HNMUN Venezuelan Style

The most important question isn’t “what came first–the chicken or the egg?” It’s “who could have ever come up with the idea of recreating international institutions’ inner procedures for decision-making as a form of a multicultural educational activity?” In other words, who could have ever created Model United Nations? The very first conference was held 56 years ago by Harvard University. Better known as HNMUN (Harvard National Model United Nations), this debate competition was initially limited to Harvard Students, but today it includes 30 international universities and 3000 participant.

HNMUN might be an acronym that is unfamiliar to most students, yet it is well known in the most important universities nationwide in Venezuela; on campus many often relate the acronym to smart students, knowledge of English and a small, lucky elite. As part of the HNMUN delegation for my university, I shouldn’t be biased on my upcoming points, but being part of the team-–and what my team has gone through--has showed me how privileged one can be.

The Basics:

In Venezuela, Universidad Metropolitana is the longest-attending University to the Boston Conference as it has been attending for 16 years now. Following in its steps are Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Universidad Simón Bolívar and Universidad Santa María. The amount of delegates that complete a delegation is around 17 to 30, and Faculty Advisors are senior students who have experience in MUN. Usually, besides Faculty Advisors and Head Delegates, an inner council takes care of multiple chores, including sponsorship, publicity, treasury, PR and IR.

But what are the specific challenges Venezuelans have to face to attend a high-level debating conference?

The Economic Challenges:

Attendance of Venezuela’s universities relies mainly on sponsorship that comes from private industries and businesses; going through “social responsibility,” these industries pay their taxes by donating money to educational programs. Even though it might sound easy, getting money for 26 students to fly, stay, eat and attend a one-week event requires a lot of work. If we don’t get the money, we compromise on paying the expenses on our own.

In addition, foreign currency exchange (better known as CADIVI) triples our workload. CADIVI is a regulatory measure for which acquiring foreign currency for traveling or commercial transactions must be authorized. Also, one is limited a certain amount of dollars per year–-$2500 in credit cards, $400 for online use and $500 in cash. Amounts vary--and are reduced--depending on the length, purpose and place of the stay. CADIVI has the right to deny them to you, as they did to many of us.

‘Who wants to offer his or her house for the next meeting?’ The challenges continue at the working level:

Each year, more than 200 students take the application test, 60 make it to the interviews and 20 to 25 get chosen to be on the team. The hard work begins at the very beginning when you have to be the best of the best to make it onto the team. Once your name is put on a list for the whole campus to see, MUN owns your Sundays. From May to August and October to February, you will devote your Sunday afternoons to Model UN. Beginning at 6 p.m. (and going as late as 4 a.m.), members of the team must attend the meetings and participate actively in the workshops and general knowledge competitions Head Delegates and Faculty Advisors create for them. Saturdays might be utilized as well when joint simulations are done to keep the delegates in shape to prepare them 150% for the big February conference. Besides this, many delegations do charity events. Universidad Metropolitana’s events include taking kids from the slums to a special December Saturday to see a movie and get a surprise visit by Santa Claus. This charity event works on a win-win situation where donors buy the tickets for the kids to attend and in return a raffle is drawn.

The Political Challenges:

Model UN tends to attract students that want to change the world. In Venezuela, it attracts students who are change agents inside society. For those who aren’t familiar with the Venezuelan situation in 2007, by Hugo Chavez’s orders, the oldest-running TV station was shut down. The argument: it opposed the current government. Such closure ignited long protests among of hundreds of thousands of students who were pro-freedom of speech. That day, the student movement began its existence. Their impact: bringing back the roots of a politically apathetic civil society.

In 2008 a bigger challenge came; Chavez called for a referendum regarding whether or not to legalize the indefinite presidential reelection, which would mean that any president is allowed to be reelected as many times as he wants to be. Every day the student movement held protests that ended with heavy police repression –lucky ones got the tear gas that was spread inside campus, others were sent to jail. Door to door information, and [spreading] awareness of what the project was about were among the other activities done by the Student Movement, yet the struggle ended with victory as the reelection proposal was rejected by the majority of votes. This gave Chavez a headache and the students a power no other sector inside Venezuela’s society had achieved in past years.

Venezuela is the land of the ever possible. In 2009, through political maneuvers, Chavez managed to—once again—set elections for the same reason. This time, he was the one laughing. The election process was programmed with less than a month of preparation and tragically (for some) the date was set to 15th of February, the day on which many Venezuelan students were to attend the Harvard conference. But HNMUN was the least of Venezuelan students’ worries. Of the 105 students who were attending, more than half stayed and the rest returned earlier for voting. Only a few completed full attendance in committee. So, if you were wondering where the delegates of United Kingdom were in HNMUN 2009, you know now they were fulfilling political duties.

The Challenge, Venezuelan vs. Venezuelan:

University of Chicago, WestPoint, UPenn and Yale University are not our biggest competitors at these conferences. Venezuelans are our biggest competitors. Rivalry between Venezuelan universities exists at such a high level that even before the conference, joint lobbying and technique spying are likely to occur, mainly since Venezuelans are typically stubborn toward giving in. Believe me when I say, Venezuelans know how hard it is to get in, stay in and attend, so don’t get surprised with the competitiveness that characterizes us. While many students go for the Harvard experience or a class, Venezuelans will go for an award that will subsequently get them a job.

For Venezuelans, Harvard National Model United Nations is the cherry on top of any aspect of their early careers, especially since it fosters high levels of respect toward the delegations and their members. But this respect is not founded on selfishness and exclusiveness. On the contrary, it is a respect founded on the extreme hard work and dedication students engage in while representing Venezuela and on coming back home with ideas that are strong enough to make a change in all aspects of Venezuela’s society. Oh! And some awards as well.