By Cynthia Wang
Cynthia Wang is a founder of the new MUN publicity team.
SAS Pudong’s Model United Nations (MUN) program has just added another dimension to their program that they believe will increase visibility and transparency of the program towards students and parents: a publicity and communications team. With freshman Jasmine Huang, sophomores Chris Shen and Claire Yin, juniors Claire Lu, Daphne Tsai, Cynthia Wang, and James Li, and seniors Yun Kei Chao and others occasionally contributing to the work, this new team is geared towards promoting the club and broadening its scope to that of an APAC sport.
Founded by juniors James Li and Cynthia Wang, in collaboration with MUN directors Brady Riddle, the team is beginning work on several projects, including submitting articles to the SAS WeChat Public Account, providing the school’s Ascent magazine with MUN-themed articles, and collaborating with Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong.
“Every Monday, the team gets together for about an hour to discuss our agenda for the week: assigning roles, future jobs, and deadlines for upcoming projects,” said freshman Jasmine Huang. “[Everything is] rising steadily and moving along quite nicely.”
Sophomore Chris Shen agrees with Jasmine, talking about how “tasks are split up between different members of the team” and how “there is a variety of short term articles and long term projects.”
When inquired about her reasons for joining the new team, Huang said, “I joined because, especially in the middle school, MUN has become less popular. I want the middle-schoolers who are passionate about global issues to have the same experience that I was able to have learn more about our world today.”
Some don’t join this team solely based on their dedication to MUN’s cause. Shen said “it was an opportunity for me to improve my writing and help contribute to the program. I also get to work with some pretty amazing people, too.” Collaboration with like-minded folk is one of the many appeals of joining this team.
Huang also mentioned that the program was becoming less popular because there was a period of time where parents and students were unsure if the program still existed or not. Therefore, she believes that the team’s ultimate purpose is to “spread [the MUN] program to inspire others to join us [in the effort] towards a better tomorrow.” Shen seconds this, saying that the team was created “to serve the PDMUN program by creating exposure for the diligent work the members of the program put in.”
However, both Huang and Shen agree that the team is only at its beginning and definitely needs more work. Huang believes that the team could operate with higher efficiency. “Some tasks like setting up APAC-look-alike posters [for delegates going on conferences] or fixing the bulletin board could probably be finished pretty quickly.” Shen agrees, suggesting the team to set up a Schoology group in order to increase efficiency.
So far, the budding team has written two articles – one for the next issue of Ascent and one for a Family Magazine – and is planning to write more articles on their collaboration project with Dulwich on an international-relations-focused magazine called Vision. Views on this team are generally optimistic as its members increase and its goals broaden, from physical magazines to more far-reaching website posts and updates.