As citizens of the earth it is our duty to contribute in whatever we can in being aware, and then taking action, to preserve what is currently the only home we have. The UN luckily has categorised the world’s most urgent problems in need of solving into 17 categories (Sustainable Development Goals) from eradicating poverty to creating accountable institutions at a government and transnational level. Each year chosen by the Model United Group, OSC focuses on exploring one of the goals in all of its intricacies. As the Secretary General for this year’s COMUN session, I had the immense pleasure of being the one to choose which SDG we will focus on. 

At this point I would like to stress that all SDGs are equally important and are furthermore the issues which they try to solve are so intrinsically linked that it was a difficult decision on which one to specifically focus on. But I have a soft spot for highlighting issues that often get swept away in the grand scheme of things which is why I wanted to focus on a less tangible concept but ones whose impact is ubiquitous. This narrowed my selection to the SDGs between 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). After much deliberation and consultation with other senior members of COMUN; I am proud to announce that this year’s theme is: SGD 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities. 

Slightly different from past years, but this year from grades 1 to 12 there will be one hour workshops hosted by the MUN group and DP1 students where they will get a chance to explore SDG 11. I have both participated and led these workshops in past years, but this year with the addition of primary there is the challenge of tailoring the concept to a younger audience. Based on feedback from previous years, instead of these workshops being a boring, didactic presentation; instead we want to facilitate discussions and organic inquiry about the topic. On my end while we are still in the preparation stages I have encouraged all the MUN kids to use methods like padlets, mind maps, seminar questions to facilitate a more engaging and interactive session. Furthermore I have encouraged each group to get in touch with their respective years Individuals and Societies (a mixture of history, geography and economics) teachers to come up with a session that is relevant to what they will be learning throughout the year. 

I personally will not be taking part in leading one workshop and will float around on the day helping out wherever I can. However leading up to it, I have been researching in depth into urban development and planning as a way to help other students come up for ideas for workshops.