HARVARD MUN

Between the dates 27-31 January 2011 together with, İrem Didem Saygan, and with 7 members of our MUN club; Burhan Karadede, Umut Koç, Elif Özbek, Ada Dileksiz, Abdullah Kevser, Zeynep Damgacıoğlu and Bintuğ Baran Gülüştür attended Harvard Model United Nations which took place in Sheraton, Boston.

Before the conference club members visited the Museum of Fine Arts, Prudential Tower, the MIT Museum, MIT and Harvard Campuses. During this period, students had a chance to meet with other delegation members from around the world and made last preparations for the conference.

During the four day long HMUN conference there were MUN advisors from 35 different countries and about 3000 delegates attended. The ambassador of Slovak Republic was İlhami Burhan Karadede. Four advanced solution recommendations from the Slovak Republic were accepted by the UN Conference on Trade and Development committee and to the final resolutions.

Committees:

UN Human Right Council: Zeynep Damgacıoğlu, Elif Özbek
UN Development Programme: Bintuğ Baran Gülüştür, Abdullah Kevser
UN Conference on Trade and Development: Burhan Karadede, Umut Koç

Our club member Ada Dileksiz represented the Sky Press which totaled of 24 press members perfectly. During the conference Ada’s 3 articles, 2 blog essays and numerous photographs were published.

 Day 1 (Thursday)
     There was a meeting for all the delegates attending HMUN to understand HMUN conference rules. This meeting was held between 14:00-23:45. Afterwards, a meeting was arranged for advisors only. At this meeting, advisors were informed about HMUN's general structure, rules and the program schedule. Next, the opening ceremony began. Gillian Sorensen, the USA's dis isleri assistant of general secretary, was the guest speaker. Commitee meetings that was held between 18:15-23:45.

Delegates worked on their resolution papers all night and got prepared for the meeting that they were going to do with their groups after their committee meetings ended.

Day 2 (Friday)
Delegates were involved in activities all day during day 2 of the conference. It was held between 14:00-23:45. During the lobbying process our most active student was Bintuğ Baran Gülüştür. Abdullah Kevser, Bintuğ Baran Gülüştür, Burhan Karadede, Umut Koç and Zeynep Damgacıoğlu were active while writing the resolution papers.

Day 3 (Saturday)
On the third day of the conference that started at 8.30 am and ran until 5.30 pm, the written resolutions were debated.

Day 4 (Sunday)
On the fourth day of the HMUN conference the debated resolutions were voted. The resolutions that were written by our students were all accepted. After the voting process, the conference ended with the closing ceremony.
This conference that we attended helped our students in the following ways;

• Use of their foreign language skills with native delegates,
• Become aware of current world issues,
• Have a sense of other countries’ policies,
• Improve their curiosity, debate; out-of-the-box thinking and problem solving and critical thinking skills,
• Self confidence and persuasion skills,
• Understanding and respecting other cultures.

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