By Judi Yassin
Hayah International Academy’s Model United Nations conference was initiated in 2011 and has come to be arguably one of the best model UN experiences in Egypt. After attending three MUN conferences that same year, Mr. Karim El Dib found that Hayah International Academy had the potential to start its own unique conference, therefore decided to initiate HIAMUN. He saw a clear vision of HIAMUN being the third THIMUN affiliated conference in Egypt (which was achieved) and worked towards it by making HIAMUN a safe environment in which students can learn and express themselves. However, it wasn’t that simple, as the first HIAMUN conference was scheduled to take place right before the 25th of January revolution. This forced them to postpone the conference until May. It was also difficult to find schools that trusted the fact that the first HIAMUN conference would be a constructive one, therefore participate in it. In addition, the first HIAMUN conference had only one forum which was the General Assembly, it only consisted of 35 participants. Now, there are ten forums in HIAMUN consisting of over 400 students from schools all over Egypt. Mr. Karim El Dib believes that with these growing numbers, students attend the conference with different motives and goals in mind, which makes the experience even more brilliant.