Suma Thati

Hi delegates!

My name is Suma Thati, and I have the honor of serving as your head chair for UNHRC at BMUN 66. I'm accompanied by three amazing vice chairs: Soham Kale, Lucia Zhang and Ruchir Sharma. We are so incredibly excited to meet all of you in March!

I wanted to use this opportunity to introduce myself, our committee and the purpose of this blog to all of you. I'm currently a sophomore at UC Berkeley intending to major in Media Studies with a possible minor in Journalism. This is my second year in BMUN, but my eighth year doing Model United Nations. I've been involved in MUN since I was 12 years old, and BMUN 66 will be my 17th conference! As you can tell, I pretty much became obsessed with MUN from the moment I made my first speech, and it has quickly become one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. I hope that through BMUN, you will take away as much from it as I did!

I was born in India, but I moved around a lot throughout the course of my life, living in Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore before moving to the US for college.

Outside of BMUN, you can usually find me involved in student theater groups on campus, or in gender issues advocacy! I interned at a women's rights organization in Singapore last summer, where I was involved in a project that looked at the barriers to economic empowerment that single mothers face in Singapore.

Beyond all of this, I'm a huge musical theatre nerd (Hamilton, Hairspray, Chicago, Wicked, anything, really!), Lord of the Rings fan, and a true Potterhead at heart. I can successfully quote every single line of dialogue from all Harry Potter movies as they're being said, and this is one of my proudest achievements! I'm also known to binge-watch TV at the worst possible times (finals week, let's say). A few of my all-time favorites are Orange is the New Black, The Crown, Sherlock and Sense8. I'm fiercely loyal to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I like to listen to movie soundtracks when I study (I highly recommend anything by Hans Zimmer).

Now, just a little bit about our committee. As you already know, our two topics this year are Religious Freedom and Exploitation, Forced Labor and Trafficking. These topics are pressing human rights issues that are quite prominent in the global sphere today. Our committee will also be functioning under THIMUN procedure, which is a procedural style used widely in the international MUN community.

I know most of you would never have encountered THIMUN before, and this is where this blog comes in handy! We'll be using this blog to post periodical updates about the topics to keep you informed. We also encourage you to use the blog to ask us any questions you may have about THIMUN, or about the topics. We'll be more than happy to help!

That's all from me, for now! Be sure to check back occasionally, and please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have. You can reach me via this blog, or you can shoot me an email at sthati@bmun.org.

Have fun, good luck, and see you all in March!