Coming on top

"Coming from Sri Lanka makes us more practical when addressing vital issues," says 19-year-old Chulanga Perera, the first Sri Lankan to have won the best delegate award at the prestigious Harvard Model United Nations (HMUN) Conference. "I don't read much," he says, which he admits can comes as quite a surprise to some. "But I think living in a country such as this helps us understand the problems and issues facing society. Other students had ideas, but they were not always practical."

HMUN is the world's largest MUN conference that brings together hundreds of high school students from around the world to Boston each year to discuss, debate and draft resolutions on a range of global issues. Chulanga, a student of Royal Institute received the best delegate award at the recently concluded 2007 conference for representing Maldives in the Economic and Financial Council.

"MUN gives the opportunity for students to learn about international relations and experience what it is like to be a diplomat," he said. Each participant is required to represent a country as a government official and solve key issues amidst some tough competition. Chulanga believes that being a diplomat both is "amazing" and "challenging." "As a diplomat, you get a lot of respect, but there's also a lot of pressure. As a leader you have to think about the country," he says.

Winning the best delegate award is not just about debating, although this matters a great deal. "It is also about survival, how you overcome others and convince them. You should dominate instead of being run down by other delegates," he says. Some of the qualities looked for by the judging panel is your ability to speak, how you present your ideas and your participating level, he said.

"I was never an outgoing person. I never thought I could be someone like this," Chulanga says explaining that he became involved with MUN by chance when he was asked to 'cover up' for a fellow student at Royal Institute in the 2006 Colombo MUN conference. "Those few days changed me," he said. When the senior students left the following year, Chulanga being the only one who had experience participating at a MUN conference was asked to coordinate and lead the school team.

From then on Chulanga went on to perform exceptionally well at each conference, winning the best delegate on eight out of the nine conference in which he participated, including a couple in India. Among these are the best delegate award he won in 2007 representing France in the Security Council in Colombo, the best delegate award for representing Panama in the Economic and Social Council in Chennai, India and the best delegate award for representing France in the Security Council at Sishya MUN in India.

Originally from Galle, Chulanga began his schooling at Richmond College before he moved to Colombo. He was a senior prefect of Royal Institute and president of the school computer society. Having just completed his Advanced Level Examination, Chulanga is currently training his school delegation for this year's MUN conference and was recently invited to speak at the UN day at Lyceum International School. He has also been nominated for the Global Young Leaders Conference (GYLC) to be held in August this year which he hopes to attend before he enters university. For the moment Chulanga hopes to pursue his studies in math, but says that some day he may "divert to international relations."