Israel’s second oldest Model UN conference, Tiqvamun 2022, was held on Monday November 14 at the College of Petah Tiqva. Over 300 students from two dozen schools and cities around Israel participated in 10 committees, spent a full day discussing and trying to solve a range of challenging topics, before the awards ceremony recognizing outstanding achievements.
This year was the eighth iteration of the TIQVAMUN conference, from the first one dating back to January 2012. This was its largest one yet, with 350 students, teachers, and staff. This was also the first ever in-person Model UN in Israeli history to incorporate students from grades 4-12 in one conference. The opening ceremony included a welcome from Mrs. Rachel Amrani, Director of the Chen Young Ambassadors program; as well as introductory remarks from the mayor of Petah Tiqva, Mr. Rami Greenberg, and Mr. Nadav Greenberg, political advisor at the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO). At the closing ceremony, students heard from Minister Counsellor, Antonio Millan from the Embassy of Spain, who encouraged the students to keep pursuing academic and intercultural learning opportunities.
The committees included UNDP (on inequalities and SDG 10); Arab League (instability in Iraq); Human Rights (Cancel Culture); ILO (Migrant worker rights); Legal (AIs and Privacy); SPECPOL (conflict in Mali); European Commission (Energy Crisis); UNSCO (Israeli-Palestinian negotiations), US Senate (Abortion rights) and the Humans-Aliens crisis.
Participating schools included: Branco Wesiss Mazkeret Batya; Shoham high; Hand in Hand; Atid Lod High School for Excellence and Scientific Leadership in the Community; QSCHOOLS; Shaked Darca; Al-Andalous Comprehensive School; Salesian Sisters’ School; Iksal high school; Harishonim High School, Haim Hefer elementary school; Krol elementary school; Paul Kor elementary school, along with students from dozen ten schools.
Yana Haj Yahia from Qschools told Diplomacy.co.il that “It was my first Mun conference, it was really a great experience. From what I've seen, attending MUN really makes you feel like a diplomat yourself. I will definitely continue to participate in MUN conferences.”
Maria Marrid from Bashaer high school added that “TiqvaMUN was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I met new amazing people that now they take such a huge part in my life, we ate, laughed ,danced, singed and had so much fun together
Avigail Ketzenstein from Shaked Darca said that TIQVAMUN “was a place where different people from different worlds who share the same interest could do the thing they loved with respect and kindness to one another.”
Omar Essam Anabusi from Al-Andalous Comprehensive School thanked the TIQVAMUN staff, noting the impact of the conference on the ability of students to communicate in English, and the importance of “involving delegates from different cultural backgrounds”.
Liam Skop, a student in the Chen Young Ambassadors program, said that he “enjoyed expanding my knowledge about the topic of equal rights, and also meeting children my age from other schools who are also interested in international relations and related topics.”
Rom Shitrit, from Paul Kor school shared that “the conference was very interesting, I learned about equal rights in different countries, and about countries I didn’t know about yet, and conflicts between different countries.”
Naomi Fellert, a 6th grade student from Haim Hefer school, who represented Indonesia in the UNDP committee on equal rights, expressed appreciation for all of the organizers of the conference, stating that the conference had been “fun and educational.”
The Krol MUN team said that they had enjoyed learning about new countries and becoming more knowledgeable about the conflict in Iraq, and looked forward to future conferences.
Mrs. Rachel Amrani, Director of the Chen Young Ambassadors school, told Diplomacy.co.il that she was “moved by the experience of seeing hundreds of students participating at TIQVAMUN”, noting that students had represented with dignity dozens of countries from around the world on a range of challenging topics, such as human rights; gender equality; environmental concerns, and regional and global conflicts.”
