24 May 2007

Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA)

From the Rotary District 9750 MUNA program:

The Model UN Assembly is in its 12th year in Australia and has developed into an important Rotary project, with the aim of fostering an understanding of the workings of the UN and International Understanding and Goodwill.

Rotary International's relationship with the UN is as old as the UN itself. In 1945 there were 45 Rotarians in 29 delegations at the UN Charter Conference in San Francisco.

The UN Association created MUNA, to enable young people in high schools to simulate the great debates of the UN Assemblies. Rotary first conducted MUNA at Winnipeg in Canada. It was introduced to Australia in 1988 and since 1997 culminates in a national competition in Canberra at the Old Parliament House.



Saturday, May 19, on the 7:40 train from Central Station in Sydney, arriving into the Unanderra station in the Wollongong area at 9:30am. As measured in July 2001, 85% of Australians live within 50 kilometers of the coastline - here's one little coastal village we passed on the way.


The MUNA conference was held at the Nan Tien Temple, opened in 1995. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere, and has the best conference facilities MUNA could hope for.



Happy Buddha



Photography is not allowed in the temple, so this is the best I could do for an interior view.



Shoes off to enter.



21 UN member nations represented at this conference; The team representing Russia won for best costumes, they were really outstanding with everything they did.



Clearly, the sombrero on a Mexico team member. We sat across the room from the team portraying the USA, 4 talented kids, with McDonalds cups and Hillary Clinton books for props. The boy in blue wore a holiday outfit complete with Hawaiian shirt, and flip-flops with white socks. The girl next to him wore an I heart NY t-shirt, very nice. The second girl wore a Yankees jersey and the second boy wore a black suit wall-street style, with sunglasses on half the time.



USA Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars with the 1st-place winning USA team from Caringbah High School. Left to right: Julie Janiski, I love New York, Laurent Oliva, Tara McKenzie, On Vacation, Jamie Fumo and Go Yankees.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey i'm the mexican guy with the big head blocking the camera!! sorry. it was a great day. did you like the tacos we had on our table??? who are you by the way?? a rotary member??

Julie Janiski said...

Hello Anon - I'm one of the Ambassadorial Scholars that was introduced and we sat behind your team that day. We were all really impressed by the work the students put into their arguments and the props!

Anonymous said...

ohh i see. WIN news ran a story and they showed me for about 4 seconds on camera!!! i think it was my moustache hah. Yeah i'm famous now and always get asked 4 my autograph...not really lol. well all the best and hope u had a good time. From Matt (Picton High)

Tim said...

Hey, I'm the guy in the blue shirt. I googled out school and this came up XD pleasant surprise! I'm glad you liked the costumes. We went on to represent North Korea in the next round which was a bit of a change.