Media Moguls of MUN

By Jen Wang

Media has been a part of our every day lives with TV, newspapers, magazines, online news and gossip sites. The truth of the matter is that media plays a significant role in our lives, whether we like it or not. Joining the ranks of publicized media, Model United Nations is jumping on the bandwagon.At THIMUN-Singapore III, we are now taking advantage of our available resources to help ensure that MUN becomes a beacon of an ambitious unified global student community. The main theme of the third annual session of THIMUN-Singapore is gender equality, however the underlying subject seems to be raising awareness. Like the attention that has been brought to breast cancer by multiple fashion houses, MUN is attempting to bring the same amount of attention to its cause by advocating casual wear such as the t-shirts made by Youth Assembly (YA). Members of YA, Penney Soon and Liying Tay, both from the International School of Beijing, are selling shirts to raise awareness about global warming. In their action paper, there is a proposal to raise awareness. They chose to create shirts as an advertisement for their cause, essentially have people become “walking icons,” explained Tay. They printed t-shirts and plan to sell them at THIMUN-Singapore this year to measure the idea’s effectiveness. This conference has become a testing ground for them to focus on a target audience where they will be able to “[raise] awareness within the youth [and for the] future,” said Soon. Soon and Tay aim to show the participants of THIMUN-Singapore that “resolutions work, and students can make a difference.” They believe that global warming is a crucial issue for our future and that “if students understand how serious the issue is, they would have more innovation and incentive to develop creative ideas to conquer this problem,” added Tay. They both agreed that an important aspect of MUN is to do more than just “write action papers and resolutions that give ideas for change,” says Soon. She believes that Youth Assembly gives students more freedom to express their individual opinions. “Many of the action pa-per ideas are actually very easy for individuals to implement,” remarked Tay, “however, they do require commitment and dedication to be successful.” Soon added, “We actually were a little bit late with ordering the shirts, so we were under a lot of pressure to get them in time to sell.” In addition to the media frenzy forming around MUN, this year, for the first time in THIMUN-Singapore history, the conference has an official Videographer, undertaken by Kevin Sun. He spends his day running around under the hot Singaporean sun to every individual forum in order to film what is going on during the conference. “I’m here to encapsulate how the students interact with global issues,” emphasized Sun when asked about his role at THIMUN-Singapore. The goal of the video is to help students who are not in MUN understand the workings and even perhaps “convince those students who are on the borderline of wanting to join,” remarked Sun. He hopes that the promotional video will give students a more concrete vision of global issues and will extend their possibility to change the world.Also, with our rapidly developing technological world, this generation tends to favor video and pictures rather than printed publications, added Sun. “Video offers a bigger attraction for the minds of our modern generation.”Although Model United Nations is recognized as a way for students to discuss and debate current global issues, the actual power to alter things seems to be out of reach for now. However, with the promise of a more publicized MUN future, perhaps one day the participants will be able to evoke a positive transformation in society. Until then, we just continue to write resolutions and hope that these ideas will carry on to make a change in our adult lives.