Inside the Mind of an IMUN Secretary-General: An interview with Joana M. and Bachir R.
Inside the Mind of an IMUN Secretary-General: An interview with Joana M. and Bachir R.
Haley T.
Secretary General is one of, if not the most, prestigious role in the United Nations. The secretary-general oversees all administrative and organizational related tasks, in addition to building, managing, and supervising officers starting months before and leading up to the conference as well as throughout the conference. This year Joana M. was appointed for the role of secretary general for IMUN’s 30th conference. During the conference, the press was gifted some time out of the secretary general’s very busy schedule for an interview to explore the behind-the-scenes of being secretary general. Not only this, but we were also privileged to interview the 29th conference's secretary general, Bachir R. as well.
When asked if any additional responsibilities were implemented to this year’s role of secretary general seeing that this year is the conference’s 30th anniversary, Joana answered that on top of all her responsibilities she had to organize special gifts for attending delegates, help redesign the logo, and put together a special video from past IMUN alumni for the opening ceremony. She also mentioned how this year the role of secretary-general at IMUN had changed seeing that she is the first secretary-general who is not President of the General Assembly simultaneously. She explained that she asked for this change to be made so she could devote as much effort and time possible to organizing the conference and be as present and available as possible to all committees during the conference.
Both Joana and Bashir were then asked to answer what their favorite and least favorite parts of being secretary general were. Joana shared that her favorite part has been the fruits of her effort from the last 10 months of planning pay off and come to life. Bachir shared that he loved meeting and interacting with all the international delegates and chairs as well as the opportunity he was given to witness a whole other perspective of the conference. When asked about her least favorite parts of the job Joana initially answered “At the moment it is the pain that I have on my feet from running around” but then followed to share that managing the workload required for the job alongside the work required for her classes was difficult at times. On the other hand, Bachir shared that one of the biggest detriments from his experience was the lack of communication that can happen between officers sometimes and the correction of those miscommunications which were stressful and difficult at times.
We were even lucky enough to receive some pieces of advice from both Joana and Bachir to give to any of you who are aspiring secretary generals. Both shared with great emphasis that organization and putting trust in your team are crucial as a secretary general. Joana additionally shared that not putting too much pressure on yourself was something she wish she could’ve told herself earlier since she found it was very easy to herself yourself get taken away by the pressure of the position.