Being avid participants in Model United Nations , Nathan Wijayaratne, Muhammad Alif Naufal and Hamdaan Dar are  high school students with a drive to empower the youth to achieve things within their community through small projects. They share similar experiences with the extracurricular activity: starting MUN as a place to debate and practice public speaking, realising the significant difference that youth can make. With the help of others, they were able to successfully unite students together from all over the world in their very first TGIMUN conference, held in August 2020. 

 

For most, the pandemic gave an opportunity for these three to start their own MUN conference. A wonderful platform where students can take on delegations and represent their views and use the country’s motives as a guide for initiatives. Deriving from the lack of online conferences available, TGIMUN is a way for young people to gain experience from debating and public speaking, and develop as a person and a leader - all from the comfort of your home! Initially, TGIMUN was planned out as a one time conference, but after witnessing the true impact of MUN and how it had the power to educate people on other SDGs, it was decided that TGIMUN would be made an annual conference - next one being on August 8th and 9th 2021. 

 

The acronym ‘MUN’ at a first glance can seem daunting to anyone who has never joined an MUN conference. However, TGIMUN takes this into consideration and has altered the standard MUN procedure for their conference to be beginner-friendly, where delegates can indulge more in the debate aspect as opposed to the resolution drafting part. This makes TGIMUN the perfect conference for any student to start their MUN journey in the summer, which is a great time to experiment and explore new activities.

 

Nathan Wijayaratne on what he hopes to achieve with TGIMUN,

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“For any youth driven conference, the sky's the limit. You can go on until you achieve a certain goal in empowering a lot of the community and so we want to take TGIMUN much more global. We want to allow students from all over the world - students with different ideas and different values - to actually come together in this platform and discuss these ideas. In my opinion, getting a lot of people with different values to talk on the most pressing issues globally, is a wonderful opportunity to allow them to grow as individuals. When you hear a completely opposing view instead of trying to shut down that view, you discuss and come to a compromise.”

 

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From an outsider's view, you may think that organising an online event like this would be a piece of cake after considering the success of their first conference. Mr. Naufal admits to facing obstacles while organising the TGIMUN conference. This includes thinking of how many people will be attending the conference; how many chairs will be selected; and what issues will be discussed in committee rooms. Nevertheless, these are hurdles every team faces when creating their own conference. According to Mr. Wijayaratne, the real challenge is bringing in many people who have a strong interest in their platform. 

 

Their team set up initiatives, after realising that they can create a larger impact on their community and further educate the youth and empower them. TGIMUN is notably participating in the MUN Refugee Challenge in support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The purpose of this challenge is to share the most relevant and feasible ideas with policymakers. During this challenge, students are encouraged to learn more about refugees and displacement, finding solutions to increase their means to flourish in a different setting.

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For more information on the MUN Refugee Challenge click here. 

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​​Alif's advice for young people: 

“Keep working hard, dream big and have big ambitions!”

 

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Sign up to TGIMUN’s second conference on August 8th and 9th by clicking here.

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