MUN Rotterdam

MunRo 2019 was the culmination of a dream held by three 12th graders who formed MunRo’s executive staff. These girls started their MUN career in 9th grade and immediately caught the MUN bug. Very quickly they started clamoring to hold an MUN at RISS. We did a few small one-day conferences but they were convinced that they could initiate and realize a truly big conference themselves. So, in 11th grade they got a team together and started working on ‘MunRo’. Notwithstanding many bumps, large and small, on the way to this weekend, they really pulled it of! It was truly a seamless two-day event, both serious and fun.

The keynote speaker they brought in works with water projects in developing countries and also told us of his own personal experiences of inequality growing up in rural India. This was also echoed in the closing ceremony speeches by the Chairs, for example, the Chair of the Security Council where the discussion surrounded the issue of Yemen. This young man told us
how important it was to be able to deal with such a difficult issue and how the group of 15 students who may not have known anything about Yemen before this conference was able to grapple intelligently with finding a solution to Yemen’s dire problems.

One of the best things observed in this MUN was how students were making speeches and arguing their points. The other best thing was how beautifully the whole executive and support staff cooperated to produce this amazing weekend, with good food for lunches (with wonderful help from the PTA), lively but serious debates in the committees, a wonderful video of the whole event shown at
the closing ceremony, and a friendly welcoming feeling which not only helped our outside guest to feel at home but continued to grow the MUN family spirit that we have had at RISS for many years now among new members of our RISS MUN community.

Please congratulate all who were involved in this event and thanks to anyone who had part in it.
A special thanks to the PTA who helped with the food and who were so happy to see the students doing such a good job!

For more information, please contact Ms. McNanie: cmc@wolfert.nl