THE MUNUAL: The manual for muners
by Daryl albert budiman
The Awakening
Just a few months ago, I remember sniffing the morning atmosphere as I opened my eyes to the universe for the 6205th time. With grace and elegance, I did my morning howl. It was an epitome of wolfs when dusk meets dawn. As per usual, I check my phone that was sleeping right on my bedside table to view the 150 group messages that I usually receive while I was asleep.
However, that day was different. What’s this? An email notification in munforeveryone@gmail.com? My eyes were diluted in shock as I saw The Munual’s email request. I was like, hold up I know them! After a fierceful battle against the winds of nature, I excitedly enter the gates of the seven dragons. In simpler terms, I opened the email. I was warmly greeted by The Munual team as they proposed a collaboration request for an interview between the two organizations. Truly believing that the MUN community is a strongly-bonded community that supports each other at all times (haha I should create a thread on debate.org on MUN vs WSC), it was just exceptional to collaborate with such established non-profit organization.
In relation of receiving such honorable request, I briskly teleported to the MUN for Everyone group to share the exhilarating news! After a brief period of time, we decided to accept the offer and set Saturday (3/24) to do the interview.
The Day of the Golden Cross-Over
Judgement day has arrived. Just a few hours before the interview, I stole Kevin, my partner in crime and justice from his house to briskly prepare for the interview. We went to the nearest coffee shop that was generous enough to lend us this incredible technology called the Wi-Fi. It was just me, Kevin, and my bowl of Spaghetti Carbonara, nervously wandering around Skype as we continuously looked at the screen and checked on whether we look damn fine. We were a neophyte in the whole MUN world and thus words can’t describe how nervous we were to do an interview for the first time.
We connected our Skype IDs and we bumped into this good-looking individual named Sidney Tsai, a Taiwanese-Indonesian 11th grade student who was prominent in breaking the ice. I will remember her quote until this very day, “Okay then let’s start with some introductions to break this awkwardness.” Bless her soul. Brief moments passed and we were greeted by another good-looking individual named Azim, a Pakistani-Taiwanese 12th grade student who I felt I could walk by the beach together while talking about the parallel dimensions of the universe and religions. There we were, two average Indonesian dudes with two beyond-average mixed Taiwanese students. What happened? A cross-over did. Enough diddle daddles and let’s get down to business.
The Munual: A Brief Introduction
The Munual, having been established for three years now, were formed through the awareness that many Taiwanese students did not have the resources that they need to facilitate them in preparing for MUN conferences. The Taiwan-based MUN platform creates its local impact by assisting Taiwanese schools, both national and international, that do not possess adequate knowledge about delegation, chairing, or MUN in general.
How, you ask? You know those boring and dull presentations that unmotivated companies or organizations like to give to students, with the students ending up in a hibernation state? Well, The Munual is NOTHING like that! The way the organization works is incredibly interactive and captivating!
Hold up hold up! You can train students to be the best delegates of Taiwan but a MUN conference can’t operate without dependable chairs. This is where The Munual takes charge of the situation. Besides introducing MUN to students, the team also guides students who plan to serve as conference chairs/directors, but do not have any prior knowledge on chairing or just do not have that chair flair.
What they do is that they conduct chair trainings to assist conferences that need help with chair preparation. To do this, they engagingly provide them with presentations on the Rules of Procedure (ROP) and chairing. To add to that, they conduct a little simulation with the chair trainees in which the team would come up with several scenarios that chairs will have to face in the real conference. As a result, such situation would test the chairs’ knowledge of the ROP, as well as their ability to appropriately act upon certain situations that might happen in the conference room.
According to Azim and Sidney, chairs should put more focus into content and the ideas that are presented when scoring delegates. To add to that, chairs should try to talk to delegates during the unmoderated caucuses to evaluate their overall contribution to the conference as well.
In Taiwan, topics are thoroughly discussed in order to obtain the most of the debate. MUN conferences can cover several topics that may be labelled as sensitive topics in other countries, such as terrorism, same-sex marriage, and religion. It is existential that the MUN circuit in Taiwan is quite open-minded in terms of the contents of discussions, which I personally think is great as some of the most sensitive topics are quite ubiquitous to be discussed in the real UN conference. In contrast, it is reasonable to say that such sensitive topics are at times avoided in Indonesian MUN events in order to prevent the controversial tension that exists in the country.
Purpose of MUN
For Azim, it is not realistic to perceive MUN as a conference to find the most effective solutions to tackle global issues, because no one would actually be able to conclude with the most dependable resolutions that quick. Because of that, MUN for Azim is not only about making friends, but more towards the content of the debate.
In the city of Sidney, she believes that everyone has a different purpose for Model UN as MUN holds a different meaning to each person. Some may gain most from the debates, some from the cooperation with other people. For Sid, the most important value is the opportunity for her to learn and improve herself.
Last Remarks
After our interview session with the two gorgeous individuals from The Munual, I was left speechless with the impression that I just had one of the best interviews of my life. Sidney and Azim, in representation of The Munual, are the one of the most passionate people I’ve ever encountered. Their dedication in constituting a path for Taiwanese students to learn MUN is truly an inspiration. Lastly, we would like to send our greatest regards for the entire Munual team for this collaboration and we look forward for future co-operations! For the Taiwanese readers out there, you know who to call if you ever need chairing guidance! For all readers out there, make sure to check them out on:
Website: munual.org
Instagram: @TheMunual
By: Daryl Albert Budiman
Instagram: @darylab