Written By: Naransuvd Bazarsad
Edited By: Benigno A. P. P. G. Siswoko
(Courtesy of RITMUN)
Earlier last month, Ritsumeikan Model United Nations Club (RITMUN) held its first ever offline and inter-university Model United Nations (MUN) conference. Over 50 delegates and 4 chairs participated in the 2-day event, along with RITMUN staff and executives. Students from Kyoto University of Applied Sciences, Ritsumeikan University and Oita University also came to APU to attend the event.
RITMUN has been a student club at APU, organizing and practicing model United Nations committees since 2020. They recently got accepted by APU Student Office as a Project B student activity club and earned the opportunity to organize their first large-scale MUN conference at APU this semester.
Because their first and second MUN was held online, this year’s MUN conference was their first experience in holding the conference offline.
Fuad Ahmad Khalid Bin Nur, a 3rd year APM student from Bangladesh is the current leader and secretary general of RITMUN. Although he is an APM student, he has been passionate about international relations and world politics since high school. “International Relations has always been my point of passion and I have participated in over 20 MUNs so far”, said Fuad.
(Courtesy of RITMUN)
His main goal for RITMUN is to make debating and learning about international relations more fun. “RITMUN holds weekly activities where students can enjoy debating and interacting with other students”, Fuad stated.
Fuad has gained experience in both participating and organizing MUN conferences back in his home country. However, he describes his experience in holding an MUN conference at APU a bit different from his previous encounters.
“Japan’s MUN circuit is not as developed or as popular as it is in other countries, thus, it was challenging for us to enroll more participants and staff. There was not much awareness of what MUNs were. But, I think RITMUN is gradually reversing this discourse.” indicated Fuad.
The conference’s opening ceremony started with speeches from guest speakers- Professor Steven Rothman, as well as UN Human Rights officer and APU alumni Morse Caoagas Flores.
The main conference consisted of two UN committees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC). Over 20 delegates and 2 chairs participated in each committee. With this year’s theme centered on the UN's agenda on a war-stricken world, both committees debated on the issues of the refugee crisis and economic revival. In ECOSOC, delegates discussed on the agenda-“Rebuilding Economies Affected by War-Induced Inflation and Poverty”. While in UNHCR, the main agenda was “Ensuring Voluntary Repatriation of the Refugees from Conflict Zones”.
The committee sessions ended on the second day with multiple successful resolutions passing in each committee. Following the committee sessions, the closing ceremony took place at the Multipurpose hall, beginning with a performance from APU Shamisen and a speech from a senior executive at UNHCR Thailand- Pranee Lertheerasuppakul.
APU Shamisen (Courtesy of RITMUN)
The most anticipated part of the evening was the “Best” and “Outstanding” delegate awards that were chosen by the chairs from each committee. One of the special components of this year’s MUN conference was the monetary award that came with these awards. Leila Marie Jenkins, the winner of the Best Delegate Award from the UNHCR committee, states that this was her first MUN experience.
“I have never heard of MUNs before, but since I like learning about different countries, I applied to join to learn more and gain experience. At first, I had no expectations because this was my first time. Although I was nervous, I prepared as much as I could and learnt a lot about the country I was representing. Overall, I think this experience was very valuable- helped me be more confident in public speaking and showed myself that I can do this. ” said Leila.
Leila Marie Jenkins, winner of Best Delegate
Award UNHCR (courtesy of RITMUN)
With the help of APU’s Student Office and RITMUN’s marketing team, students from other universities in Japan were able to participate in the event. Kim Hyunseong, a third year Global Studies student at Ritsumeikan University, joined the ECOSOC committee as a delegate in this year’s conference.
“I was quite impressed about the level of knowledge of other participants and also the creativity that they showed through their foreign policies. I learned a lot about the theme and the position of the country I was representing. Overall, I would say this was a brilliant experience which I would like to go through again.” stated Hyungseong.
(Courtesy of RITMUN)
To close off RITMUN 2023, the organizers held a networking gala after the closing ceremony, where delegates were awarded superlative awards and were invited to network with other participants. Through this year’s RITMUN conference, students were able to interact with not only other APU students but with those from other universities in Japan. Accordingly, RITMUN was successful in raising more awareness about debating and participating in MUN circuits in Japan.
We would like to express gratitude and appreciation towards all the participants who were interviewed, and the RITMUN staff for providing pictures for this article.