The Peruvian debate team, Peruvian Debate Society (PDS), was awarded the world debate championship in the latest edition of the Harvard World Model United Nations, a competition that simulates official debates in the UN committees. 

Of the 18 students of the Peruvian delegation that traveled to Panama to participate in the competition, six are students at Universidad del Pacífico. The team, which prepared since August to take part in this competition, had to represent Canada and had to defend the position of the country on controversial issues such as freedom of religion, the classification of mental illnesses, education, indigenous populations, and refugees, among others. 

"The skills applied by the participants in the MUN are many, but mainly soft skills such as public speaking and negotiation," said Paolo Ghio, a Business Administration student at Universidad del Pacífico and a member of the delegation. What Paolo highlights the most about this experience is its contribution to his professional and personal life. Not only did he have the opportunity to be part of an extremely talented team, but he also learned that the most important thing to be successful is to have a cohesive team where each member is able to encourage their colleagues to bring out the best in themselves. 

"On the academic side, we study issues such as innovative education, freedom of religion and regional integration. The most interesting was how proposals and solutions to these issues were created with people from more than 110 nationalities", explained Valeria Adrianzén, a Business Engineering student. Delegations from prestigious universities such as Columbia, Yale and the London School of Economics participated in the event. 

In this way, the teams were able to benefit from the knowledge and culture of their competitors. "Delegates learn about State social programs, education and awareness campaigns, public-private partnerships, and programs with the World Bank, etc. This culture of finding solutions to problems is very important in Peru, where it can be applied in the near future, "explained Andrea Valdiviezo, from the Law School. Paolo emphasized the networking of the conference that gave the team a much broader vision of all the possibilities that their professional future holds. ---

Peruvian Debate Society has already started the call to prepare a next delegation that will compete next year representing Peru.