Honorable Chair, Fellow Delgates, welcome to the United Nations
Monday was an extremely busy day for us. We started out the day at the Finland Mission to the United Nations where we heard from an Advisor to the Permanent Representative of Finland. He filled our brains with useful knowledge about Finland, like how they are able to maintain their label as the worlds super peacekeeper, and how they manage their stance in European Union and United Nations conferences. Many of the delegates asked him insightful questions pertaining to concrete measures Finland has taken in regards to education, security, climate change and more. The mission even provided us with soda pop and cookies! We managed to get in a quick photo before we were hustled out of the door at 1:15.
From there, the delegates stood in the rain waiting for taxi’s to rush them back to the hotel for their second committee session. With the committees starting at 2:oo there was no time for lunch, so everyone worked on empty bellies. Finland made a lot of progress on Monday. Many more delegates spoke in front of their committees, and many began drafting their resolutions with other member states.
The committee sessions ended at 4:00pm, only to have thousands of delegates rushing to the United Nations for the opening ceremony. Dr. Abbassi, Kelly and I headed to the UN around 3:00 in order to get in, get through security, and save close seats for the delegates. We ended up being able to sit behind the real Finland placard in the real UN General Assembly Hall. It was so great, we got a ton of pictures. All of the delegates, especially the ones that have never been involved in Model UN before really enjoyed themselves and were taken back at the fact that they were sitting in the real General Assembly hall, where diplomats and ambassadors sit!
The opening ceremony was very nice. We heard two speakers, one was the Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public information, H.E. Kiyotaka Akasaka. He even had a personalized message to give us from the Secretary General, Ban Ki -Moon who could not be there because he was out of the country. The next speaker we heard was a retired U.S. ambassador, H.E. Lynn Pascoe, who is currently serving as the Under-Secretary General of Political Affairs. They both had very kind and encouraging words for all of the delegates. Mr. Pascoe was especially comforting considering he was laid back in his speech and even joked about diplomacy. He said “Diplomacy is the art of telling someone where to go in such a way that they look forward to their journey.”
When opening ceremonies concluded, the at-this-time STARVING delegates were rushed back to the hotel for the their committee session at 8pm. Mind you, they had not eaten all day. Us being the smart delegation we are, had Dr. Abbassi sneak out of the ceremonies a few minutes early to pick up pizza for all of the delegates so they could scarf down a slice before committee. I have never in my life seen students dressed in business atire eat like mad animals. (I got some of it on film).
Committee sessions did not end until 12am. Most of the delegates got out of committee and went straight to bed. They knew the next day would be an even longer one.