Six students participated in a Model United Nations Conference at York College on Sunday, March 22.

Model UN exists in high schools as well as universities all over the world. Conferences allow the best of the schools and countries to come together and debate solutions to current conflicts. National Model United Nations states, “Our conferences foster global citizenship and address current world issues related to regional conflicts, peacekeeping, human rights, women and children, economic and social development, and the environment. We strive to provide students with a better understanding of the inner working of the UN and to foster skills in diplomacy and compromise.”

The six students selected to represent Susquehannock at the conference were senior Anastasia Kuznetsova, juniors Will Earls, Bridget Duffy and Ifeanyi Akunna, and sophomores Claire Morrison and Simone Blanchat.

The conference consisted of several committees with assigned issues to each. Students form Susquehannock were active members of the first, third and fourth committee as well as the Security Council. The first committee was biological weapons and security of weapons stockpiles in conflict ridden areas, the third was freedom of the press in developing countries and the fourth was the role of private military and military contractors and the Kashmir dispute.

Along with the committees, the students also had the choice of several countries to represent. Their country would allow them to focus on a specific perspective when debating.

Senior Kuznetsova began participating in Model UN as a junior and attended the conference as an active member of the Rwanda Security Council, a group debating about children and armed conflict. Much of the group’s attention was focused on combating the issue of terrorism globally and nationally.

“Now a days we have lots of issues with the Middle-East, especially extremist groups that come from there, so we were trying to figure out a way to stop them from getting the finances that they need and trying to figure out a way to get them to stop recruiting from our own countries,” said Kuznetsova. “Then we were trying to figure out the best way to stop terrorism from sprouting and growing, which we figured was through education.”

Junior Will Earls participated as a representative from Norway in the fourth committee, which dealt with the Kashmir dispute for the majority of the day.

“My favorite part of the conference was just being able to cooperate and work together with people from all different schools, and especially when everyone is representing a different country, you meet some very interesting viewpoints,” said Earls. “It’s very good experience.”

Model UN advisor Kate Newland believes the six students were prepared to represent our school well.

“The kids did an excellent job, based on their research, of being representatives and delegates of those countries,” said Newland.

The conference also gave students the ability to share their resolution paper, a roughly two-page paper which described their solution to their topic of debate and how the resolution would impact their country. The paper consists of background on the delegates’ country that transitions into the reasons the student took the stance that they chose. Out of 120 delegates, Kuznetsova was selected for the delegate with the best position paper.

Model UN members encourage participation in the organization and conferences to learn about critically thinking and solving problems that are currently existing.