My role in the simulation was being apart of the UNHCR. In all honesty I felt I wasn’t very prepared for the simulation. At the time the actual summit began I did not know what UNHCR even stood for, nor did the members of my group. However, in my defense, we did not have the experience most of the students who went on the Hungary trip had. Considering they already had experience from the UN summit in Hungary. My group in particular did not have a student that had gone to Hungary and knew how to operate in the summit, because they were absent the very first day of the simulation, therefore that was a bit of a set back for my group. We had to wait and see how other groups were participating to get the hang of it. We didn’t exactly know how to word things or write specifically and formally during the first part of the summit as well, which was a bit of a set back in the beginning. I feel that if we had more preparation, we could have aligned with more delegations and started off on a stronger foot if we knew what we were actually doing. I feel I had a large role in my group just because I was there for each day of the simulation. I helped to align my delegation with ARM and then together we worked together to confront other countries during formal and informal negotiations to try and create a resolution. Although it was very difficult to get countries to side with us because we could only act as a mediator because the UNHCR isn’t a country and doesn’t have a military or it’s own money. What I would change would be teaching all of the motions to everyone. Not everyone has done Model UN so it would be nice to have a list of how to present in front of the committee, or maybe just explaining how it works before.
Overall, I thought the summit was a lot of fun and I definitely would love to do it again. I enjoyed arguing with the other countries that kept coming up with silly excuses and negotiations. Something that was difficult was knowing what the UNHCR did and could do with the countries. It was difficult to get some countries to cooperate with us. I think this is a very cool simulation and it teaches you a lot of how the real world operates which is a beneficial thing to know for life.