A group made up of 12 students and 2 High School teachers will travel to The Hague (The Netherlands) on Saturday, January 24, 2015 to take part in THIMUN 2015. Once again American School of Valencia is sending a delegation to this conference where 3,500 students from 200 international schools perform a five-day simulation of the United Nations. The ASV students will act as delegates from Uganda in the General Assembly, the Environmental Commission, the Disarmament Commission and two special forums reviewing the UN’s Millenium Goals.
The THIMUN team has been meeting once a week since October in order to prepare their performance. According to the ASV Community Activities Coordinator, Marc Boyer, “delegates must write resolutions on certain topics and when they meet other students in The Hague they are going to lobby to get their resolutions passed as individuals submissions or as a group submission”. Grade 12 Student Nacho Ortega pointed out that “it is important to be clear on your goals and practise the discussion with mockup debates. Writing our resolution early is important so students who know THIMUN can give advice to the other delegates to help them prepare”. His classmate Francis Garcia added that “THIMUN is a really large conference and you must have a high level of critical thinking to understand a resolution or quickly made up an speech in front of 200 people”.
The ASV group is visiting Amsterdam on Sunday before moving to The Hague. “It is a beautiful city, there are great museums, we will explore as much as we can”, Mr. Boyer explained.
THIMUN is one of the MUN activities that High School students can develop at ASV. By participating in this program, students improve valued skills such as critical thinking and public speaking while they learn more about international relations and develop their international mindedness.
