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Adrian Chen

Delegates eagerly raised their placards as Northwood’s Model United Nations club attended their first in-person conference since the pandemic hit on Oct. 9 at Cerritos High School. Members have been raring to interact with fellow students from other high schools.
In total, Northwood sent six delegates to participate in several committees including the World Health Organization and the United National Human Rights Council, representing a variety of countries as their stances. Students debated pressing global modern day issues such as mental health access and child poverty, using their country’s unique perspective to brainstorm collective solutions with other countries.
“The conference went well and it was really fun, but I felt under prepared since this was my first conference,” sophomore Shlok Garg said. “Despite only having one solution to present, I met lots of new people and collaborated with them to create solutions.”
Within the conference, delegates used high-quality research conducted beforehand to develop policy proposals and draft resolutions for their respective country. Senior Bian Lee represented Bangladesh in the United National Human Rights Council, analyzing terrorism financing and creating policies which aimed to effectively reduce global terrorism by directly targeting criminal activities.
“Bangladesh is a developing country, so I wanted to address where pure revenue is made and where real human beings are targeted every day,” Lee said. “I didn’t join the other bloc because they were more focused on education and regulating cryptocurrency.”
Finally, after a motion to close debate, all participants congregated once more for the awards ceremony and final remarks. Lee and junior Elena Higuchi both won Excellence Awards, representing the country of Bangladesh in UNESCO and WHO.
“Honestly, it was just really cool to be able to talk to people face to face again,” Lee said. “My favorite thing about the conference was the atmosphere—it was very relaxed and everyone seemed supportive of each other.”
MUN club will be having an practice conference on Nov. 6 in adviser Vadim Rubin’s room to prepare arguments and receive helpful tips for their upcoming conference. Participating students will receive another opportunity for much needed in-person interaction.
“It really feels good to be back,” club president senior Ryan Liu said. “After all, the essence of MUN is giving speeches and intermingling with different blocs during unmod which is irreplicable on Zoom.”