On Wednesday, February 24, Wayne Hills’ Model UN club attended a virtual Cross-Wayne Conference with Wayne Valley High School.

Led by club advisor John Terry and its officers, the club was able to have a successful conference that went from 7:55 AM to 1:25 PM. The two topics that were discussed were Ensuring Access to Safe and Sustainable Energy and Combating Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance.

The first conference session, Ensuring Access to Safe and Sustainable Energy, went smoothly. Delegates were able to meet each other, form a cooperative and collaborative bloc, and write a brilliant resolution. The resolution was passed clause-by-clause and smoothly without the need for any amendments.

In this session, the delegates at this Model UN conference adopted a resolution that aimed to sponsor research institutions and companies to figure out adequate ways of giving each refugee camp access to safe and sustainable energy. The approved resolution can be viewed here.

The second conference session on Combating Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance proved to be challenging for many delegates. Though all delegates unanimously agreed that intolerance in the world was a serious issue that ought to be dealt with, they disagreed on the methods of combating it.

Resolution 1, sponsored by New Zealand and Sweden, aimed to promote education and raise funds by allowing nations to either voluntarily donate or raise taxes. Resolution 2, sponsored by Russia and the Republic of Iceland, also promoted education but suggested that nations can be incentivized to promote intolerance through the use of mass media and the withdrawing of funds from corporations that discriminated against people in the workplace.

There was a deadlock between the two blocs. Resolution 2 received only 7 votes, which was less than the majority vote of 9 needed for the resolution to pass. Resolution 1 had 8 votes, which was also inadequate. Due to time constraints, no resolution was able to pass, which made delegates very frustrated.

At the very end of the conference, awards were given out to delegates by the judges. The judges that were present at the conference were teachers Dr. Evan Saperstein, Michael Shale, and Olivia Arcilla.

This year, the Wayne Hills Model UN team virtually took home many awards.

Wayne Hills students sophomore Trisha Vyas and freshman Aadhith Balaji both won the Outstanding Position Paper award. The Best Position Paper was won by Hills sophomores Daphne Saatcioglu and Sophia Kim. Kim also won the Best Delegate award.

In addition, the Outstanding Delegate award was won by junior Jay Ferriera and sophomore Wajiha Rizvi.

The etiquette award was won by seniors Jessie Lu and Berenika Belenkiy.

“I feel honored about the award I received,” says Saatcioglu with a smile. “It’s definitely very encouraging and uplifting. I feel that the conference exceeded all my expectations and made me very knowledgeable on topics that are very relevant to today’s society.”

Saatcioglu closes with a positive remark: “It felt like an actual school event considering there was so much communication and collaboration. I think that considering the global pandemic this small amount of socialization helped. It reminded me of what it was like to actually discuss and debate with others.”

Let’s all give a round of applause to our Wayne Hills Model UN club!