Burnside High School had their first Model United Nations for Burnside students from Year 9 to 13. This article was written by Dominic Wilson and E Wen Wong.

On the 16th of June 2017, 70 delegates of all year levels came together for Burnside’s First Model United Nations. The event was organised by Dominic Wilson (9SDES), and E Wen Wong (10WTAW)

The event started off with our amazing guest speaker, Mayor of Christchurch, Lianne Dalziel. She focused on talking about female representation in governance, and her personal experiences being a part of the UN.

After that we got straight into our first General Assembly, this GA was based upon female representation in governance. This was chaired by E Wen Wong and with all four amendments failing, the resolution was voted in as it was. We talked about ways we can make Governments more Gender Diverse, we had clauses in the resolution based around a quota of 40%, and giving females the same educational opportunities as men.

Then after a quick break we all got straight back into it with “General Assembly number two”. But there was a surprise with that, because as soon as we started there was a huge earthquake in Bangladesh! So the MUN went straight into a Crisis Session which was chaired by Meg Byers (13LSS) The delegates had to work quickly, while receiving constant updates about the worsening situation in Bangladesh.

We finished the day with a Plenary Session based on the Syrian Refugee Crisis, this Plenary was chaired by Dominic Wilson. For this Plenary we had five amendments, two of which failed. These amendments were based around making countries take in more refugees and giving the refugees support when they move to a country.

Pieces about the day, written by Kaila Robertson (13PZS) can be found at: http://bhsmodelun.blogspot.co.nz/

Photos can also be found at: http://bit.ly/2uzqr3k