Autumn 2023
Mission
Our mission is to train students in valuable professional, personal and MUN skills through our Preparatory Tracks. We focus on teaching the arts of: public speaking, lobbying, negotiation, research and resolution writing.
Our Preparatory Tracks consist of three parts which help teach and develop these key skills: the Skills Labs, the Mock Sessions, and the Personal Development Programme mentoring scheme. All our delegates participate in these three parts weekly during our Prep Tracks.
Goals
Our goals comprise the successful conduct of our Preparatory Tracks and attendance of the respective conferences. In the past years, Leiden MUN has upheld the tradition of attending the yearly edition of Harvard National Model United Nations and attending a Europe-based Autumn conference and Spring conference. We tend to organise delegations ranging in size from fifteen to twenty delegates plus Board Members.
For the successful conduct of our Preparatory Tracks, we see this goal as accomplished if our delegates are, first, equipped with the necessary skills to succeed in the conference we prepared them for and, second, feel accomplished and comfortable enough with their newly refined abilities to indeed enjoy the conference and flourish at it.
Our goals concerning the successful attendance of our chosen conferences focus on the meticulous planning thereof and dealing with any crisis elements that may arise during the conference. If all delegates and Board Members are able to return to their homes safely and with positive memories from the conference, then we see our goal in that sphere as accomplished.
Vision
Our philosophy is one where every student can become the best version of themselves - both professionally and personally - no matter the student’s skill set, level or experience when they join us.
For some, this best version of themselves may mean getting over an intense fear of public speaking. For others, this can look like leading a bloc at Harvard National MUN. And for others still, this could mean learning to work effectively in a team.
We aim for our students to come out of our Preparatory Tracks being more self-confident, both great team players and team leaders, able to think on their feet and originally, and with new or improved skills as worked on through our Preparatory Track. We see attending MUN conferences as a means to achieve our values of self-improvement and life-long skills for all our students.
Values
Moreover, we maintain strong values of inclusivity on all levels, including: economic, gender, race, ethnicity and education. This is, for one example, echoed in our scholarship scheme, where we aim to offer one scholarship per delegation to less economically privileged students, with thanks to Leiden University. We also operate as a non-profit organisation, meaning we keep costs as low as possible for our delegates to attend international conferences. Furthermore, we are the first MUN society to write and sign our very own international MUN Anti-Sexual Harassment and Violence manifesto calling on more preventive measures to exist in MUN societies, conferences and communities. Our manifesto has since been signed by organisations across the continent.
Long-Term Goals
The first long-term goal we strive to pursue is the upholding of our current mission, goals and values.
Something we wish to focus more on in the future is increasing accessibility and affordability for all our delegates. We realise that trips to other cities, sometimes outside of Europe, can be unreasonably costly, especially for students. Our goal is not to enable such experiences to only the more affluent, and as such will strive to gain more sponsorships and scholarships for our future delegations to increase affordability for all. In light of increasing our connection as a Foundation to other organisations, we further wish to expand our range of partnerships with embassies, government ministries, as well as other like-minded societies and student organisations.
Lastly, in order to have a lasting impact and solidity the Foundation’s reputation within the community, we will continue to aim for leadership in various fields. The first, of course, is that we continue to remain one of the top delegations within the Netherlands and continue to win awards. However, we wish to expand and make sure our voices are heard in other dimensions. For this reason, we are aiming to champion the spreading of awareness when it comes to sexual harassment – in the form of our manifesto – in the MUN world and beyond.