UM law student awarded most outstanding delegate in UN event

PETALING JAYA: When a 22-year old girl from Penang was awarded the most outstanding delegate in a Model United Nations (UN) conference in Sarawak in September, she said it came as a big surprise to her.
Fast forward two months, she was again awarded the same recognition, this time for a similar programme but held in Kuala Lumpur, beating 170 other candidates from 32 countries, which she described as being beyond her wildest imagination.
That girl is Wong Kar Ling, a third-year law student from University of Malaya.
The third child of six siblings explained that in the first conference she attended – the Borneo Model UN – she was assigned to present and discuss issues on disarmament and international security.
However, it was the second conference – the Asia Youth International Model UN (Ayimun) – that she claimed was the more meaningful one, with her being tasked into the International Monetary Fund (IMF) council, and finding solutions to real world problems.
Wong said among her proposed ideas was for IMF to balance the voices of representative countries when voting for a decision to give equal rights to each country, with more powerful nations currently having a bigger voting power.
"I also proposed that IMF set a debt limit for countries seeking loans from it, and to adjust the interest rates according to the wealth of each country," she told theSun today.
Model UN is an educational simulation or academic activity in which students are placed in committees and assigned countries, or occasionally other organisations or political figures, where they represent members of that body, and learn about diplomacy, international relations, and the UN.
Malaysia played host to this year's Ayimun programme, held from Nov 3 to 6 at the Sunway Putra Hotel in KL.
Wong, who dreams of representing Malaysia as an ambassador in the future, said her achievement was proof that the country does not lack students with potential, and urged the government and other parties to further expose students to what is happening globally.