{"id":57219,"date":"2019-04-03T14:33:37","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T18:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=57219"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:30:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T18:30:02","slug":"brock-model-un-takes-nyc-by-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2019\/04\/brock-model-un-takes-nyc-by-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock Model UN takes NYC by storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Members of Brock\u2019s Model United Nations recently proved they have what it takes to tackle issues on a global scale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 40-student team made its mark during a visit to New York City March 24 to 28 to participate in the National Model United Nations (UN) conference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Held in part at UN headquarters, the annual event brings together more than 5,000 students from hundreds of schools around the world to run a simulation aimed at addressing international problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each team comes to the table representing a different country and takes a position on global issues from their country\u2019s stance. Teams then work together to negotiate and create successful resolutions. This year, Brock represented the United Kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Students began preparing for the conference in the fall, hosting weekly meetings to conduct research, practise speeches and write position papers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their dedication did not go unnoticed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the second consecutive year, the Brock team earned a Distinguished Delegation Award, presented to the top 10 per cent of schools in attendance. In addition to the group honour, fourth-year Political Science students Alex Dow and Anna Demchyshyn were named Best Delegate in Committee for their work on the Peacebuilding Commission.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_57221\" style=\"width: 386px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57221\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-57221\" src=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Brock-Model-UN-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"376\" height=\"383\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-57221\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fourth-year Political Science students Anna Demchyshyn and Alex Dow and were named Best Delegate in Committee for their work on the Peacebuilding Commission.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAll of our hard work paid off,\u201d said Brock Model UN President Kailene Jackson, who expressed pride in her peers for their efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was rewarding, she said, to see the commitment and passion Brock students put into Model UN recognized.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both the conference and the club are meant to \u201cfoster an environment of experiential learning and hands-on skill development, while empowering young people to become involved in international issues,\u201d said Jackson, a fourth-year Political Science and Sociology student. \u201cThe competitive aspects are not the most important part, but the awards are always nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe felt so proud to represent Brock on the international stage at this conference,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cIt was awesome to see this group of Brock students grow from just more than 25 students last year to 40 this year, with hopes of taking even more to the conference in 2020.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the team is affiliated with the University\u2019s Political Science Department, students from all disciplines and with varying levels of experience are encouraged to participate. Brock\u2019s Model UN was recently honoured as Club of the Year by the Brock University Students\u2019 Union.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cModel UN pushes people outside of their comfort zone and gives them the opportunity to develop new skills with the support of their peers and student leaders,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThis is especially true of students not in Political Science who have never been exposed to activities like this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Team members learn a number of transferable skills valued both in the classroom and the workforce, such as public speaking, collaboration, policy writing, communication, research, leadership, critical thinking and adaptability. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOutside of these skills, Model UN empowers, encourages and supports students as they strive to create solutions to global problems they care about,\u201d said Jackson, who herself had the chance to speak about gender equality at UN headquarters during the event. \u201cIt allows them to see that international diplomacy and the UN are things they actually have the power to partake in and influence in their future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jackson said the team is grateful to the Brock University Students\u2019 Union and the Political Science Department for \u201cmaking this experience possible for all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Members of Brock\u2019s Model United Nations recently proved they have what it takes to tackle issues on a global scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":57220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,39,40,55,37,41,1,4,38],"tags":[159,7754,6497,2203,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57222,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57219\/revisions\/57222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}