- Zonish Baksh, a 14-year-old Pakistani youth, achieved success at the Best Diplomats Conference in Malaysia, winning the award for her outstanding performance in Model United Nations (MUN).
- Her MUN journey began in 2021, and with the support of her coach, Mr. Murtaza, and her parents, she honed her skills and participated in various local MUNs to become a critical thinker and improve her strategy-making abilities.
- Zonish’s strategy of uniting the committee during the conference, despite differences in ideas, impressed the judges and led to her victory. She aims to attend more conferences in the future, with plans to participate in AMMUN in Jordan and the Best Diplomats Conference in New York on a full scholarship.
Pakistan’s youth has been known for its massive potential. The youngsters have made us proud from science and technology to politics and more. One such achievement is of our very own Zonish Baksh.
We were able to reach out to this amazing young 14-year-old to get to know her better and to learn about her experience in Malaysia.
Here’s what she had to say:
My MUN journey started back in 2021 with my first-ever coach Sir Murtaza, who taught me the basics of MUN and helped me develop my interest in the field. Since then I started attending local MUNs such as IBA MUN to develop my base as a critical thinker and improve my strategy-making skills.
Gradually I signed up to become a part of Team MJ (Murtaza Jafry) and furnished my MUN skills every week which led to creating a very firm base for me. Our squad at Team MJ was preparing for a conference in Jordan in November, however, due to my interest my mother helped me sign up for the Best Diplomats Conference in Malaysia during the summer.
When I first entered the conference room, even winning an award felt out of reach due to all the mature-looking people. However, with the training from my coach and the support of my parents, I gave it my best shot trying to implement all the strategies I was taught. However, the atmosphere in the conference did get divided at one point because since the topic was based on a global issue (preventing online child exploitation), I aimed to form one entire bloc with no divisions but due to differences in ideas, the committee ended up being divided.
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Nonetheless, my bloc and I came up with the strategy to send people from our bloc to make their groups and bring them back to our bloc which would end up with the entire committee being united. Since my team liked the idea, we all implemented it and ended up uniting the entire committee after hours of negotiating and sharing ideas. I believe that this strategy was what the judges noticed that eventually led to me winning the Best Diplomats Conference.
My favorite moment in the conference was when the entire committee of diplomats which consisted of 90+ delegates from different nations around the world voted for my idea to be implemented. Another memorable moment for me was a few minutes before the announcement of the winner. When the judges asked the committee who they thought would win, everyone pointed towards me and some surrounded me with cameras to record my reaction. It was a really beautiful and proud moment for me that I’ll never be able to forget.
She added:
This conference played a major role in developing my character and furnishing my skills more than ever while also increasing my interest in the International Relations field. Shortly, I hope to attend more conferences such as AMMUN in Jordan with the Best Diplomats Conference in New York (held in the BD Headquarters) for which I received a full scholarship by Best Diplomats as a reward for winning this year’s conference.
Lastly, she gave a huge shoutout to her parents, fiends, and her coach Mr. Murtaza for their endless support.
Kudos to Zonish Baksh for making us real proud and for showing the potential our youth has at an international platform.
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