Opening Ceremony Speech by the Honourable Secretary General Mr. Juan Felipe Díaz

Good Afternoon fellow Presidents, Delegates, Teachers, and honoured Guests, It is my pleasure to welcome you all to Colegio Gran Bretaña’s Third Model of United Nations.

My name is Juan Felipe Diaz and I am the Secretary General for the CGBMUN III. First of all, I would like to apologize for not being able to stand up, for all of you who don’t already know, I was injured last week.

Let’s start with some simple facts:

Were you aware that already over half of the world's tropical forests have been lost due to deforestation?

Or that one billion seabirds and mammals die each year from ingesting plastic bags?

Did you know that on average it would cost about $13 billion dollars annually to satisfy the world's basic sanitation and food requirements, and that, this amount is roughly equivalent to what Americans and Europeans spend on perfume and cologne every year?

Can't we all agree that the world would smell a lot better if no one wore perfume or cologne, but no one was starving to death either?

Poverty, pollution, war, deforestation, hunger.

Clearly, the world we live in is not perfect. This world needs to be fixed.

It only takes one person to make a change. Regardless of our nationality, we are all citizens of the world; we all have the duty to preserve our planet, therefore this year’s CGB Model of United Nations will focus on the conservation of the environment and the implementation of sustainable development polices. As delegates from more than 30 nationalities, you can contribute with your country’s ideas and your will to change the world. Those changes come from within you, in the words of Mahatma Ghandi “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

This is why a Model of United Nations is such an enriching experience; it helps you take the first step towards that change, by making you conscious of what is happening in the world surrounding us. It makes you reflect about how you live, it also helps you develop countless skills like public speaking, teamwork and problem solving.

I hope you all learn from this experience and I wish you can leave on Friday with great memories of this activity. Dear delegates, I invite you enjoy and have fun in this MUN, there was a lot of effort put into preparing this event. This is not for me, for your teachers or for your presidents, this model is for you delegates. Never the less, I also encourage you to take the debates of the following two days with the appropriate seriousness. Remember that your work in commission is beneficial to you as an individual but also to the world as a whole. We are the leaders of the future; we have only one chance to change this world. Let’s make it count.

Thank You