From the Sons of Liberty to the WTO: High Schoolers at BosMUN

By 12th grader Isaac

A few weekends ago, students in the High School Model United Nations (UN) Club attended their second conference of the year. Nine students, making up the largest Meridian high school delegation Meridian to date, traveled to the far-flung Park Plaza Hotel in Copley Square to participate in BosMUN, the annual conference organized and run by Boston University students. We took on a range of international roles and responsibilities. Izzy (10th grade) and Katie (12th grade) were both new to Model UN, and they took on the role of Cuba while debating about issues from the Paris Climate Change Conference and the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, 12th grader Kenny, who has been doing Model UN at Meridian since 6th grade (this was his 12th conference), took on the role of Tahar al-Hadi al-Juhaymi, the Minister of Planning in Muammar Gaddafi’s cabinet.

After we attended BosMUN last year, I took over running the High School Model UN club. This was the second to last trip I will get to organize and participate in before graduating this spring, and my fellow delegates helped make it one of the best I’ve experienced. New Model UNers put in months of research before the conference and were active members in their committees during the weekend, and 9th grader Clary and I were both were awarded Best Delegate in our respective committees. Clary represented a justice in the International Court of Justice, and I was a member of the colonial Sons of Liberty, in 1773, representing Benjamin Rush, a physician from Philadelphia, until someone in my committee poisoned me -- Model UN can get rowdy -- and I was assigned the new position of Thomas Young, a physician from Boston.

None of this would’ve been possible without the trusty chaperoning of our teachers Nathan and Abby. Additionally, although I run the weekly Model UN lunch meetings, I always had our teacher Kevin to turn to when I needed help reading students’ work or wrangling homework assignments from them. And we’re already gearing up for our next conference in just a few weeks. It won’t be long until we are traveling out to UMass Amherst to see what sorts of international diplomacy-style shenanigans we can get up to.