistakes during m u n as this was my first year doing m u n how, however, from my, what I understood from my friends, especially in thy, is that what matters is that you sh you should mo ma like mainly focus on yourself and you shouldn't really focus on what others do. You should try to fix yourself first and people don't really remember if you do anything bad, like what matters is if you do anything good, I guess. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you should improve yourself pretty much.
Speaker 2 00:24:01 Excellent. Ms. <unk> would you like to wrap
Speaker 3 00:24:04 It up? The school has been doing m u n for ages like for many, many years. And, um, my understanding from past experiences from my colleagues and my own personal experiences that every time we go to an m u N conference, uh, is that we get so many, um, beautiful comments in Commentations on our a c acs, FS delegations. We are particularly proud of our delegates because of all the things that they mentioned, uh, particularly how open-minded they are and how accepting they are of diversity because this is a challenge for delegates. It's not easy at such a young age, uh, to be open and to be an active listener. Um, but I guess the school is doing a good job reinforcing that and, um, students already have traits, uh, that show that and showcase that. So very happy to be with our M u n delegates and with M U N A C S M N.
Speaker 2 00:25:05 So we maybe we can do auditions for next year much earlier for some people here. Yes, yes, please. Yes, yes, yes. I would love to. <laugh>. Thank you all so much. Thank, thank you guys. Thank
Speaker 3 00:25:14 You. Thank you. Bye Bye.
Speaker 1 00:25:18 You are listening to the Acast, the official podcast of AC s Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the outcast on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the acs, Athens Media Studio.
