RIMUN - 2014

Anyone waiting in Terminal 2 of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in the wee hours of 26th March, 2014, would have undoubtedly noticed twelve unusually enthusiastic sleep-deprived students and two understandably hassled teachers eagerly awaiting their flight to Rome. Laptops in hand and armed with a plethora of gifts for our hosts, their families, extended family, distant cousins, and neighbours, we were ready for the Rome International Model United Nations (RIMUN).

Our first full day in Rome went by quickly with a tour of the magnificent city. We covered the usual tourist hotspots and were lucky enough to happen upon the President of the United States of America and his convoy of snipers. The fact that we had chosen to grace Rome with our presence on the same day as the Leader of the Free World made us feel special and important.

These feelings of being special and important were particularly handy when the RIMUN actually began, where we represented the nations of Chile, Nigeria and Poland in Committees such as the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Legal Committee, the ICJ etc. The RIMUN went off to a great start as every DAIS delegate managed to elbow his or her way to ‘main submitter’ and our ICJ advocates managed to pull off a very convincing ‘Denny Crane – Alan Shore’ act. When the conference ended on the 1st of April, the DAIS delegates were proved worthy, seven out of twelve having won ‘best delegate’ and the two ICJ advocates having won their case unanimously.

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The RIMUN was an experience of a lifetime, and this is feeling is a shared one, as demonstrated by our unwillingness to get on the flight back home (the teachers will give testimony to this). The exposure to the cultures of over 17 different countries (not to mention Italian culture), the adrenaline rush delegates felt every time they successfully contested a resolution, the sense of empowerment that young students felt when they crafted, in their own (somewhat fanciful) words, ‘a resolution better than the actual UN resolutions’ made the RIMUN an eclectic amalgamation of culture, feelings of global citizenship and a youthful determination to ‘save the world’. Every single member of the RIMUN, from the lowly Staff to our omniscient DAIS delegates, left the MUN with the feeling that all hope was not yet lost, and that the word ‘foreign’ is redundant today – it is simply a barrier to co-operation.

The RIMUN is an experience not to be missed.

• By Supriya Kamath,
  Grade 11.