Sunway, PJ, 5 April 2016 – The University of Malaya Model United Nations (UMMUN) team was crowned champion and the best overall institutional delegation in the 2016 Monash University Inaugural Model United Nations (MONMUNIC) in the last 3 days Model United Nations (MUN) Conference held at the Sunway-Malaysia Campus, Monash University here last Sunday.
Competing against other local MUN heavyweights such as the Nottingham University, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Sunway University, Taylor University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), UM send 9 individual delegations and competing in all 5 different Committees; Historic UN Security Council, UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council, World Health Organization (WHO), and the Crisis Simulation Committee on the Situations of Refugees in Europe.
Apart from the main award - the Overall Best Institutional Delegation, 7 of the UM individual delegations was awarded with the top awards by the Chair and Co-Chair (individual adjudicators) of each committee; 3 of the Best Delegate Award (First Prize) goes to Madin Maseeh in Historic UN Security Council, Najeeba Altaf in UN Human Rights Council, and Manucheher Shafee in WHO. Meanwhile, 3 of the Outstanding Delegate Award (Second Prize) goes to Victor Germain in Historic UN Security Council, Ines Cbn in UN Security Council and Shahir Islam in WHO and the Honorable Mention Award (Third Prize) goes to Tashfiah Hamid in UN Human Rights Council.
Given the relatively newly created of the MUN secretariat in UM in November 2015, this was the first time that UM won the best overall institutional delegation in the local MUN competition, which is quite new among the public universities in Malaysia. The organizer of the MONMUNIC and majority of the adjudicators who had previously adjudicating and chairing various committees at the Harvard World MUN Conference (WMUN0 was generally impressed with the quality of the debate and world class performance presented by the UM team despite their new participations in the local and international MUN scenes.
Currently, the newly created of the Secretariat of UMMUN is currently under the responsibility of its full-time trainer, David Rajarajman (the 2016 NTU Singapore MUN Winner) and the Head-Coach of Dr. Danial Azman, a senior lecturer at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UM and Advisor of the UM International Relations Society (UMIRSoc). Both UMMUN and UMIRsoc received a constant support and appreciation from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs and Alumni, Prof. Datuk Dr Rohana Yusof in its current intense preparation to represent UM and Malaysia at the 2017 Harvard University World Model United Nations (WMUN).
UM team at Monash University Model United Nations Conference. From left (standing), Michael Park, Shahir Islam, Manucheher Shafee, Dr. Danial Azman (the Head-Coach), Madin Maseeh and Victor Germain. From Left (sitting), Ditya Hasna Karima, Ines Cbn, Najibah Altaf and Tashfiah Samsudin.