For the past two years, the Model United Nations at Walpole High School has not only increased their strength in public speaking, leadership, and debate, but also in understanding global dilemmas, and how to address them as delegates. The WHS Model UN attended their second conference at Northeastern University on March 1, giving the team another chance to collaborate with other schools.
“The team did great. Each of our delegations worked hard to represent their assigned countries of Cameroon, Pakistan, the UK, or South Africa,” adviser Matthew Kowalski said. “Particularly successful were the delegations of Andre Siqueira and Brandon Spitz, and Melania St. Cyr and Sanjana Bhagavatula. They each were at the center of negotiating resolutions addressing global food security that were passed by the General Assembly.”
Students on Model UN represent delegates of different countries, and at these conferences, students create a model of a United Nations Conference and collaborate with other schools to discuss worldwide issues and demonstrate their understanding of how to approach them appropriately.
“As we are still a relatively new team, this conference taught us a lot of new things. Model UN is about creating the best, feasible solution that will gain the most support and serve the greater good,” senior president Sanjana Bhagavatula said. “Being able to make compromises is a necessary skill that many of us learned while drafting resolutions throughout the session.”
Each week, the Model UN meets in Kowalski’s room to improve their skills and prepare for area conferences like this one. The team works together to build their understanding by researching current global issues from several different countries perspectives and creating position papers based off of the stance they are going to take on the issue at hand.
“These conferences are similar to games or tournaments with other schools; we come together with other Model UN teams and debate to come to an agreement on how to fix the issue being discussed,” senior vice president Jenna McDonald said. “Our club meetings are meant to [prepare] us for the conferences, and we often do mock runs of them to get used to the lingo used there.”
There is only one conference for the Model UN to attend each year, as it entails months of hard work and preparation.The team hopes to broaden their presence at Walpole High and ensure they are ready to collaborate with other schools involved in Model UN at the next conference.
“Model UN is always looking for underclassmen who are passionate about current events and interested in discussing such matters. For next year, we hope to focus on refining our position papers before the conference and researching more into preexisting UN funded initiatives that relate to the topic at hand,” Bhagavatula said. “As a team, we would also like to attend more conferences and increase the team’s presence at WHS.”