On the 13th March, we were incredibly pleased to present at the Opening Ceremony of the London Youth Model United Nations, as the winners of the LSE SDG Policy Hackathon. It was the result of an incredible amount of work and organisation by our team -Annie M, Avni S, Hannah B, Sofia K, Shanaaya S and Tisha B.
In a nutshell, the competition involved developing a policy in response to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We chose Target 4.6 – improving literacy and numeracy skills for children and adults worldwide- as it truly resonated with us, being girls privileged to have a high standard of education.
As part of the challenge, we were given only a month to research a policy, its current implementations, including forming case studies on specific countries that have attempted educational reform. Most challengingly, we were tasked with developing our very own action plan to tackle this global issue, identifying key blockers and drivers of change, and setting out how we would publicise this issue and motivate this change to occur. As part of our investigation, we confronted counter-arguments and ensured that our plan was a feasible response to a complex and long-term goal. We are very grateful for all the feedback received from our designated mentor, an LSE student himself.
We were thrilled by our success in reaching the final, which we joined online, presenting an overview of our motion’s key points to an audience of the other finalists in both the Junior and Senior categories and the competition organisers. This 10-minute presentation was followed by a 5-minute Q&A, interrogating us on the reasons for certain aspects of our policy and how we would address specific challenges to its implementation. We were delighted to receive incredibly positive feedback from the judges, with our action plan in particular being praised for its thoroughness and attention to detail, as well as our eloquent responses to challenging questions.
Having won the final, we were invited to the present at the LSE MUN Opening Ceremony, though it was simultaneously terrifying and thrilling to be speaking on a stage to a massive hall of 700 students. We are so grateful for this opportunity and proud of how much work we put in to achieve this, and were so happy to each get an MUN tote bag as a souvenir!
We highly recommend participating in this competition in the future as it was an incredible opportunity to strengthen our organisation, teamwork and public speaking skills. We are incredibly grateful to Ms Jenna, Mr Harbord, Mr Haigh and Ms Walker for supporting us and facilitating our participation in this competition!
Written by Annie M and Hannah B, Year 12