BERMUN Report

Bermun is the biggest Model United Nations event in Berlin, organized by and hosted at the John F. Kennedy School and sponsored by both the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. It gives many students interested in politics, debate, International Relations and speaking English a chance to experience a taste of the real UN and cooperate closely with students from both Berlin/Brandenburg and also from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, all of whom have convened in Berlin to test their wits and their knowledge of UN procedure. It really is about international relations!

Delegations of students from the Albert Einstein School have been taking part in the biannual event since 2017 and interest in the event has been growing by the year.

The delegates from each school represent a randomly chosen country which has been allocated to the school, beginning by researching that country’s geography, history, politics and economics, preparing their country’s policy statements on the conference issues – this time the conference focus was the preservation of civil, human and workers’ rights in a globalized world – then lobbying with countries which have similar interests to create a resolution on UN policy which will be fiercely debated in plenary sessions.

This year’s topics on my committee – the legal committee which exists in exactly the same form at the real UN – was bridging the digital divide between affluent and impoverished countries and dealing with xenophobia in immigration policies.

The Albert Einstein delegation represented the Republic of Kenya this time, with me as the Ambassador. On Wednesday 20^th November the event kicked off with a well-orchestrated opening ceremony in the technically very well-equipped Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Buildings. After initial welcoming addresses, our very own mayor of Neukölln, Martin Hikel, bravely stepped up to the mike to address the assembled delegations in English! And what a good job he made of it, even accepting some challenging questions at the end.

Then it was time for the ambassador speeches, explaining each country’s perspective on the central conference topic in only 90 seconds. Making my speech kind of made me nervous, but in the end I had fun doing it, and as the Kenyan Ambassador I didn’t have to listen to the kind of indignant and even furious replies which were hurled at the ambassadors of Russia, Israel, Palestine and even Australia, to name but a few.

The next days were filled with debates, lobbying, voting and bonding with other delegates over cookie breaks. There was also a talk from an American university professor. Bermun concluded with a closing ceremony full of waving national flags and speechifying by each committee’s board, made up of JFK students, but there were also plenty of funny videos and golden moments from the whole event.

I would personally recommend this event to any student interested in debating and geopolitics. It is a really fun event where you will meet  many interesting people of your own age and maybe even make some new friends. Go for it!

Sirio Napolitano, 10f, December 2024