At their first conference of the year, Model United Nations joined with other schools from all around the world to discuss real-world issues. Four of the stallions who competed won awards for their performance.
MUN is a class offered at SJHHS that centers around student participation in an academic simulation where they act as delegates from their selected countries. Students are expected to discuss and debate world issues from the perspective of the nation they choose to represent. Topics include but are not limited to countering violent extremism, arms proliferation, human trafficking, wildlife and forestry crime, and terrorism.
“Model UN is a simulation of the UN where basically students get to come and represent countries and practice the procedures that the real UN would go through. It’s an opportunity to learn about different countries and topics and international relations,” said MUN student Kate Pointer.
SOCOMUN, the conference they attended on September 23, is the largest MUN conference the SJHHS team visits all year. It took place at Santa Margarita Catholic High School and schools from all over South Orange County as well as international schools came to participate.
“It was very big. We went to Santa Margarita, and their gym is very big and it was completely full. All of the people were in the gym and it reached max capacity. There were also international students from Russia, Ukraine, China, Korea, and some Middle Eastern countries,” said George Wang.
Out of the 27 SJHHS students who competed, four won awards. The awards given to students in each committee are Best Delegate, given to the student who performed the most proficiently, Outstanding, which is given to the students who received second and third place, and Commendations, which is given to the students who also excelled in their debate.
Junior Shaurya Sharma won Best Delegate representing France. Senior Kate Pointerwon the Outstanding Award representing France for the Wildlife and Forestry Crime Committee. Senior Goerge Wang representing Kazakhstan for the Wildlife and Forestry Crime Committee, and Junior Iurii Kolyadin representing France for the Arms Proliferation Committee, both won the Commendations Award.
Sharma attributes his success to his active engagement in discussion during the conference.
“I think it’s because I participated a lot and was engaged in the conversation, I took a lot of initiative during the moderated and the unmoderated conferences,” said Sharma.
Students in MUN are assigned the task of researching their nations’ policies and the perspectives that coincide with their committee. Students each give speeches and provide solutions to real-world issues that would align with their nation’s beliefs.
“Our main goal was to come up with solutions to combat the issue, so through education, conservation, and obliteration of crime. What they like to do is come up with acronyms, so mine was “ECO”. So it was Education; public campaigns, and integrating it into schools. Conservation, the creation of national parks which also creates jobs, and Obliteration, which is higher airport security and trying to get rid of the crime through punishments,” said Pointer.
MUN also provides students with important life skills that will help them in the future.
“It’s a great way to learn public speaking, it’s also great for research, it’s great for being able to speak without having a script written or a script in front of you,” said Kolyadin.
While students are only participating in a simulation, they are also becoming aware of serious world issues that they may otherwise overlook.
“Being in MUN, I’ve immersed myself in a multitude of topics around the world that I probably wouldn’t have ever heard of. MUN definitely teaches me more about world affairs and helps me be more socially aware,” said Sharma.
