Several Sage Hill students took home awards at a Model United Nations (MUN) conference at Mission Viejo High School that took place Jan. 16-17. Those who won an award for Commendation included Daniel Gamini, Anuli Ononye and Mia Lehavi. Recipients of the Outstanding award included Priya Kamdar, Emma Rafatjoo, Meghana Khurana, Sarah Kim, Henry Lavacude-Cola and Nick Bost. Additionally, within the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Sarah Saboorian received an award for Best Delegate.

“This was our first time doing Mission Viejo…so it was important to do well,” MUN Co-Secretary General and senior Seth Eaton said.

The conference, which lasted most of the weekend, included a variety of topics for discussion, each of which was assigned to a specific committee where student delegates were responsible for representing the viewpoint of their designated country or character.

“…in UNDP, delegates debated HIV/AIDS and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and in IAEA, delegates debated the situation in North Korea and the situation in Iran. We…also competed in a couple of fictionalized crisis committees, where the topic was space warfare and delegates…discussed things like extraterrestrials, neutral humans and life on Mars…” other MUN Co-Secretary General and senior Janis Jin, said.

According to Eaton, Sage students who attended the conference had been preparing since December around the time prior to winter break. They continued to meet about twice a week since then to gather information on individual topics, rehearse their speeches in order to improve their public speaking and to work on position papers.

Although most of the students involved in MUN have shown a commitment to the club, Jin shared that one of the challenges in getting ready for the upcoming conference was making the most of the time available to them.

“One of the challenges we face is being limited in the time we have to prepare for each conference. Because we’re competing against larger schools like Santa Margarita and Edison, where MUN is a class rather than a club, it is definitely a challenge to find the time to research and practice speeches, especially with sports and other extracurricular commitments as well,” Jin said.

Eaton expressed similar feelings, also noting that it’s often hard to help members grow accustomed to taking a stand and asserting themselves.

“The challenge always is encouraging the members to assert themselves. I think at Sage people are very polite and that doesn’t necessarily translate well in committee when we have to fight for our chance to speak,” Eaton said.

For the conference, Eaton and Jin’s overall wish was for Sage’s MUN members to perform well and get the most out of their experience. They also hoped the conference would help students further develop their skills for the MUN conference at UC Berkeley this March.

“With every conference, our biggest goal is for our delegates to come away from the conference with a broader and deeper knowledge about an international issue, and hopefully gain experience with public speaking!” Jin said.

At the Mission Viejo conference, approximately 25 Sage Hill students attended along with students from more than 20 schools. As of this school year, the team has continuously done well at the conferences they have attended and a considerable amount of students have won awards.

“We’ve had a really successful year…But I think what’s more rewarding is that people who are new to the club [are] finding the confidence to go to conferences and try something that they haven’t before and watching them…do it again and again…” Eaton said.