Kingswood Hosts 29th Bath International Schools' Model United Nations Conference

This weekend saw Kingswood host the 29th Bath International Schools’ Model United Nations conference.

Approximately 340 students took part, representing 70 member states of the UN in two days of debate on a range of issues facing the global community today, including instability in the Sahel, LGBT rights, child soldiers, climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and the rights of the Kurds in the Middle East.

The conference was opened on Friday evening by Alex, this year’s Secretary General.

Alex spoke powerfully on the issue of human rights, challenging those present to consider western double standards on the issue and holding up figures like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousef Zai as examples of how young people can bring about change in the world today.

Saturday saw the conference participants break up into their separate specialist committees, whilst on Sunday the conference climaxed with the always popular emergency scenarios, where the delegates were asked to respond to an unexpected international crisis; this year these ranged from the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan to a Saudi invasion of the Gulf state of Bahrain.

A large number of Kingswood students were involved in the conference, and all played their part in ensuring that the event was once again a great success.

With so many Sixth Formers involved in chairing the event, Kingswood fielded two relatively junior delegations at the conference, representing Iraq and the Philippines.

Despite their comparative inexperience, both delegations enjoyed considerable success.

Alma was commended for her work on Human Rights 2, whilst Freddie was also commended, this time for his work representing Iraq on the Disarmament Committee.

All rose to the challenge of taking charge of their committees magnificently, showing exceptional organisational skills as well as great maturity in dealing with a variety of sometimes difficult situations.

Many had never chaired before, but the visiting teachers were full of praise for their professionalism and warm and welcoming manner.

The head chairs for the weekend were especially impressive, and deserve a special mention; they were Alex, Hattie, Holly, Johnny, Alex, Alix, Joe, Marianna, Tara and Isha.

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