RIMUN’ 2019: ‘A magical experience’

Today, there are many MUN conferences that you can choose to go to. So what sets RIMUN apart? It wasn’t the fact that it followed the THIMUN format. It wasn’t the fact that it offered many committee choices. Neither was it about which guest speaker gave a speech at the opening ceremony, but it was the fact that along with being an MUN conference, RIMUN was also an exchange trip and served as a collective learning platform, and a gateway to bridge the cultural gap between India and Rome. Of course, you can research these facts on the internet, but the exchange would give us a taste of what life in Rome was really like. By living with a host family for a week, we would understand what Rome was really all about. We would also have the opportunity to interact with foreign students from 16 international schools, and gain new perspectives about the problems being faced by different people all over the world. RIMUN wasn’t just a MUN, it was an idea that was started 13 years ago, to bring students from different parts of the world together, and give them the tools to make a difference to society. It wasn’t about winning a prize, but more about the facts and perspectives you learned, the people you met, the friends you made, and the journey you took to get there. And this journey started, when we applied for RIMUN.

 

Soon after we were selected to go for the RIMUN conference, we began deciding which committees we would like to apply for out of the many options we were given. After a few days of submitting our choices, and applications, we received our allocations. We represented Indonesia, Brasil, Morocco and Tunisia in the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Security Council (SC), the Crisis Committee and the Advisory Panel. Two students, Dev Mehta, and Anirudh Fadia, even participated as Judges in the International Court of Justice and Ananya Mukerji and Kamya Parekh were journalists in the RIMUN Press. We even had 3 Student Ambassadors. Rajveer Batra was Indonesia, Yash Fadia was Brazil and Rhiaan Jhaveri was Tunisia. After receiving our allocations, we started researching our countries’ foreign policies and stances on the agendas to help us write our position paper.

 

The nine day trip to Rome, Italy, was primarily for the purpose of attending the 13th session of RIMUN. It began on the 20th of March with a day of intense lobbying followed by three continuous days of enthralling debate, ended with a plenary session.

 

The level of debate was exceptional, especially in the Security Council and Crisis Committee, and surpassed any of our prior expectations! Munners aged 15 to 19, from 16 nations worldwide presented their views on major global issues and tried their level best to work collectively and come up with solutions for the issues proposed. It was a truly exciting experience, one that all of us learned a lot from, but it did not come without its challenges. Linguistic barriers were sometimes hard to overcome, but the extra effort required constantly kept us on our toes and was definitely one of the most interesting and unique aspects of RIMUN. Overall, all we had an amazing time, learned a lot, and will have RIMUN 2019 in our hearts as one of our best memories, forever!

 

RIMUN 2019 has opened doors to a friendship thousands of miles away from home. Each of us not only got the opportunity to debate and express our views, but also got to make friends from every corner of the world, from 16 different nations. We got the chance to talk to and learn from a wide-variety of students aged 15-19 years and understood the extent of our privilege like never before. We thought we were enthusiastic about MUN, but there was a delegation even more enthusiastic than us, a delegation that created a GoFundMe page, just so that they would be able to attend the conference! Our hosts and their families were an integral component of our RIMUN experience and they were truly the cherry on top of the icing. We’re not going to lie, but at first we were unsure of what our hosts would be like. Today, as we look back at it, on behalf of the entire Dhirubhai Ambani International School delegation we can vouch for the fact that each host was beyond friendly and took the best care of us.

 

We recommend every student to apply for RIMUN. Whether you are a Munner or not as the experiences it has to offer are truly what makes our school the best in ensuring each student’s international exposure and learning. We know that it will go on for several years to come, but all we can ask you to do is try. Apply for it, give it your best. As we know you won’t regret it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To those who will be a part of RIMUN’20 or any of the future years. Go with an open mind. Trust us, it is an experience of a lifetime. ‘È stata un'esperienza Magica’ as they say in Rome. It was a magical experience.

 

- Rajveer Batra, Dev Mehta, Arzoo Usgaonkar (IGCSE Batch of 2020)