Meet the UNEP Chair
Bios
,
Chair
,
UNEP
,
Yale Secretariat
Angie Hanawa is this year’s
UNEP Chair and the Under Secretary General of Design. As an Environmental Studies
major in Ezra Stiles College at Yale University, the topics discussed in this
year’s UNEP committee are close to her heart’
and
part of what she learns in school everyday. “I am very much looking forward to how
each delegate will try to tackle the multidimensional problems we have as
topics,”
said
Angie. “I
am looking for new, refreshing ways to look at the problems at hand.”
As
the chair of the UNEP committee, what is Angie’s role, exactly? “I
am basically there to facilitate debate - I don’t really do much of the talking, I’m there as a medium through which debate
and resolution-writing can float,” Angie
shared. When asked why she was interested in being a chair, she expressed, “One
of the best things that can happen to you as a chair is when a delegate reaches
out to you to tell you they had a good time in your committee. This year during
the YMUN held at Yale, my committee got together to write me a set of notes
saying how much they enjoyed their experience there and that almost moved me to
tears.”
So,
what is it about MUN that makes Angie so passionate about it? “MUN
is a blend of intellectual rigor, creativity, debating and interpersonal
relationships. One can read the news and give a speech about current or historical
events at any opportunity, but where else would you be able to put yourself
into another country’s
shoes and try to convince other people, through diplomatic negotiation, that
those country’s
ideas are valid and true? It is a whole new level of engagement with new ideas
that I consider extremely valuable.”
“My first Model UN experience was incredible. I remember I was participating in a historical GA about the Falkland/Malvinas crisis in my high school, and was part of a double delegation representing the USSR,” she shared. “I remember falling in love with playing ‘the bad guy’ of the conference!” When asked about her most embarrassing encounter during MUN conferences, Angie shared, “My school and I travelled to a Pan-American conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, my sophomore year of high school and we had honestly no idea what we were getting into. All the Model UN experience I had ever had up until that point had been in English, even though all of our members' native languages were Spanish. For some reason, when we registered for the conference it never occurred to us that the conference might be conducted in Spanish, we all thought it would be like any other conference we had attended. We were so wrong. I walk into the Security Council with my opening speech ready and, lo and behold…everyone is speaking in Spanish! I was so thrown off that I stumbled over every single word that I struggled to translate from English.”
With
incidents like that in her back pocket, Angie had some advice for the delegates,
“Even
if you’re struggling a bit with the language
don’t worry about it - it gets better!”
For
delegates attending a committee that Angie is chairing, we asked her what she
would be looking out for. “The way someone commands a room through
professionalism, knowledge and grace is very important to how they will do
throughout the conference. Also, improvement is extremely important, as is the
ability to listen to feedback from the chair and fellow delegates.”
Any
final words to the delegates out there? “Have fun and take advantage of the people in the Yale team as well
as the people in your committee! As someone who participated in last year’s conference, I cannot even
begin to tell you how much more enjoyable the conference or the whole MUN experience
is when you make an effort to interact with your fellow delegates, your chair
and vice-chairs in a level deeper than that of just being a conference
participant.”
by Gan Sylvia
