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  • A Holiday Update

    In the last couple of weeks, our delegation has been extremely busy preparing for the conference in New York. Each committee first needed to hand in a landmark document on their topics, collecting all resolutions and treaties that could be relevant for negotiations. As soon as this task was submitted, we began our work on the first draft of our position papers, which are due right before Christmas. We soon realized that it is not as easy as we thought it would be to fit all the important information on two pages. 

    Next to our committee obligations, we have also been fully absorbed by our individual department tasks. The TMUN department has been preparing the simulation in Tübingen by deciding the simulation topics, sending out invitations and organizing the dinner afterwards. The fundraising department has organized a waffle and mulled wine sale and is currently planning the TMUN party, while the PR department is working on our Facebook and Instagram pages and collecting greetings from politicians and diplomats. 

    Considering all of our hard work in the last weeks, the time was more than right to enjoy the holiday season with a fun NMUN Christmas party! Thanks to one of our delegates, we reserved a cozy and vintage cellar for our little get-together. Everyone brought something to eat, be it a dessert, a salad or sandwiches, and it turns out we have some amazing chefs in our delegation! We also decided on playing Secret Santa with only sustainable presents and had a lot of fun trying to secure the gifts we wanted the most (the bamboo toothbrushes were quite popular). The night ended with some entertaining and sometimes rather competitive games of beer pong. It was a great ending of the first half of our NMUN semester and a more than deserved break from our diligent work.

    We hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Christmas break! We will be back refreshed and with further updates in January.

    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

  • Tübingen Conference of the Parties

    Preparations for New York are in full swing: the committees have been announced and the delegates have begun researching their respective topics. This weekend, our delegation was also given the opportunity to participate in the Tübingen Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Model United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and discuss the global reduction of CO2 emissions until 2050. Six of our delegates decided to take part, representing countries such as Australia, the Republic of India and the Russian Federation in the battle against climate change, and were joined by one of our head delegates, who served as co-chair. 

    The conference showed that climate change continues to be a difficult topic for discussion and agreements are not easily reached. Troubles begin with the fact that not all countries equally recognize the existence of climate change and persist when debating on what actions need to be taken. Many countries seem willing to contribute to CO2 reduction, but simultaneously rely on fossil fuel energy and do not want to harm their economy. After a pizza break, many heated discussions and endless attempts to persuade the USA, we were delighted that the draft resolution our delegates mainly contributed to was adopted by the conference. And the good news continued when we learned one of our delegates had won the award for the best position paper!

    Overall, Tübingen COP was a great opportunity for our delegation to gather more practical experience in speaking, debating and writing draft resolutions. With every delivered speech and completed resolution we become more confident in ourselves and feel better prepared for the big event in New York!

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  • It’s getting serious…

    Our first simulation last weekend is over and left us all impressed but also very exhausted. As many of us have never participated in such a simulation before, we did not really know what to expect.

    First day:

    Starting on Saturday morning, we directly went into formal session, where each and everyone of us represented a country – such as Nigeria, India, Russia, Japan or Germany. Two topics were on the agenda: firstly, ‚Combatting the illicit trade on small arms and light weapons‘, secondly, ‚Capacity building in combatting climate change in developing countries‘. The Agenda Setting Speeches went quite smooth as we had already practised it before and lastly led to the decision of firstly dealing with topic 1.

    Definitely more challenging was making sure to not let the speakers‘ list run out. In such a small simulation it was inevitable to be on it pretty much all the time. Although we tried our best, it unfortunately ran out two times during the simulation. For the upcoming HMUN and TMUN we are definitely going to focus on this to not let it happen again!

    Apart from the formal session, we were also able to bring in motions of an informal caucus in order to write working papers. Basically, two working groups were formed and at the end of Saturdays‘ session, both groups luckily managed to hand in their first working paper. Of course, some heated debates were not missing during this process.

    Apart from that, we took photos of the delegation of 2020 in our lunch break. We are going to upload them soon on our website to give you impressions of this years‘ delegates.

    All in all a great and productive start for our first simulation!

    Day 2:

    With having some first experience from the day before, we were easily able to go on with the simulation on Sunday. We now knew, what to expect and what to improve. Not only did we feel more confident but also a lot more comfortable speaking in front of other delgates mostly without having prepared speeches. During caucus, every group was able to improve their working papers which finally led to two draft resolutions. Trying to convince other countries to vote in favor of the own draft resolution definitely was more challenging and hard work – including many debates, amendments and compromises.

    Voting procedure and successfully passing even two resolutions was therefore very rewarding and made us all really proud. This was the perfect example of hard work paying off!

    In conclusion, our first simulation was an awesome experience. Apart from learning a lot, we had even more fun and are looking forward to the upcoming simulations in January!

     

     

  • Here We Go Again

    We are excited to announce that the Tübingen delegation to the National Model United Nations in New York will represent the Republic of Azerbaijan next March. Sixteen new delegates from various fields of interests and expertise are highly motivated to spend this semester preparing for the challenge. The first simulation this upcoming weekend will be a good opportunity to practice what will be expected of us in New York.

    Follow us on social media to get regular updates on our preparations!

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nmuntue18/

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nmuntuebingen_delegation/

  • The big finale – NMUN New York

    Going to NMUN New York means: getting to know many people and working long hours. As we all worked in different committees, our individual experiences vary a lot. We have had a lot of practice before our conference, so writing on working papers, delivering speeches and bringing in motions for some of us almost felt like “business as usual” – on a much larger scale. Here is only room for a few highlights:

    We enjoyed talking to the Secretary-General of the Namibian Mission to the UN. He was very open and answered all our questions.

    Attending the closing ceremony in the General Assembly Hall of the UN headquarters was a very special experience. We felt very honoured to be in this historic place and to immerse ourselves into the atmosphere of the building.

    Also, receiving an award for our position papers and as a distinguished delegation was a nice reward for all our efforts.

    Last but not least, on our last evening, we had supper in an Ethiopian restaurant as a delegation. This made us realise that we have enjoyed getting to know each other better during the last semester. Some of us also attended the delegate dance to celebrate the end of a very intense week.

    Now it is time for us to say goodbye to NMUN. We have certainly had the chance to learn a lot and to get to know nice people. Best of luck to all future NMUN generations – we hope you have a good time!

  • Geneva

    From the 12th to 15th February a part of our delegation went to Geneva to learn more about the UN organisations. We had a really good time as a group and got to know each other better.

    On Wednesday, we learned more about the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Our speaker who had just returned from Hong Kong gave a very informative talk and answered lots of questions. Next we gained a valuable insight into the work of the ITU in the areas of standardisation, development and radio communication. That day, we also had a guided tour through the Palais de Nations Unies.

    The next day, we visited the World Health Organisation and, among many other things, learned how political public health is… and how nice the view from the roof terrace is. At the International Labour Organisation we got a tour through the building.

    After that, some of us enjoyed the sunshine by walking along the Lac Léman. In the evening we had a cheese fondue.

    Last but not least, we had the opportunity to get to know some areas of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and found out that there are lots of human rights violations in Namibia we weren’t aware of. After some free time we took the train back to Tübingen. A huge thank you to all our hosts for giving us their precious time!

  • Our Supporters

    Our journey to New York for the NMUN 2019 is almost three months away.

    As we look back at the last months, we can say with certainty that we have worked hard for a fantastic experience as the Tübingen Delegation representing Namibia. Besides writing our position papers, receiving speech training and preparing ourselves in NMUN simulations, we have been raising funds for our trip to NYC thanks to our sponsors, waffle sales and the Clubhausfest – Die Chroniken von Namibia (The Chronicles of Namibia).

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    The close cooperation with the Fachschaft Politik Tübingen and our delegation enabled us to plan this event. We are happy that the Clubhausfest was a great success thanks to so many helping hands and like to think back to the memorable memories made at the Party.

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    Having received so much support from our sponsors, teachers and fellow students, gives us the energy we need while we are preparing for our final Position Papers and get ready for our own NMUN simulation – TMUN.

     

  • Speech Training

    Despite having submitted the second draft of our position papers on Friday and having spent the whole of Saturday at a simulation of the General Assembly Plenary in Hohenheim, all of us gathered at 9am on a Sunday morning at the onset of the exam period for a speech training. vlcsnap-2019-01-31-14h47m01s32.png

    We were lucky to be coached by a professional consultant who usually trains business executives, Dr. Marco Behrmann from Cevey Consulting (https://ceveygroup.com/).

    After a brief, but highly motivating and interesting introduction by Marco, it was our time to speak. Each of us had to give two speeches with very limited preparation time. One was about a funny topics like a „drivers´ license“ for expecting parents, the other one was related to our committee topics. Getting feedback and having the speeches recorded on video helped us a lot to reflect on our speaking skills and pointed out what we can improve upon to maximize our impact when giving speeches in New York.

    We learnt that successful impact in negiotations depends on a the right strategy, but also a of other factors, such as the context of the negotiations, the personal relationship of the negotiators, or flexibility of how to address different audiences.

    We are extremely grateful to Marco, who gave us his precious time and invaluable advice on a Sunday morning.

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  • Hohenheim Castle Model United Nations (HCMUN)

    After a warm welcome with Butterbrezeln and gorgeous home-made cakes, we started the simulation at Hohenheim Castle which is a very impressive setting.

    It was a great opportunity to get to know delegates from Heidelberg and Hohenheim, and we realised that the size of the committee really matters. Unlike during our first simulation, we didn’t have to make sure that there are still enough people on the speakers´ list. On the contrary, with around 45 delegations present, we were lucky if we could deliver two substantive speeches each.

    As we only had one day to negotiate on climate change, it was quite surprising that we managed to submit our working papers in time. In the end, we had six draft resolutions which were all adopted. One of the votes, however, was very tedious because one delegation moved to vote by role call, so every delegation had to give its vote separately. This is not recommended if you want other delegations to like you.

    After the simulation, we had to give yet another vote, but this time it was to find the best delegate and the best speech. We are pleased to announce that two members of our delegation were selected: Sophie Mebus recieved an honorable mention as delegate and Mohammed Awais Qarni was voted the best speaker. After this long day, quite a few of us stayed for a wonderful dinner including wine tasting. Outpartying the other delegations, some members of the Tübingen delegation got home around 3am after a turbulent bus and train ride, ready to be at the speech training at 9am the next morning. This is true dedication for international diplomacy!

    Many thanks also to the Hohenheim delegation for their hospitality! We are looking forward to having you and many others here for the Tübingen Model United Nations on 8 February.

  • How to write a Position Paper

    Lately, we have been putting quite a lot of effort into our position papers. They all summarise Namibia’s position on the agenda topics but these issues are different in every committee. This means, we mostly work in pairs and do research on various topics, e.g. Mainstreaming Gender in Peacekeeping Operations, The Role of Youth in Achieving the Paris Agreement or Facilitating Knowledge Transfer for Sustainable Development.

    In each of our committees, we started off by reading resolutions to figure out what UN action has been done so far and what Namibia’s position on these topics is. This preparation is very helpful for writing a position paper. For each of the topics, we present three different aspects: firstly, a general introduction to the problem and its relevance to the international community, secondly, Namibia´s achievements and actions regarding the issue at hand, and finally, possible solutions and suggestions from Namibia’s point of view.

    For our first position paper, we got detailed feedback from our faculty adviser and the head delegates which we are very grateful for. Currently, we are working on our second draft. Additionally, we prepare for the Hohenheim simulation next weekend. As you can see, there’s always something on…