On May 17, West Po Model UN participated in Lightridge Model UN’s Conference, where they won “best school.” Hundreds of students from various schools gathered in different delegations to represent a certain country with a common goal to solve an issue at hand through collaboration.
Juniors Madison Seyfert and Annalise Richardson were in a double delegation committee for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes. They represented El Salvador and focused on creating policy to combat drug and gang violence in Latin America. They successfully passed a resolution paper, implementing education programs to reduce gangs, and won the award for Best Delegation.
Meanwhile sophomore Nora Fitzpatrick participated in the Black Death Committee and received a verbal commendation as Stefan Dusan, the King of Serbia.
At the end of the conference, participants can get feedback from their chairs of how they did. Seyfert described the feedback they received, saying, “Our chairs told us that what really helped us win was the fact that we took charge and had a lot of leadership on the unmoderated caucuses.”
Richardson thought that overall the conference went great. “The head of our committee did a really good job of asking everyone to participate. I also thought the opening speeches were very interesting,” she remarked.
With this conference ending the Model UN season, Seyfert hopes that students will consider joining Model UN next year. She stated, “There’s an endless number of reasons why people should join. The community is so good, and it’s really good for developing writing and public speaking skills.”
She continued, “It’s a lot more chill than people imagine it would be. You do have to write position papers, a research paper on the country that you will be representing, but it’s really not that bad.”
Richardson agreed with Seyfert, commenting, “Model UN allows you to meet so many new people. It teaches you how to adapt yourself in an environment that you might not be used to, and in the long run can help with your future career.”
To learn more information about West Po’s Model UN visit their Instagram @westpomun.
