by Season Ho
Dear honourable guests, advisors and students,
On behalf of the Hong Kong Model United Nations Club, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to all of you for supporting our Hong Kong Model United Nations 2015. Thank you Ms Annie Wu, Ms Elsie Leung, Mr. J Ian Burchett and Mr. Patrick Mansier, for sparing the time out of your busy schedule to join our ceremony.
With this edition there starts a new cycle in the life of HKMUN. We strive to offer you an unforgettable experience, by relying on the experience of the past editions, further enhancing the features that made HKMUN such a special project and, at the same time, introducing new and unconventional approaches to MUN’s.
The story of HKMUN started in 2005 with a handful of people who wanted to establish the first international MUN in Hong Kong and a landmark for MUNs in the region. Despite setbacks and unavoidable circumstances, they achieved their goal by organizing the first HKMUN in 2005 to the best of their abilities. It was built with hard work, driven by ambition and professionalism and supported with the help of friends and family. It achieved its purpose as a promoter of the core values of the UN, a forum for young professionals to exchange ideas, but it also became much more: it became a community, a family where bonds are created and shared for a lifetime. In spite of the passing of time and its continuous expansion, HKMUN remains faithful to its original values – professionalism, equality, integrity, commitment to excellence, high levels of academic achievement and social integration.
The theme proposed for this year’s conference challenges you to go an extra mile in the service of humanity. We live in an era of great uncertainty, but also one of profound opportunity for us to make a difference for the sake of others. The human family grows ever so steadily, with more than seven billion members, and this provides us with an opportunity to communicate, collaborate, and find a common ground in order to shape the future that we want and need.
Model UN conferences constitute such a unique experience because, while recreating the work and functioning of the UN and other organisations, as well as the fascinating universe of international relations, they also offer the opportunity for innovation. MUNs help create the premises where fresh ideas can be exchanged and out-of-the-box solutions can be tested for some of the most challenging international issues. On some occasions, they constitute examples of cooperation and creativity that should be taken into account by the “real diplomats”. On other occasions, they present the delegates with the bitter shortcomings of the current state of international affairs that they will have to address as future diplomats. Notwithstanding the outcome, the experience that the participants acquire is invaluable.
Distinguished participants, I strongly encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunity brought forward by HKMUN. I encourage you to be creative, test the limits of current international relations, while remaining realistic, learn as much as you can from this experience and bear these lessons in mind when entrusted with real decision-making power in your future careers.
To conclude, I sincerely hope that you will remain mindful of the fact that even if this conference is a simulation, the problems that you are invited to address are very real. They are not simply numbers in a chart, data in a report or an interesting doctrine; they are or will be part of the everyday reality of actual people. Therefore, they need to be addressed with wisdom, utmost care and perfect awareness of the impact that they will have on the lives and destinies of real people.
I welcome you all and wish you the best of luck in the hope that you achieve what you came looking for in HKMUN 2015.
Dear honourable guests, advisors and students,
On behalf of the Hong Kong Model United Nations Club, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to all of you for supporting our Hong Kong Model United Nations 2015. Thank you Ms Annie Wu, Ms Elsie Leung, Mr. J Ian Burchett and Mr. Patrick Mansier, for sparing the time out of your busy schedule to join our ceremony.
With this edition there starts a new cycle in the life of HKMUN. We strive to offer you an unforgettable experience, by relying on the experience of the past editions, further enhancing the features that made HKMUN such a special project and, at the same time, introducing new and unconventional approaches to MUN’s.
The story of HKMUN started in 2005 with a handful of people who wanted to establish the first international MUN in Hong Kong and a landmark for MUNs in the region. Despite setbacks and unavoidable circumstances, they achieved their goal by organizing the first HKMUN in 2005 to the best of their abilities. It was built with hard work, driven by ambition and professionalism and supported with the help of friends and family. It achieved its purpose as a promoter of the core values of the UN, a forum for young professionals to exchange ideas, but it also became much more: it became a community, a family where bonds are created and shared for a lifetime. In spite of the passing of time and its continuous expansion, HKMUN remains faithful to its original values – professionalism, equality, integrity, commitment to excellence, high levels of academic achievement and social integration.
The theme proposed for this year’s conference challenges you to go an extra mile in the service of humanity. We live in an era of great uncertainty, but also one of profound opportunity for us to make a difference for the sake of others. The human family grows ever so steadily, with more than seven billion members, and this provides us with an opportunity to communicate, collaborate, and find a common ground in order to shape the future that we want and need.
Model UN conferences constitute such a unique experience because, while recreating the work and functioning of the UN and other organisations, as well as the fascinating universe of international relations, they also offer the opportunity for innovation. MUNs help create the premises where fresh ideas can be exchanged and out-of-the-box solutions can be tested for some of the most challenging international issues. On some occasions, they constitute examples of cooperation and creativity that should be taken into account by the “real diplomats”. On other occasions, they present the delegates with the bitter shortcomings of the current state of international affairs that they will have to address as future diplomats. Notwithstanding the outcome, the experience that the participants acquire is invaluable.
Distinguished participants, I strongly encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunity brought forward by HKMUN. I encourage you to be creative, test the limits of current international relations, while remaining realistic, learn as much as you can from this experience and bear these lessons in mind when entrusted with real decision-making power in your future careers.
To conclude, I sincerely hope that you will remain mindful of the fact that even if this conference is a simulation, the problems that you are invited to address are very real. They are not simply numbers in a chart, data in a report or an interesting doctrine; they are or will be part of the everyday reality of actual people. Therefore, they need to be addressed with wisdom, utmost care and perfect awareness of the impact that they will have on the lives and destinies of real people.
I welcome you all and wish you the best of luck in the hope that you achieve what you came looking for in HKMUN 2015.
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