Hawthorne High School has opened its doors to a new club, Model UN!

A new extracurricular activity where students roleplay delegates of the United Nations to simulate the UN committees. Students play an ambassador role choosing to represent a Country/Nation in a debate of various current issues such as finances, climate change, gender equality, global health, etc.

Here they will establish alliances and make friends with other delegates and create solutions to global conflicts working with fellow delegates or against them. Before moving to Hawthorne High School, I was in a Model UN club back at my other school and my first experience was amazing! The first couple of meetings were used to discuss which Nation we were representing after we were given the topic.

There was then a mock trial where representatives gathered in a large room with the other representatives where we debated our topics and in the end, China ended up nuking two nations and Bosnia caused world hunger. Not the best first meeting, but it was honestly a hilariously great experience.

I hope that we can have that much fun here at Hawthorne with our new Model UN. I also took the opportunity to interview a student about their experiences in Model UN who has been part of the club since freshman year, and that is Marie Buturishvili a senior at Fair Lawn High School, where I used to attend.

Buturishvili states, “Ok so basically, we model the United Nations where several schools will come together in committees and we will be assigned countries, and we all debate certain topics. We have to debate the position of our country and not our own personal beliefs which practices our ability to be objective. It gives you an opportunity to open your point of view as to how other countries view certain topics, whether it be something as serious as the opiate crisis or something as silly as a fictional world. Oh yeah there’s committees that like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson so it’s not always completely serious and despite how prestigious the club sounds we always come up with the most ridiculous solutions to our problems. What I am getting at is that it’s super fun!”

So Bears, the question still remains, are you interested in the experience of a lifetime, improving public speaking, debate skills, and having fun? Join Hawthorne’s Model UN today! The google classroom code is “07ZTMKY.” If you have any questions you can reach Mr. Harty, the head of the Model UN club, in room 303. We hope to see you there!