Diplomats In The Making

MUN last semester was a very informative and engaging experience. We started off the semester looking at Marginalized People and Human Trafficking around the world. We were assigned temporary countries until the countries for the conference were finalized and mine was Myanmar. Mr. O’Kane showed us a YouTube clip of Human Trafficking about how and why it takes place. It had model scenarios and was truly horrifying. I have a four year old brother and the part on child trafficking really got to me since I could relate to the fear, anger and panic of the mother who lost her child. We were then asked to define human trafficking in our own words but in a manner which was precise and concise as a practice of how to word things in actual MUN.We were also taught how to word tricky issues diplomatically, say for example if your country is not really making an effort to rectify and issue instead of saying 'We're not doing anything' you could say that 'The government of ... is trying its best but are not seeing any results yet' or 'The government of ... is currently not in a stable financial position but..'

Then we went on to debate Genetically Modified Food. It was hard to research the government of Myanmar’s stance on GM food as the country doesn’t have a major role in the research, development and use of GM Foods unlike the US, whose stance would be a very obvious one. However I found that Myanmar has a neutral stance, leaning towards favouring the development of GM food but does not consume or grow GM produce in the country as they have a sufficient food supply. We divided into two groups and wrote up a resolution and debated the issue.

My country for the MUN conference is Nigeria and I am in the 3^rd committee. I have been researching Nigeria over the Christmas break with regard to its history, economy and cultural and social issues, current and past.

Proud To Be A Sri Lankan (:

Creating and performing the Sri Lanka UN Day performance was a fun filled process. At first the teachers in charge wanted to do a traditional Kandyan dance but Yanika and I thought we should do something different this year and focus on a different aspect of being a Sri Lankan; baila. We had to put in a lot of time in to the rehearsals in the form of lunch breaks and after school. The teachers decided that we would sing a song ‘Apa wemu Sri Lanka’ (We are Sri Lanka) by Shohan, a Sri Lankan artist. Yanika and I were adamant about including baila and we had the perfect song in mind; the recently released ‘Rambari’ which is popular among Sri Lankans of all ages. The plan was to introduce the presentation with a Kandyan dance by Thishakya, Sandali and Nadeera, while we paraded our Sri Lankan attire, followed by us singing the song ending with the baila. I thought the fashion show thing was a bit too much, a waste of time and pointless really. We were crowding too much into a 10 minute presentation. I really enjoyed discussing my ideas with Ms. Kithmini and Mrs. Illaperuma and helping to shape the presentation.

On the day of the rehearsal in the auditorium, two lawyers, friends of Yanika’s father, saw our performance and thought the baila was pathetic and offered to help us. Ruwinda, Shamith, Sala, Yanika and I stayed after school and we, with the two uncles help, choreographed the dance. It was really fun as those two are very fun loving and nice. We told the rest of the group what we had planned and with certain other ideas and variations they had we managed to choreograph a great dance. It was a bit hard since most people left early during rehearsals for SAISA practices and some just weren’t committed enough. Some others wouldn’t voice their opinion and help in the process of shaping the dance but rather grumbled behind the backs of people who were actively involved. It really annoyed me. I learnt new dance moves and to work collaboratively and compromise. The dance had a lot of typical Sri Lankan humour like the end when I went to the front of the stage and called Umeshan out of the boys very flirtatiously and then Anisha, who was my mother, came out and saw us and was very mad at Umeshan and dragged me off. It’s the typical Sri Lankan lover scenario. She was originally going to whack Umeshan with a broom but the organizers were against ‘showing violence on stage with could have cultural implications and have the potential to offend’.

Our presentation was the opening performance as Sri Lanka is the host country. It was a brilliant performance; full of spirit and we all had fun (:

What does an attacker do?? Mr. Shipleeyy??!

Football wasn’t a very successful affair since I missed a lot of practices due to drama rehearsals and practices for the UN Day Sri Lankan presentation. The three practices I went for really pushed me because I don’t have good stamina and I hadn’t played football before. I learnt a few skills when we did drills and I did learnt more about the importance of teamwork. In the few games I played I noticed that when the girls didn’t pull together and tried to put on a one man show that side did badly. For a person who was told to play an attacker without knowing the first thing about football I think I did pretty well. I really like the game and if I had continued with the practices I would have actually been able to play at a decent level.