This past weekend, I was a delegate at the Mock WHO conference held in Oklahoma City. Beforehand, we were presented with the countries that we would represent. I ended up getting Malaysia. I was quite happy to have a chance to represent them as I did not know much about them before I was to represent them. Through my research, I was able to learn that they are a Muslim majority country with Islam as the official religion and they actually have pretty good doctors for the region but they do not have them evenly distributed throughout urban and rural areas. I knew these would be the angles I’d be coming from so I was very excited to get started.
First, we had our resolutions in which we discussed the impact education had on health in our individual regions. I was a real stick in the mud as I insisted that there be no reference to contraceptives or sexual activity as I considered such dialogue “immoral”. Unfortunately for the delegate of Malaysia, the resolution passed the small committee talks with the language still in there. We then went to the final delegation with all the committee members present to vote and make amendments to each other’s resolutions. I formed a powerful voting bloc with members of the AFRO region and we managed to get several phrases struck out of the resolutions. Something I particularly enjoyed was there were a few times when an amendment would only be supported by the country asking for it, myself, and the Philippines (who I was sitting next to). At the end I won best delegate for my region! Overall, it was a great experience and one I wish to repeat in the future.