On 16 - 17 August 2025, passionate debate once again filled the Chamber at Canberra's Old Parliament House, as almost 60 students from 19 schools around Australia debated United Nations Resolutions with fervour, conviction and passion.
This is MUNA, the Model United Nations Assembly, which is facilitated by Rotary Clubs in Canberra and around Australia. This year the Rotary Club of Bega supported two students, Grace and Andre from Lumen Christie College in Pambula, to travel to Canberra to represent Singapore in a very realistic simulated UN Assembly.
Teams are made up of two or three Year 11 or 12 students, with each team representing a nation at a simulated UN Assembly. Teams debate topics of international concern such as world peace, environmental issues and human rights over two days. Before attending, students are expected to familiarise themselves with the nation they represent by studying its history, politics, economics, people, geography, international alignment and real-life stance on world affairs.
All of the participating students took the process very seriously and took on the persona of the states they were representing in both argument and presentation. When the Russian delegate stood, looked directly at the delegate from the US and basically said get your own house in order before you try to tell us how to run our own elections and democracy, most of the room had to hold back their laughter. Some of the teams were dressed in forms of national dress with the Saudi Arabian delegates dressed in robes and appropriate head wear.
There were six resolutions being argued, with two states arguing for and two states arguing against. There were notes going every which way including requests to the Secretary General to express their own arguments or request time for a rebuttal. Notes were also going to other delegates in the same bloc to encourage them to vote together as this would add weight to the arguments presented. Out team was not shy about being involved. During one break, a delegate from Egypt came over to our team to lobby Singapore to vote their way. This delegate later admitted he was an aspiring politician.
The top three teams received awards and a Peace award was also given to the team that the adjudicators felt made the best arguments for world peace over the entire event.
The Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, was guest speaker at the formal dinner on the Saturday night – yet another very special experience for the students.
Our team enjoyed themselves immensely and were very impressive both in behaviour and presentation. In fact, all the students were very impressive and it’s clear that Rotary is indeed encouraging and developing our youth for the future.