In January, Sofia from Year 10, took part in the PLISMUN conference in Prague – read about her experience
- This year, I had the pleasure of joining PLISMUN’26, a model United nations conference which takes place at Parklane International School in Prague. In this conference, students from schools all over Europe act as delegates of countries and simulate real United Nations conferences. This year, the theme was world peace and prosperity. Every committee- a group committed to one theme, like healthcare (WHO) or human rights (HRC)- had one or two themes based upon this topic.
- Beforehand, I had to prepare for my role as the delegate of the Democratic’s People Republic of Korea- which is North Korea, in the Human Rights Council. Our two topics were ensuring equal opportunities for Roma communities and protecting the right to protest in democracies. For both, I had to write position papers, which explain the topic and debate upon the country’s position within these issues. As North Korea, I could only criticize Europe for not helping the Roma communities properly, and I had to pretend that North Korea is not sending people to labor camps if they say anything against the regime.
- I watched numerous National Geographic documentaries and familiarized myself with how the country worked. As a result, I discovered that the people of North Korea are under a heavy regime with propaganda against the USA everywhere. To them, the Kim family are like gods. Personally, I was sad to see how much these people are brainwashed.
- On the 28th of January, a Wednesday, I left Olomouc with my mom and we travelled across the Czech Republic to Prague by train. Upon our arrival, we checked into our hotel. The next day, the General Assembly began at one o’clock at Nova Radnice. A few people gave speeches, including the principal of Parklane and the American embassy. Afterwards, the Security Council gave their speeches about the Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir. Next, it was time for icebreakers. I left with my committee to a bowling place where I got to know the delegates of Poland and Belgium, also of the HRC.
- On Friday, the conference took place in Parklane itself, which was just around the corner from my hotel. Upon arrival, I received PLISMUN merchandise (tote bag, socks, pen, notepad, water bottle, & sticker) and waited for other delegates to arrive. At 9 o’clock, our session began. The chairs (people who organize and take care of the committee) did the roll call and the opening speeches began. Once it was my turn, I read out my opening speech and was immediately asked two questions by the delegates of Serbia and Slovakia. After all of the opening speeches were complete, unmoderated caucuses began. At first, I tried to join the Slavic countries, which were deciding to work together to help the Roma communities. However, it is not in North Korea’s view that they should help the Roma (nor do they acknowledge them as an identity), meaning that I sided with Russia, China, and Bulgaria instead. Together, we worked on a resolution which would help the Roma communities. However, they were using ChatGPT a lot and the only thing which I was helping with was the format of the bullet points.
- The delegate of Turkey presented his resolution, which passed. So did the Slavic countries, which also passed. This concluded the first day of the conference within individual committees.
- On Saturday, we finished voting for the resolutions (Russia chose not to present ours due to time constraints) and began the second topic. After my opening speech, I was forced to answer four questions and made sure not to give away anything by saying phrases like “no comment” or “we believe that the delegate has been falsely misinformed by rumors” to ‘protect’ North Korea’s reputation. They do not give anything away about their labor camps or their hard regime, only that it is exemplary. Once the unmoderated caucuses began, I tried to side with Russia and China again, except they only wanted strong restrictions on protesting instead of removing protesting completely, which is what North Korea would want to do. Therefore, I sided with North Korea’s other ally, Iran. We also worked with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to abolish all forms of protesting. However, we decided that since nobody was going to vote in favor of ours, we became signatories for Russia’s instead. My only excuse for signing was to support them as an ally. We ran out of time to finish voting on the resolutions, which concluded the second day.
- On Sunday, we finished voting (Israel’s passed) and began to do some fun activities, like punishments (which included karaoke and Just Dance) and placard signing, which was my favorite part. Through this I also got to know the delegate of the Czech Republic and we became friends. At twelve o’clock we left Parklane to enter Nova Radnice again, where the final General Assembly was going to take place. Once all of the delegates arrived, every committee presented their resolutions/declarations. HRC went first and things went rather smoothly until Israel presented her resolution, causing the delegate of Saudi Arabia from the Security Council to make a speech against and for the entire assembly to move into voting procedure. Afterwards, every other committee presented: the World Health Organization, the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Historical World Health Organization, the Crisis Committee, and the Security Council. Before the closing ceremony could begin, I already had to leave to catch my train.
- Overall, I found this to be a wonderful experience and received some fantastic insight on world issues. I met with so many people and got to know so many countries and their stances upon different issues. I understood North Korea’s internal issues and how they stand against the rest of the world. I would like to join PLISMUN again next year and would recommend this to people who wish to socialize and familiarize themselves with today’s issues and international cooperations. I would like to thank Ms. Bara for organizing me to go and for her help.
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