Jamshedpur: For the second time this year, students in the steel city got an opportunity to play diplomats at the two-day model United Nations that concluded at Hill Top School in Telco on Sunday.
Indian International Model United Nations (IIMUN), a nonprofit with its headquarters in Mumbai, organised the event that saw 120 participants from 12 schools. The outfit simulates the workings of United Nations for school students to engage them in thoughtful debates and discussions about international relations, current affairs and world politics. The first model UN was held here in January.
The students were divided into three model UN committees - United Nations Security Council (UNSC), United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP) - and Lok Sabha.
Students who registered for the event chose their committees while countries were allotted to them by the host school. Topics such as tackling cyber war (UNSC), laying down the roadmap for meeting sustainable development goals under gender equality (ECOSOC), fostering developing countries' capacity for climate change adoption (UNESCAP) and addressing atrocities against Dalits (Lok Sabha) were given to the students. Each committee had to discuss the given topic and then pass a resolution.
Omkar Mishra of Narbheram Hansraj English School bagged the best UNSC delegate award, Akansha Chachra of JH Tarapore School got it for ECOSOC, for UNESCAP it was Atirik Aryan of Hill Top School while the best Lok Sabha delegate award went to Nikhil Kumar of Rajendra Vidyalaya.
"It was exciting to meet new people and come across new ideologies," said Atirik, who represented the US in UNESCAP committee and had also visited the United Nations headquarters in New York City this year under the IIMUN programme.
"I participated at the event as a representative of the Indian National Congress (INC). I dwelt on how the INC had been a consistent party and remained in power for most of the time since Independence because of its stability. I was here to learn more from IIMUN," said Vaibhav Pratap Singh, a Class X student of Carmel Junior College.
Jeevesh Garg, IIMUN representative from Mumbai who was here to co-ordinate the programme with his counterpart Mystica Vora, said he was very happy with the way the outfit had evolved.
"Last year, we had similar sessions in 108 cities. This time they will be held in 160 cities. Students here are well-read and we can see the difference between students who had participated in the first edition and the freshers," Garg said.
Hill Top School principal Puneeta B. Chouhan said in Jamshedpur, most students were good debaters. "But, they need to learn about diplomats. On Saturday, they were told about their weaknesses that included their behaviour and style of speaking," she added.
