While Model United Nations is known for travelling across the country, they compete in local competitions as well. One of which took place April 12-14 at the University of Miami (UM). UM hoped that the conference taught students how to raise awareness on international issues and affairs through their 10 different committees.
Acting as delegates for China, sophomore Naila Charania, won best delegate with her partner sophomore Justin Folks. Charania described their partnership as balanced due to her well-executed delivery of speeches and Folks’ information in background work. While the pair was expected to sweep with their best delegate win, MICSUN stood out specifically to them because Charania and Folks needed to lead younger MUN students while aiming for the award.
“I think it is different because it’s a smaller competition so a lot of us end up competing against each other and sometimes it’s really experienced people against freshmen who have never competed in MUN before,” Charania said. “In my room, there was a freshman so I tried to give him tips to help him out.”
Exiting president senior Mikhal Ben-Joseph trusts the underclassmen to continue to step up next year just as they did this season. As Ben-Joseph leaves she wanted to note for everyone to continue their involvement even if they did not make it on as many rosters as they wanted.
“For anyone who did not get in that many trips, please do not give up. You are valuable to the team,” Ben-Joseph said.
Until next MUN season, students will share their differing knowledge to improve as a group. “At first I [joined MUN because I thought] I wanted to do this only because of the awards, but now I want to partner with the underclassmen and be able to teach them whatever I know so that they know whatever I know so they can do well in MUN also,” Charania said.
List of winners:
Best Delegate: Jackson Arnberg, Aamir Lacewala, Naila Charania, Justin Folks
Best Position Paper: Christian Rodriguez
Honorable Delegate: Angelin Mathew, Claire Tyler, Benny Taubman, Alex Yang, Barak Huang, Alex Plewinkski
Verbal Commendation: Rohit Ramesh
