The Global Summit in July highlighted how international the Model UN community truly is, with participants registered from over 100 countries. To maximize the enriching potential of interacting with such a diverse set of individuals is no simple task, but one which three community leaders for the upcoming Global Summit 2.0 have faced head-on. These are Zoey Fisher (an 18-year old from Hollywood, Florida), Arsema Aklog (a 15-year old from San Diego, California), and Leila Ali Diab (a 17-year old from Cairo, Egypt). These young and energetic global leaders describe the power of engaging with youth the world over, the effect this has had on participants, and their plans to continue optimizing these experiences so members can come out with truly meaningful memories and a better understanding of how the diversity in the world is a force for good.
The Global Summit in July highlighted how international the Model UN community truly is, with participants registered from over 100 countries. To maximize the enriching potential of interacting with such a diverse set of individuals is no simple task, but one which three community leaders for the upcoming Global Summit 2.0 have faced head-on. These are Zoey Fisher (an 18-year old from Hollywood, Florida), Arsema Aklog (a 15-year old from San Diego, California), and Leila Ali Diab (a 17-year old from Cairo, Egypt). These young and energetic global leaders describe the power of engaging with youth the world over, the effect this has had on participants, and their plans to continue optimizing these experiences so members can come out with truly meaningful memories and a better understanding of how the diversity in the world is a force for good.
Podcast Name: ComMUNiqué
Podcast Producer: MUN Impact
Episode Title: Global Team Building With MUN Impact's Community Leaders
Episode Number: 9
Host: Erik Novak
Guests: Zoey Fisher, Arsema Aklog, and Leila Ali Diab
Date Published: October 8th, 2020
Episode Description: The Global Summit in July highlighted how international the Model UN community truly is, with participants registered from over 100 countries. To maximize the enrichening potential of interacting with such a diverse set of individuals is no simple task, but one the 3 community leaders for the upcoming Global Summit 2.0 have faced head-on. These are Zoey Fisher (an 18-year old from Hollywood, Florida), Arsema Aklog (a 15-year old from San Diego, California), and Leila Ali Diab (a 17-year old from Cairo, Egypt). These young and energetic global leaders describe the power of engaging with youth the world over, the effect this has had on participants, and their plans to continue optimizing these engagements so members can come out with truly meaningful memories and a better understanding of how the diversity in the world is a force for good.
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Erik Novak: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the world's premier podcast at the intersection of global education, youth engagement and the work of the UN proper. My name is Erik Novak, and this is ComMUNiqué. If you enjoy our content, don't forget to like, share, follow and show our work to your friends and colleagues. Now, without further ado I have with me today, the team in charge of social engagement for the MUN Impact Global Summit 2.0, since this event, since that event tends to unite the youth from over a hundred countries in global change-making and implementing the sustainable development goals framework, engaging network and learning from peers becomes a pivotal component in the successful experience of a participant.
And so the social hours where participants have the opportunity to engage with other participants in the summit as a whole, these are critical for the summit success. Today, Zoey Fisher, Arsema Aklog and Leila Ali Diab are going to speak a little bit about their experience coordinating this event this social hour and what they expect from the summit as a whole.
So without further ado, I'd like to know a little bit more about generally speaking, what you guys are planning for the social hours that are coming up.
Arsema Aklog: [00:01:35] Of course. So we're in the middle, we actually have a meeting tomorrow with our team to discuss a little bit more in depth, what we're planning for the social hour. But as of now, across the three days, we have around an hour or two set aside for the social hour. So we have a team of about, I think, 30 people and counting where we get, we want as many admins as possible. And so far we've been planning activities. We have an activity bank, and we're in the process of testing them out on our fellow, meeting leadership, seeing what works and what doesn't work, and assigning people to kind of miniature teams, where they'll be in breakouts together and facilitating discussion. So it's going pretty well right now.
Erik Novak: [00:02:21] All right. Fantastic. I'm really excited to learn more about the, the logistics about this and how it pans out in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, I think our listeners would be well served by learning a little more about each of you.
Zoey Fisher: [00:02:36] So I'm Zoey. I am 18 and I live in South Florida in the United States and I've been involved in MUN Impact for almost two years. So like right about its inception, I became one of the first diplomats. And at that point we only had five diplomats. And right now I'm the global secretary general for the global leadership team. And we have over like 200 diplomats. So to have watched the organization grow exponentially has been an extreme privilege. And I'm also involved in so many other aspects of the MUN impact community such as, MUN@Home and the global summits. So yeah, I'm super excited to be here and featured on this podcast and yeah, thank you, Erik.
Erik Novak: [00:03:21] You've definitely seen the organization grow from its humbler beginnings to its wide-scale impact right now. And especially this year, I joined the organization in March of 2020 and was able to see the tail end of this. But you were there to see perhaps a, like a much more visible semiation if you will, from, from a little seed out in the field to a full pasture.
Zoey Fisher: [00:03:49] Yeah, it's really hard to believe how much we've grown, and before, you know, back then, when I first joined, there was no really social aspect to it, but now we're such a close, tight knit community and the fact that we're able to have these social hours and not only focus on MUN, and you know, the serious educational stuff, but also focus on, you know, building the community and engaging in different social activities is super cool. And that's just like a testament to the growth.
Erik Novak: [00:04:14] Of course, speaking of social activities, I recall that you hosted the MUN Impact talent show for organizers. How did that go?
Zoey Fisher: [00:04:26] Yeah, so Arsema, Leila and I, we all organize the talent show.
Erik Novak: [00:04:30] It was a trifecta at work again.
Zoey Fisher: [00:04:33] It was. It was because during the first global summit, actually, I'll give credits to Hugh, he suggested that we put on a talent show because a lot of the participants in the social hours started displaying their talents. Like some started doing magic tricks and singing and playing instruments. So we realized that there are so many people, you know, in this community with hidden talents, besides just debating and MUN. So we really wanted to highlight that and celebrate that. So that's why we started the talent show. And I'm sure Arsema and Leila can discuss more about, you know, how that came to be.
Arsema Aklog: [00:05:05] For sure. I think I'll start off by introducing myself. My name is Arsema. I'm a high school junior. I live in San Diego, California, here in the United States and I got involved with MUN Impact basically at the start of quarantine. I think around March, I initially joined as a mentor for the MUN@Home program under MUN Impact and then within, I think, a month or so, I ended up, I applied for under-secretary general and now serve as one of the secretary generals, under secretary generals for the high school cohorts of MUN@Home, which is has been pretty great. And I've been involved with the talent show like Zoey mentioned and the previous global summit. And it's been amazing.
Erik Novak: [00:05:52] Very interesting. In a recent episode, I interviewed Jaideep, who's the secretary general of MUN@Home and he's a phenomenal individual, great leader, very engaged public speaker. And I think he's definitely able to bring out the best in the organizers for MUN@Home. So I think the program is definitely in good hands. And I'm excited to see that you, that you like to experience that are growing up in the ranks. But what would you say were some of the most memorable experiences that you've had with, with planning the social hours and such?
Arsema Aklog: [00:06:32] I think just leading up to it, we were all very it was all, it was, it was a great idea, but we didn't really grasp just how phenomenal these people really are until we had the auditions. And that was where it kind of like, okay, they're not just people emailing us their consent forms. They're like, vibrant human beings. And the acts were phenomenal. So I think at the beginning it was very kind of detached and like, okay, here are the signups. Here's where you can submit your recording, et cetera. But, the auditions was really like the first time I was like, wow. I think it was just, it was so versatile. And then seeing them actually excel at the official talent show was just amazing. And I think I can speak for all of us when I say we were, we were blown away.
Erik Novak: [00:07:23] So you guys even had auditions. Wow. That was a, that was very professional clearly. And also, you obviously had a lot of participation in order to have this, this two step process. How did it work, generally speaking?
Leila Ali Diab: [00:07:38] Before, before I answer that. So, I would like, I would just like to say that, I think that the talent show in general was more about like the community building aspect and getting to know like all the different cultures we have, like Indian dances. We had different people from all over the world, performing different talents. And I think that it was more about each and every individual bringing out their own culture and putting their own personality into it. Well, while there was talent, of course, but, the main point here was, gathering everyone from all around the world to see what the diverse community at MUN Impact is. And I think really did achieve that goal by having the, the talent show, like come together. So, with the audition part, we had the auditions and almost everyone got accepted, like Arsema, Zoey and I were talking. And, everyone was so great. They all did so well and everyone just had to perform, you know, we couldn't like leave anyone out. So, they all did really perform very, very well, during both times, during the audition and the final talent too, but I think our summer and Zoey would speak about the final talent show more. But I would also like to introduce myself because I haven't. So my name is Leila and I've been in MUN Impact since the beginning of the quarantine, I think, in February I joined and, I joined to become a mentor in MUN@Home, and I was lead mentor second round and third round. And then I was offered the position in MUN Global to be the DSG for the MENA region and when that position was offered to me, I left MUN@Home and then I decided to continue with my career at MUN Global and, I've been at DSG since then. I also joined the youth advisory council and I never really returned back to MUN@Home because I was focused on academics and also I was focused on being a DSG to the MENA region. And I think what really inspires me the most is becoming, it's being DSG because all the diplomats working together with them, having new ideas and, the region itself, I couldn't really, I couldn't, I couldn't really like put into words the feeling I have towards my diplomats and how we work together, it's just great. And I think that's probably the, my best achievement or, thing I'm most proud of myself.
Erik Novak: [00:10:12] Interesting. So just so our listener knows, the MENA region stands for Middle East and North Africa. And Leila, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you're from Egypt. That right?
Leila Ali Diab: [00:10:25] Oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot to mention that I'm from Egypt and yes, the MENA region, Middle East and North Africa. I'm also a senior.
Erik Novak: [00:10:33] I think you being in this conversation also highlights the, the, the multiculturalism that MUN Impact tries to foster in its events because we have someone from Florida, someone from California. So these are, at the two ends of, the U.S and then someone from a totally different continent. So this is in particular, I think this conversation itself was a good microcosm of the different cultures and interests that come together during these events. And, as a result, it is like the, the very existence of this conversation also justifies the importance of the social hours, where you can come into contact and interaction with people who are united by their interest for a common good for forwarding the SDG framework and such, but with, contexts and, and cultures and life stories that are distinct, very distinct from each other. So that's particularly interesting.
Zoey Fisher: [00:11:37] Yeah. And I think that that's what really makes the social hours so successful because everyone in our community is so eager to learn about like different cultures and people's different backgrounds and experiences. And they're really like within, you know, our other programs, there's not that much time to just sit and, you know, talk about where you come from and share that. So the social hours, we really try to like put a focus on cultural engagement. And that's why a lot of the activities we've done have been geared towards learning about different cultures. So we play a game about like cultural misconceptions, where we like strive to overcome different stereotypes. We've played games like involving learning different languages, because we really do want to highlight this diversity and like utilize it to the best of our abilities. I think that, you know, to not. Maximize the impact that it can have, you know, with MUN Impact and during the social hours would be such a waste because we can learn so much from each other, and from where we come from.
Erik Novak: [00:12:35] So we've commented on the social hours, somewhat peripherally thus far even explained a little bit what the, how the talent show worked and what it entailed. But I'm curious about particular experiences in the social hours that you guys have seen thus far that truly truly touched you. So, because I know for example, that a MUN Impact has communities in a relatively exotic locations like now, and that we, we were able to get people from say 20 different countries within the same room. With, with the, with the snap of one's fingers. So I assumed the sort of stuff lends itself to very memorable experiences in terms of social engagement. And I'm curious about what your experiences have been with this thus far. So if you could highlight one or two things that particularly touched you, I think that will be great for our listeners to know.
Leila Ali Diab: [00:13:35] I think the most touching moment for me in the social hour was the conclusion or like the closing of the social hour. So Zoey and I, I think we were very, very nervous in the beginning. We didn't really know how this would, this would be. And then, I think that going around all the breakout rooms and seeing people like interact, I think we had like two or three birthdays, during the summit. And, we celebrated them during the social hour. I just feel like the amount of participants, participants were unreal, during the, the social hour. And, I just feel like all the individuals that were in the social hour were like, extremely extremely, they came from different backgrounds. They were extremely diverse. And, I think that having the bond together and sharing birthdays, share a lot of things in common is what actually really made me feel so emotional because, our, our world in general during the global pandemic and, I think a lot of us have, have really suffered during that time. But I'm seeing that a lot of people really put time into it, being a part of the summit, being a part of the social hour, all the admins or everyone will actually just a dedicated one hour of their day to just be there. I think that was extremely like emotional and inspiring. And the, the closing in general in general was very, very hard because, for three consecutive days I was okay. I was like sitting down. It's social hour. I'm very excited. And then the next day I was like, oh, the summit is over. I don't, there's nothing to do during that particular hour. And I feel like, it really touched me. And that's why I've decided to become the social hour head for, with Arsema. Last time I was doing it with Zoey, this time I'm doing good with Arsema summit 2.0.
Zoey Fisher: [00:15:41] And what Leila was discussing earlier about the closing, what I think was definitely special and like, so I'm like such a testament to it, to success and to how much the social hour meant was that during the last social hour, no one wanted to exit the room.
So we sat there for like 30 minutes going back and forth saying, who's going to close it, who's going to close it, who's going to close it, and nobody wanted to close it. And we ended up going like way past the time that it was supposed to be, because we just kept having so much to say, people kept, you know, getting up and one, one kid, he was actually a participant in a talent show. So like in the last few minutes, he did like an impromptu singing performance for us. And, everyone just had more to say, more to do and no one wanted to be the one to end the social hours. And that's also, you know, one of the reasons why we decided that the social hours can't just be for the summits and we actually decided to like extend them, and continue social hours periodically throughout the year. And the talent show was one of those activities. It was a special edition of the social hours that we're going to hopefully be having, you know, every month or so. Because, it can't just end at the summit. You know, everyone wants it to continue and it's too hard to click that end meeting button on Zoom.
Erik Novak: [00:16:56] So are there any other of these extra summit social hours planned?
Arsema Aklog: [00:17:02] So initially the talent show was actually going to be first of monthly social hours, we're still in the process of like, Oh, there and, really getting off the board. But the talent show was supposed to be the initiation of, what would be monthly social hours and then global summit planning started. So we have it on hold for now, since everyone has started school and, is busy with the global summit prep, but once everything closed down a bit, we're planning, we've been planning on having, like one hour sessions every other week or month or so, just for meaning leadership, to kind of simulate, what we did at the global summit, but with a more intimate setting.
Erik Novak: [00:17:56] Yeah. Yeah, definitely does. And I think it also definitely, it helps to engage the community besides, though, especially the community that currently isn't participating in MUN@Home, it helps engage them besides the culminating weekend long events that are the global summits, the one that happened in July and the one that's set to happen again in October. So I find this to be a particularly interesting way to continue helping people build bonds and to interact with like minded individuals around the world, which of course is one of the biggest boons of participating in MUN Impact run events.
Arsema Aklog: [00:18:40] 100%. And one thing that has been interesting for me to see is that, often these like miniature social hours happen organically without us having to say here's the zoom link and please join the, for example for, I can speak to MUN@Home, about every Saturday we have these mentorship sessions for delegates and their mentors to, get a more in depth look at how MUN works and get just some general tips. And so often, it ends at the top of the hour and we have gone for hours after, people who want to stay back, just stay back and start talking and you have these really, really interesting conversations that are like
just a product of, people's curiosity. So it's, it's very cool.
Zoey Fisher: [00:19:34] Yeah. And I think that what's so special is that all these different students from every corner of the world can bond with each other and they have things in common that they can share and talk about. They have things that are not in common that they can learn from each other about. And I think that everyone is just craving that connection. And not only, you know, because you know, we've been isolated for a long time, a lot of us have been important to you. I think just in general, young people, want to talk to other young people and learn more about where they come from. So I think that this is something that will always, you know, be a thing and always be a part of MUN Impact, now I think that there's no worry or concern that, oh, like social hours, social engagement will die out. I think that we could be confident that it will definitely outlast us. And I think that's really exciting.
Erik Novak: [00:20:20] The extent of social engagement may have had to change, especially in recent months. It hasn't died out. And I think that's a good testament to its strength and to what it envisions, what the activity essentially envisioned for, for their participants and such. So I am particularly excited to see how social engagement continues to adapt to the circumstances. And in terms of this adaptation and all of that, I was curious about what challenges you guys have most had to face and circumvent during your tenure as heads of social engagement, as well as what challenges you may foresee in the coming events?
Arsema Aklog: [00:21:06] I think one of the biggest challenges is definitely getting enough admins, it's, it's a great challenge to have, to a certain extent. At the last social hour, we weren't, we weren't sure how many people were going to sign up until about a week or so before the actual event. And even then numbers were still climbing because the signups hadn't officially closed. So we needed to have an adequate number of facilitators to admin knows because we have a, roughly two give or take a couple of people admining each breakout room. So, I had before the summit, we had to really, really get it out there and get people to just commit to an hour or so of their time, if they couldn't make the first day of the summit they could make the second or the third or things like that. So just kind of like compromising and just trying to get as many people to, as much manpower as we possibly can. So I, I think that we've had our admin numbers double in, around, in a week's time, which is great. So I'm sure that this time around we'll be doing a better job of kind of getting people to get their get their friends to sign up. So maybe having like every person on the admin team, reach out to three different people and see if they'd be free to even come to one day.
Zoey Fisher: [00:22:40] Yeah, that probably was the biggest challenge. I think another challenge was kind of the, unknown and what I mean by that is that we had decided that we were going to do the social hours by putting people into random breakout rooms. And we were really worried that people wouldn't be able to interact if we just put them in random room with random people and just said, like talk, you know, engage. But, it actually did. And you know, some of the breakout rooms did ha we're a little slow. People had trouble, they were shy. We had to kind of push them along and create some sort of engaging conversation or activity, but in the end, everyone really did engage. So, and I think that those things will always happen. You'll always have people who are a little shy to come forward and start a conversation. But once you get in there, and you know, we had some people going around like Cody and Jaideep, and Mr. Newman, and they went around to the different rooms to excite everyone and, get them talking. So I think that in the end it did work out.
Leila Ali Diab: [00:23:38] Yeah, I think I agree with Zoey, like I was, I was very, very, very scared at first because we didn't really try this before, but I think that everything just went, better than planned. and so that's why we just wanted to like take the social hour to the next level. And, even with regards to like everything that happened, so, maybe Zoey and I couldn't really see everything and that's went wrong or if anything went wrong. So we had a survey and, it was it was mainly more positive than negative, but I think in general and that's, something that's, we can't really avoid, people are usually like they're shy and the wind really speak at first. I think that was the main challenge or concern that if we had during the social hour, but I think that this is really something that we can tackle. It's more about, time. It takes time for someone to, to be able to like open up and speak about certain stuff. So, I think that, by the time, by the third day we reached a point where like, Zoey said before people didn't really want to leave the room. So, I think that by having people talk more and get more involved and engaged without we can just overcome that particular issue.
Arsema Aklog: [00:25:08] For sure. And I think something that we've changed we did collect feedback from both participants and admins and incorporate it and incorporated it into kind of our structure this time around. And one thing that I think that we've kind of done away with was kind of contributing to the uncertainty that Zoey and Leila were talking about. We had like specific activities planned for each day. So, day one, we would do these five things. Day two or three things, day two these three things and day three so-and-so. And I think that what we've heard from the admins is that they really just went with the flow and we don't really want to curb conversation when it's happening. So this time around, instead of having it, structured to the point where it's like, okay, this time, you're doing pictionary or cultural misconceptions and what have you, we're creating a bank instead and, admins can kind of go with the flow of the breakout room. If people are really engaged in a particular icebreaker, we don't want to cut them off and just say, okay, now we're doing pictionary instead. So this time around, admins will have a little bit more leeway in terms of, the activities that they want to do.
Erik Novak: [00:26:23] How was the process of going over the, of, of collecting feedback and going over that, what do you guys think? Were you scared that the feedback might be negative or were you excited to see what the feedback might entail?
Leila Ali Diab: [00:26:39] I think that overall, I felt so good about the summit in general and everyone did feel very good about it in general. And we had like a lot of, debriefing after the, the, the session has ended with all the admins to see how it generally went. So I think we saw like all the positive and negative things coming but in general, I think that the social hour was a huge success and everyone was just like, oh wow, this summit or this summit social hour. And then everyone was like, so amazed by how it went out, even though it was like our first trial. But in general, I wasn't really scared because I felt like the summit was like, overall, it went amazing, especially the social hour and I wanted to have like the, the social hour continue, like just, I mean, MUN@Home, we have MUN Global and then we have the MUN social hour where all of the, like the global leaders are there, you know, getting to know each other better and working well together. So, This is when we decided that the three of us are just going to move this on and pass this on and develop it, develop it further and make it something that is regular for all of us. So I think we just took the feedback as a way of reflecting and improving and making the social hour, the best that we could possibly make.
Erik Novak: [00:28:11] Alright, fantastic guys. I'm really excited to see what the social hours develop to be within the next few weeks and months. And especially in the, when the summit 2.0, actually happens in October. And I have a good feeling about all this. Unfortunately, however, our time is up, but I'd like to thank you all once more for participating in this conversation and using this platform to better explain to our audience what the social hours entail, what they're all about and how they fit into the idea of interacting with youth from around the world and leveraging their willpower to forward the important work toward the sustainable development goals. Which is of course, one of the big missions of MUN Impact, as well as the programs that are, are created under its banner, including this podcast, as well as the summits and et cetera. While I enjoyed our conversation, unfortunately, our time is up. And so for you, dear listener, if you enjoyed our content, don't forget to like, share, follow and show our work to your friends and colleagues, but for now we yield the floor until next time.