This weekend, we proudly hosted Runnymede College’s first-ever Model United Nations (MUN) conference. The Sixth Form team led the initiative, preparing resources, setting debate topics, and ensuring everything was in place for a successful event.

Our conference coincided with the United Nations gathering in New York, where high-stakes debates on today’s most pressing global challenges were taking place and questions about the organisation’s future raised.

Headmaster Frank Powell invited participants to reflect on the words of the original United Nations Charter:

“We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, established this Organisation to maintain international peace and security, to foster friendly relations among nations, to promote human rights, and to achieve international cooperation in solving global problems.”

He reminded us, “Written in 1945, these words remain as urgent, resonant, and necessary today as ever.”We would like to thank Alicia Roig Gómez, Senior Advisor, Strategy and Risk Management at UNICEF, for her inspiring speech during the inaugurating ceremony, and Paloma Vora, former Head of Budget for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and Chief of Finance for UNICEF, for accompanying us throughout the event.

Delegates debated a wide range of pressing global issues and drafted thoughtful resolutions on topics such as organ trafficking, the Venezuelan migrant crisis, synthetic opioids, microplastic contamination, genetic engineering, space mining and regulation, the militarisation of the Arctic, and countering bioterrorism, among many others.

We were delighted to welcome students not only from across Madrid but also from Rome, Mallorca, and Barcelona.

We could not be prouder of our MUN team, nor more grateful to the wonderful participants who joined us from near and far to make this inaugural conference such a success.