MUN@Home
MUN Impact
Location: Global
Announcements came in from around the world declaring drastic closures and shutdowns. Organizations and groups scrambled to transition their programs to online platforms. At MUN Impact, an organization dedicated to achieving the SDGs and global model UN education, we too needed a solution that would enable us to continue pursuing our mission. To stay true to our commitment to achieving the global goals by 2030, we couldn’t just focus on a temporary workaround for the COVID19crisis. Instead we used these unprecedented circumstances and social distancing regulations to inspire an initiative that will outlast the coronavirus epidemic and expand our educational reach to youth, in far corners of the world we never thought we would interact with.
MUN@Home is a free, recurring four-week online Model United Nations (MUN) program through which experienced MUN participants mentor fellow students in research, speech-crafting, and MUN debate. It was launched in mid-March with the onset of global lockdowns due to COVID-19 to enable students to make use of the time they're spending at home and to connect youth with topics directly related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Through the program, delegates work on assignments (e.g. country research, policy statements, and resolutions) to practice the aforementioned skills, receive feedback on their work from their mentors, and have the opportunity to attend interactive Zoom sessions through which their mentors train them on said skills. At the end of the program, delegates are invited to participate in an exciting, inclusive virtual MUN debate.
These activities are led and overseen by a leadership team of passionate high school and college-age MUN students from across the globe. Aside from the mentorship aspect, MUN@Home hosts several guest speakers every round who work to immerse the students in the SDG target they're debating and connect them with the realities of the issue. These guest speakers have been students, diplomats, and UN officials! Most notably, MUN@Home hosted a session with the "The Real United Nations" aiming to connect students with the work of the UN, which included guest speakers Brenden Varma, part of the Outreach Division at the UN Department of Global Communications (DGC); Cianna O'Connell, a Policy Officer at the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS); and Roshelle Henry, a Counselor in the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations.
MUN@Home is open to any students aged 11-18 who want to participate as either delegates or mentors. With only 86 delegates participating in the first round, MUN@Home has grown to include 280 delegates in its fourth round, and is working to expand this further! If you want to get involved, check our website and social media.
Support
We are attempting to raise 100k USD which are needed for staffing and IT expansion and integration so we can reach more students. We have been fundraising via a GoFundMe campaign (https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/munimpactdonate) and are searching for sponsorships.
To scale up and reach our projected project size of tens of thousands of students around the world we must advance several volunteers to full-time staff. Our team of students and Board members who are mostly teachers, are committed to this project and starting to work more closely with UNODC, UNHCR, and the UNDGC. All of our free time is spent on this movement and we love it.
We have reached out to several online communication platforms and they are helping reduce membership fees, but they add up. For now, financial support to cover costs of memberships to expanded online communication platforms would be helpful.
Other needs: Space for online convenings (e.g. GoToMeeting)
See more:
Information on the MUN@Home program: http://munimpact.org/munathome/
Register as a delegate: https://munimpact.typeform.com/to/CHzqjF
MUN Impact social media:
https://www.facebook.com/MUNimpact/
https://www.instagram.com/mun_impact/
https://www.twitter.com/munimpact
For more information contact covid19@unmgcy.org