After four months of endless, careful and detailed planning, a dedicated team of 40 members put together what they call An Epic Venture into the Domain of International Diplomacy.
The inaugural Sri Lanka Model United Nations Conference- the epic venture for which these youth have been planning, takes place on August 11 – 13 at the BMICH.
Sri Lanka Model United Nations, being an islandwide conference beckoning to delegates from as far as Jaffna and Trincomalee, it was a difficult task to have one common workshop for all.
Thus, the committee decided to separately conduct workshops for schools district wise.
In keeping with this idea, the Main Colombo District Workshop was held on July 11, 2008 at Ananda College, Maradana, commencing at 3pm. This workshop proved to be the one with the largest with the participation of about 500 students and thus was very successful.
"This is the first time youth from the outstations has been given the chance to participate in the conference," explained Sajith Bandara, the Chief of Operations of the conference. "Upto now, the conference was only for the students of Colombo."
This year, the students of Ananda College decided to take the experience to the outstations as far as Jaffna and Trincomalee. There will also be 40 delegates from India and 5 from USA.
The conference consists of eight primary topics – the security council, UNESCO World Heritage, Human Rights and Climate change to name a few. In order to give everyone's thoughts free rein, the conference will be conducted in English, Sinhala and Tamil, and so far, the response to this concept has been excellent.
"Of the target we set, to have 1200 delegates participating, we have already got over 800 applicants," explained Sajith, adding that the deadline for all entries was on August 6."
The participants are all chosen on the basis of their knowledge and interest in current affairs and world issues. More importantly, they all have one this in common and that is, they all believe in the promise of a bright future ahead if they all take the initiative to work towards improving the world around them.
"Its all about learning to compromise on different ideas and issues," enthused Sajith.
"This would be the most valuable experience we could get from the conference, apart from learning more about the world we live in and gaining more confidence in their views and ideals.
Before the conference proper, a workshop was held, to acquaint the participants with the atmosphere of the conference. Though there were delegates who already new the workings of a Model UN conference, there was also many who were new to the arena.
Therefore, the main objective of the workshop was to inform and educate delegates who were new to the system and also to clear the doubts of those who were experienced. A variety of topics such as voting procedures, position papers and so on were touched upon for the benefit of the delegates. They were also informed about the new additions like the Forum Theatre concept.
The workshop saw the birth and the fine makings of future leaders, future diplomats and future ambassadors, whose future would be further shaped by the Conference itself. SLMUN, with its outreach to the entire island, is definitely on the correct path towards achieving its objective of fostering future world leaders.
The organizing committee had a special meeting prior to the workshops to discuss on what is to be done, at the Colombo workshop of the Sri Lanka Model United Nations.
Organizing an event of this scale is never an easy task, and in this instance, it was even more challenging considering the fact that most people had absolutely no comprehension of the concept of the Model United Nations Conference. It is a start though; and a good one, as Sajith says, "In the years to come, there will be an increased interest which will hopefully result in the change we have all been looking for."
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