Model United Nations of Kyoto, Japan

June 2006 - Kyoto

Funny how one suggestion from an unknown man from my management class changed my career concept completely.
My BA degree isn't exactly politically moving, nor does it have any relation to International Development. But speaking to so many people in the sector made me believe that Management and Japanese will enable me to have an alternative viewpoint on how things in society can change.

I originally wanted to get into Management Consultancy, hoping to make large and powerful corporations see how much more they can do in eradicating poverty and help sustain development. But these organisations clearly saw my ideas as 'radical', a clash of interest to their desire to profit-making, resulting in not hiring me. So, I moved onto the non-for-profit sector, after pushy interviews from blue chip organisational sales teams.

Joining Model United Nations (MUN) in my second term of uni at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (Gaidai) - 2006 - was perhaps my first real encounter in UN activities. I didn't know that this group existed but I was fortunate that Japanese members welcomed me with open arms. At times I felt the meetings to be intimidating but my friend Ako tutored me through everything. I had no idea what working papers were and all fancy UN terminologies. Furthermore, having the meetings in Japanese didn't exactly make things easy. I felt left behind looking up the term nuclear disarmament and similar names on my Japanese dictionary and frantically trying to jot them on my notepad. But as time went on, I learnt we had to write a proposition paper about Nuclear Disarmament at a MUN meeting at the university. We had the choice to write in Japanese or English. I choice to write my paper in English but wrote my preparation speech in Japanese, representing my country as the UK. My first 5 minute speech was in English to explain the UKs position on "Nuclear Arms Disarmament and Proliferations", but I managed to write a second speech in Japanese during the meeting.

Very early start for a Saturday, but the 30th June 2006 marked the first step to a possible start of a future career. Even though Gaidai's big UN event was in October (unfortunately I was back in England by then), the MUN General Assembly practice made us all realise how exciting and scary these debates were. Being the only foreigner in the club, it brought lots of credentials becoming the group team leader and forced the Japanese to use their English. In real UN meetings, Japanese isn't used and helping facilitate the meeting was an honour.

Thank you guys for a wonderful experience.