A truly eye-opening experience would definitely be the word I choose to describe my time preparing for this council as the chairperson. This opportunity came to me when they were initially hiring chairpersons due to insufficient manpower from their CCA. In a council, their will be the chairpersons and the country delegates. An issue would be raised and the main role of the chairperson is to facilitate the order of the council, reading the proposals of the various country delegates and allocating time for each country to share their perspective of the matter. He is one normally considered to be more knowledgeable about the subject, so as to at least vaguely know the intentions of each country in the council, and to be able to allocate better the order of whom which country goes first. Normally, this role goes to someone with an experience of how a council would be run already but unconventionally, with no prior experience, I had the chance to take on this role as the interviewers at a later time told me they were impressed by my ability to speak with confidence (the irony was when they asked me on how much I knew what the CSW council talks about, I discussed it so passionately but I was actually completely off topic). In the end, I got into the HRC council as the chairperson.
I started learning how a MUN council actually goes. It started from every country having to write a research paper, a position paper that delegates submit to demonstrate their knowledge and research on a topic before a conference. Afterwards, the chairperson would go through it, have a rough understanding of each country's perspectives, and the council begins. In the HRC council, it was where we discussed the concept of human rights, particularly the rights of the natives of the countries. We discussed about how countries should treat the natives and this was in fact a topic that got me to start paying a lot more attention to them. Rarely, when it comes to human rights, do this particular group of people get the centre of the spotlight. Although this land rightfully belongs to these original inhabitants, they do not often get what they deserve and in fact they are instead often discriminated and marginalised. This is often simply due to their differing cultures and practices from the "traditional people".
Being in the council as a chairperson, being able to listen to the perspectives of so many countries, how most countries in the world still have their natives being disadvantaged socially and economically is truly a tragedy. With some countries like Brazil and Canada starting to recognise the indigenous rights, this is definitely a topic worth discussing and for more action to certainly be done. After all, all humans are equal and should be treated equally regardless of their belief or ethnicity.