Model UN Shapes Future Leaders

Have you ever asked yourself how international you are? The Model United Nations Society of South Texas (MUNSST) is a student organization at Texas A&M International University in which students share their views on international issues and create new ideas to solve a specific situation. MUNSST is an organization that provides students the opportunity to develop skills that will help them become future leaders in our community, and where their ideas can transform into actions for a larger society, from a worldwide perspective.

MUNSST is one of TAMIU's newest organizations, this being the second official year they've been active. This organization started when the current President, Alex Barrera, and Vice-president, George-Thomas Pugh, were selected by TAMIU's Binational Center to travel to the World Model United Nations Conference (WorldMUN) in Singapore during their sophomore year in 2011. According to WorldMUN's website, "WorldMUN features twenty-three simulated committees of the United Nations, international organizations, and specialized agencies discussing some of the most pressing problems of our era." During Singapore's conference, Barrera and Pugh noticed that TAMIU's delegation was quite unprepared in comparison to all the international teams; therefore, upon their return, they decided to create an organization to train and attend more conferences in the future.

The 2011-2012 academic year was MUNSST's first official year. In March 2012, 11 students attended the WorldMUN Conference in Vancouver, Canada. During the first official year, the TAMIU organization experienced a learning process in which they learned to improve skills such as managing a budget to travel, fundraising, time management,  and most importantly the intensive research that has to be done before attending a conference.

This year MUNSST has 12 students in the primary delegation that attended the NationalMUN Conference in Washington, D.C. from Oct. 26-28. In this conference, TAMIU's committee was part of the World Health Organization (WHO), in which they were given three topics to defend. (1) Bettering the role of WHO, (2) assessing the needs of urban youth in conflict zones, and (3) establishing vaccines across the world. During the conference, TAMIU's committee was separated into two different groups; the first committee represented Ireland and the second committee represented Turkey. At the conference, the committees decided which topic was the most important. The goal at the end of the three day conference was to write a resolution that everyone agreed on.

In addition, this same delegation will travel to the WorldMUN that will take place in Melbourne, Australia next March. Through lively and informed debates, exciting social events, and a unique conference spirit, the WorldMUN experience reaches across cultures and borders to inspire both cooperation and friendship. Attending these conferences has benefits of networking with students from the best universities from around the world. Barrera explains, "I never thought coming to TAMIU will [would] lead me to conferences where I'll [I'd] be debating with someone from Harvard, Columbia or Oxford, big schools...This experience [Singapore] inspired me [to] continue in TAMIU." Topics for WorldMUN 2013 will be given to the committees in December.

In order for the organization to grow and prosper, a secondary team of eight members was created this year as a precautionary measure, since most of the primary delegates are juniors and seniors who will leave the organization soon. Doing this will create and expand a legacy within TAMIU. The secondary team will attend a third conference in New York, while the primary team is in Melbourne. Barrera also added that in Vancouver, there were over 2,000 students from over 60 countries, and only two Texas teams were present. In this year's conference, TAMIU will be the only Texas team present in Melbourne. "We are not only representing TAMIU in Laredo, but our state in an international level," he concluded.

Future plans for MUNSST include partnering up with local high schools to expand this experience and raise awareness on this type of programs that are available at TAMIU.

For more information about TAMIU's MUNSST, visitwww.facebook.com/MUNSST or contact Alex Barrera at alexgbarrera@dusty.tamiu.edu.

(Linda Bravo may be reached at linda.bravo@tamiu.edu)