By Sophie Wong and Carolyn Chu
The ninth annual TASMUN conference started with an opening ceremony. More than 500 participants from India, Hong Kong, Korea, China, and Taiwan attended. The opening ceremony started with Mrs. Sinclair announcing the purpose of MUN. “Delegates are becoming more confident as they gain experience and develop relationships,” she said. She expressed how MUN is important for making relationships and to make a change of the future.
Mrs. Sinclair then introduced Dr. Moran, the Deputy Head of School, who talked about how delegates that meet in a short time can become lifetime friends. The Deputy Secretary-General, Si Yun Ee, then spoke about how she started MUN as a press team member. She also stated that joining together as a great force can influence others in the world.
Deputy Secretary General April Tsai introduced the keynote speaker, Paula Bronstein, to the stage. Ms. Bronstein is a national press photographer and a photojournalist. She spent a lot of time taking photos of natural disasters and big issues that are happening in the world right now. She also shared her story about when she was a photojournalist. She provided a slideshow that showed her journey there. People there were under really bad conditions, and don’t have homes to live in. Ms. Bronstein also shared pictures of the Myanmar Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Most of the people there don’t have a roof to live under and their resources are very limited. She stated that she wants to make a change to this and motivate others to realize and understand what’s going on in the world and what they could do about it.
Finally, Si Yun introduced the other committee chairs and officially started the TASMUN IX conference.