After days of raising their placards and supporting diplomacy and lively debate, the top-ranked American Heritage Model United Nations team has once again reigned victorious at two Model UN conferences: the Model United Nations of the University of Chicago (MUNUC), in Illinois, and the National High School Model United Nations (NHSMUN) conference in New York City.
Model UN’s implementation of increased training and focus appears to have paid off, with 23 out of 40 team members receiving awards at MUNUC. This signifies a drastic improvement from the team’s first conference of the year, when only five of 40 participants were awarded. Students braved the cold Chicago weather in full business attire, even walking in high-heeled shoes through snow, prepared to represent their assigned countries and committees.
For the NHSMUN conference held on March 5-8, students were able to temporarily experience the excitement of being in the actual United Nations building. Participants were given opportunities to fully immerse themselves into the United Nations mindset, with a part of the conference taking place inside an offset part of the UN building, as the main building was under renovation.
Three days of committee meetings with delegates who traveled from countries such as Italy, Venezuela, Greece, Mexico, Sweden and Lebanon resulted in two prestigious individual awards, presented to junior Jude Alawa and senior Brandon Marks. As individual awards were given only to delegates representing separate countries from that of the rest of their school (in this case, Sweden), the best delegates from each committee spoke at the UN. From the Heritage team, junior Catalina Berenblum discussed resolutions created for the Syrian refugee crisis in her committee, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees.
“Although we weren’t able to have a session in the actual United Nations building, [NHSMUN] was still a rewarding experience, and I’m very proud of our team,” stated senior Austin Travers, president of logistics for the Model UN team.
The last Model UN conference of the year is the Miami Invitational Conference for the Simulation of the United Nations (MICSUN) taking place on April 5 at the University of Miami. The team hopes to earn a return appearance on Best Delegate’s top-ranked teams list this May.