Year 12 student, Lucy K writes about her experience at THIMUN as a member of The MUNITY Press Team
POST BY: Year 12 Student, Lucy K – who writes about her experience as a member of the MUNITY Press Team
Over the week of 30th January to 3rd February, I worked alongside 27 others as a photographer on the MUNITY press team to cover the events at THIMUN. This is an annual conference, this being the 49th year it has been held, hosting 3000 people from high schools across the world for a Model United Nations conference in The Hague. Eighteen different committees were spread out across the World Forum Centre in The Hague and debated resolutions on current issues faced internationally throughout the week.
The MUNITY team was composed of cartoon artists, photographers, reporters, layout and editors. We also had two wonderful teachers from international schools in Taiwan and Berlin, Mr Buscher and Mr Robertson, who were there to help us organise ourselves and encourage us. Every day we 
would put on our team hoodies and go out to sell the paper we had created the day before. People were very reluctant to buy at first, however by Wednesday, we were selling out! We became very innovative with our selling techniques; sticking our heads into cars and even giving free hugs. After this, we set off to pull together an issue of around 12 pages for the following day. Articles were assigned, artists got drawing and we set off to capture the moments of the day. Some examples of our articles were “ICJ’s Struggle for Justice”, “How your chairs view you” and “The UNeffectiveness of the UN”. I took a grand total of 750 photos which just goes to show how truly busy we were.
My skills with my camera grew immensely during the week, as I was able to confer and receive tips from the other photographers. For example, it was challenging to cater for the varying levels of light, such as the bright foyer to the dimly lit World Forum theatre. Our array of shots inspired each other and allowed for our creativity to expand further than portrait shots. The best part of each day was seeing all of your photos displayed in each edition credited with your name under each photo.
Overall, I am very pleased I had the opportunity to be a part of such a huge worldwide conference and was able to work with such talented students. The friendships I have made over the course of the week are very valuable to me and I hope I can come back again next year!
To view our papers online go to: http://thimunonline.blogspot.nl/
Munity Online: BRINGING YOU WHAT YOU WANT, WHEN YOU WANT IT
