Posted by Sanjiv Prabhakaran on Apr 08, 2018
 
 
 
April 7th & 8th was a grand Model UN conference that Kevin & his student volunteer team put together with great success. Sanjiv Prabhakaran was the MUN advisor for the team sponsored by DMSB - Sophia Sugarman from Canyon Crest Academy and Lauren Degner from Mt. Carmel High. The event was held at the Joan Kroc Institute of Peace & Justice (IPJ) at the University of San Diego. The meeting was kicked off by Kevin Cahill, Youth Chair at DMSB, Andy Blum, the Executive Director at IPJ, and Scott Carr, the District Governor for San Diego Rotary District 5340.
 
 
 
 
 
There were 98 students (49 teams) representing 49 different countries. Each team had 2 students, one researching on Resolution #1 (to include Palestine as a member of the United Nations) and the other researching on Resolution #2 (to protect the oceans from plastic waste). The students went through 2 days of speech presentations, amendments to the resolutions, caucus meetings, etc. In the process they establish new friendships, learn about team collaboration, negotiations and the process of reaching consensus.
 
 
 
 
Saturday night was a dinner banquet where the parents and guests were invited to attend a keynote talk by Kevin M. Kennedy, former U.N. Assistant Secretary General and a grand dinner. This was followed by an emergency news alert about Russia hacking elections in other countries and that they are launching attach on Kurdistan, that was actually a mock news item presented by Channel 8 News as an exercise for the students to go into caucus and find a peaceful resolution to that situation.
 
 
 
Next day the students all met to review the amendments and cast the final vote on each resolution. It took about 2 hours of deliberation on resolution-1 but resolution-2 was quickly passed as there was major agreement on that ocean cleanup issue.
 
 
 
 
Finally, we had the "Thank You" talk by Kevin and many students and the Secretary General. And then the secretary generals gave out funny award certificates to each student based on their behavior during the various sessions. Sophia received the award that she would throw her shoe at anyone to make her point and Lauren was the person who would bribe people with fortune cookies. And finally the conference ended with the group taking a good and funny picture :-).
=========