Neepawa teams serve as Model United Nations delegates

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Published on Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Photos courtesy of  Shona Davidson, 2016 MUNA Photographer. From left: NACI’s Emma Gerrard and Graeme Chapman as  MUNA delegates to the Philippines.

From left: NACI’s April MacDonald as a MUNA Delegate to South Africa with Counsellor Deva-Marie Beck. 

Submitted by Deva-Marie Beck

Neepawa Rotary and Inner Wheel

The 58th annual Winnipeg Model United Nations Assembly — also called MUNA — was recently convened, on May 13 to 15, at the Canadian Mennonite University and hosted by the Winnipeg Rotary Club. MUNA brings together regional high school students and their ‘counsellors’ to learn more about the workings of the United Nations and to serve and speak as ‘model’ UN Delegations — by studying their assigned nations’ politics, geography, history and culture. 

This year, the Winnipeg MUNA hosted a record 70 delegations of 200 people from Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan, as well as from the states of Minnesota and South Dakota. Five of these delegations represented western Manitoba student teams — from the towns of Neepawa, Minnedosa and Roblin.

Two MUNA teams represented Neepawa Area Collegiate Institute as ‘delegates’ to two nations. NACI student April MacDonald, who also participated in the 2015 MUNA, represented South Africa with her counsellor Wayne Kines, a Neepawa Rotarian. NACI students Graeme Chapman and Emma Gerrard represented the Philippines, with their counsellor Deva-Marie Beck, a Neepawa Rotarian who is also president of the Neepawa Inner Wheel. 

Representing Minnedosa Collegiate #1, students Michael Kreshewski and Ryan McLenehan served as delegates for the nation of Greece and student Riley Barrett served as a delegate for the nation of Sri Lanka. Minnedosa Collegiate teacher Donna Alexander served as the counsellor for both these teams. 

Roblin’s Goose Lake High School was represented by students Brian Senderewich and Gabby Bauereiss, who also returned to MUNA for her second year. Gabby and Brian served as the MUNA delegation from Bolivia, with their counsellor, Goose Lake High teacher Brenda Neuhofer. 

Each of these teams were actively sponsored to attend and participate in this event. In Neepawa, the Rotary and Inner Wheel Clubs sponsored the teams from NACI. The Minnedosa Rotary Club co-sponsored their two teams, in collaboration with Minnedosa Collegiate #1. In Roblin, Goose Lake High School sponsored their teams with additional support from private donors.  

MUNA is a learning simulation of the workings of the UN General Assembly, serving as a backdrop to also learn more about how the United Nations works worldwide.  All student delegations were hosted to study and  speak about at least one of four model UN Resolutions crafted in advance by the MUNA organizers.

Delegates were encouraged to consider how their assigned nations would react to these resolutions — suspending, during the MUNA experience, how they, themselves — or the nation of Canada — would respond.

Resolution #1 focused on the current turmoil in Libya, calling upon UN Member States to deploy security forces, in direct consultations with the current ‘Libyan Government of National Accord.’  

Neepawa’s April MacDonald spoke to this as a delegate from South Africa. “To achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we must work together globally to resolve this conflict, to attain peace and justice, to attain equality and — most importantly, to Libya — having a safe place for its people.” In closing, she quoted the words of South Africa’s own Nelson Mandela, “It always seems impossible until its done.”

But, not all nations agreed to approve this resolution. Speaking as delegates from Greece, Minnedosa’s Michael Kreshewski and Ryan McLenehan noted, “if we follow this course of action, it will be impossible for the interim Libyan government to win over those groups who are still undecided and reluctant to adhere to agreement... As a country whose fate is being determined by foreign sources, we do not believe the intervention with foreign forces is the best way to solve this problem.” 

Resolution #2 reaffirmed earlier treaties on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, calling for the research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes “without discrimination” and naming the nation of Iran as a timely challenge for this topic. 

From Minnedosa, Riley Barrett spoke on behalf of Iran — and as a delegate from Sri Lanka: “During our civil war, Iran was there with open arms. They have agreed to post $500 million USD for a large hydroelectric dam project in our central province…. We believe that Iran should be allowed to continue with their nuclear power plants because it promotes renewable energy across the world… and the onerous restrictions placed on Iran should be removed.”

Resolution #3 aimed to strengthen the coordination of all international emergency humanitarian efforts, including to establish a United Nations early warning system and to examine the most efficient early warning capacity.  

Noting that the Philippines is “hit by around at least 20 typhoons a year, of those, five are destructive,” Neepawa’s Graeme Chapman continued to speak of the threat of climate change. “With sea levels rising at their current rate, 167,000 hectares of coastline is projected to go under water in coming years, affecting 60 million people, including the residents of our capital, Manila.”

Speaking as a voice of the Bolivian peoples and also in favour of this Resolution, Roblin’s Brian Senderewich said, “Bolivia is a country of many indigenous nations and we stand here today as representative of these many nations… it is important to recall that early warning systems focus not only on the technological aspects, but also on the human capacity to reach affected people… the wisdom of indigenous leaders must not be forgotten in this important study.” 

Commending the UN for strengthening this Resolution, Minnedosa’s Riley Barrett also spoke, “Sri Lanka itself was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, feeling a death toll of over 35,000… only a small part of the 230,000 total deaths in India, Indonesia, Thailand and others, along the edge of the Indian Ocean.”

All of these resolutions were discussed at length and delegates also wrote and proposed new resolution amendments, speaking for or against these amendments before finally passing these resolutions — or not — together, on the Assembly floor. 

At the end of the last day of deliberations, the 2016 Winnipeg MUNA delegations were also able to propose, discuss and pass five new resolutions that they, themselves, crafted. These new resolution topics ranged across a number of timely and critical global topics including: food security; fresh water preservation and restoration; a European refugee aid; and combatting the Zika virus.

Then, they still enjoyed time to play with the words and structures of the MUNA’s proceedings, introducing several resolutions for fun. Participating in the active word play that came from these antics, Neepawa’s Graeme Chapman proudly spoke out as a delegate from the Philip-’puns.’

One of the Assembly’s for-fun-Resolutions urged “all member states to reject any references of Donald Trump from appearing on their Facebook timeline.” They further called “upon all member states to lend their software development expertise to develop a browser extension that will replace all pictures of Trump with a picture of an Oompa Loompa.” 

For those of who have not yet heard of this character — according to UrbanDictionary.com — Oompa is “a native of Loompaland, usually tending towards attributes of small size, an orange commplexion, and green hair.”  This is derived from reference to Roahld Dahl, the author of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ who notes that an ‘Oompa’ is someone who uses insults or speaks in a derogatory manner.