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Pupils from Cambridge International School represented Turkey, the UK, South America and India; Dubai International School represented Russia, Brazil and Sudan; Dubai Gem Private School represented Pakistan, Egypt, Australia and Japan; Dubai College represented Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and China; Sharjah American International School represented Germany, Chad, USA and Iran; and students from the English College debated in support of France, Cuba and Bangladesh.
Teachers of the participating schools said that students were chosen based on a number of talents. “I chose the most capable pupils based on their abilities to speak and write persuasively, as well their interpersonal communication skills and leadership credentials,” said Kosta Lekanides, an English language and history teacher at Cambridge International School.
Hina Raja, an international studies student at AUS who served as the director of the Historical General Assembly and head of logistics, said that the students had been organising the event for almost a year. “You cannot imagine the detail we have put into this conference. We personally oversaw everything from designing pens and T-shirts to writing study guides and managing the budget.
“The AUSMUN was the first large-scale event that we organised and with academic commitments it became extremely difficult at times,” she said.
According to Jeremy Keymer, assistant professor of philosophy at AUS and AUSMUN faculty adviser, there were no declared victors. “The student organisers and staff explicitly rejected the idea of making AUSMUN a competitive, hierarchical event because we disliked how Harvard made some schools losers and others winners,” he said.
“How does that teach the spirit of the UN, which is based on the rights of the most powerless and on the equal standing of every world nation in principle?” he argued.
—The writer is a mass communication student at the American University of Sharjah
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