Members of admin staff, Faith Omoro, Osato Mickey, Jason Coakley, Demi Isaac and William Walsh welcome delegates to City Hall, Cork, for the Davis College Model UN.
Last week, 400 students travelled to Cork City Hall to participate in the 4th international Model United Nations. Students travelled from the four provinces of Ireland and from Portugal, Spain, Germany, Austria and Angola to participate in this event. Model United Nations is a student-run simulation of the United Nations conference in which students assume the position of a country or a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) and engage in discussions on leading global issues, representing the views of their country or organ-isation.
The conference began on Tuesday, 24th January. The participating students enjoyed speeches from this year’s guest speakers. They were addressed by Stephen Gilbert, Principal of Davis College, Noel O’Connor, chairperson of Davis College Board of Management Aisling McGrath from World Wise Global Schools, and Ted Owens, Chief Executive Officer of Cork Edu-cational Training Board (ETB).
On Wednesday they were addressed by Lord Mayor Des Cahill, and Pat McKelvey, Director of Schools at Cork Edu-cational Training Board (ETB). This year’s keynote speaker was Colm O’Gor-man, Executive Officer of Amnesty International who addressed students on the role of Amnesty Inter-national in the United Nations and the importance of their participation in Model United Nations. There was then a question and answer session in which the students got to ask Colm O’Gorman any questions they had.
Over the following days the students engaged in debates on pressing issues such as media censorship, the mental wellbeing of youth, universal access to education, the territorial disputes of the South China Sea and many more issues. The fruitful debates that followed yielded an array of solutions to these issues.
On Friday, the students were addressed by John Carmody of the Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN). He addressed the students on the role of ARAN and how they can make small changes in their lives to help improve the issue of animal rights. His words resounded with the students present, which was evident in the dis-cussions on animal rights which followed.
Following Friday’s debates there was a closing cere-mony. Once again the students were addressed by guest speakers such as Pat Sexton from Spreakeasy Toastmasters, Michael Lawlor, Davis College Deputy Principal, and Jose Horta, MUN Director in Davis College. Before the conference closed, awards were handed out to students who stood out during the conference.