The Model UN Club participated in the Towson High School Model UN Conference (THSMUNC) on Saturday, March 2. Five members received awards in their conference committee: senior Niya Tripathi won Outstanding Delegate, senior Lara Pauw won Honorable Mention, sophomore George Kuchio won Outstanding Delegate, sophomore Zach Chaouchi won Outstanding Delegate and freshman Jay Resnik won Honorable Mention.

In the conference, club members represented a country or person and gathered with other Model UN delegates in a committee to discuss a particular issue that they can solve together as a body, imitating a real United Nations conference. In Kuchio’s committee, he represented Estonia on the topic of student debt.

“I was arguing that we shouldn’t view student debt as a simple money issue, but beyond that in terms of a proper education. I devised a plan saying we should come up with a failsafe that even if we weren’t able to pay off every single month of debt, we would still be able to educate children to a high extent, so when they do enter society, they can still handle themselves despite not going to the best university,” Kuchio said.

Kuchio’s proposal also included top countries with funds, like the US and the UK, to help fund a project that would aid struggling nations in debt, like Ethiopia, with a United Nations representative making sure that those funds aren’t misused.

“Unfortunately, the bill didn’t pass because our faction, which was the biggest faction in the committee, got smaller and smaller. The reason why was because usually the leaders of the factions get the rewards. Since our faction was so big, people thought they wouldn’t have a good chance to get the reward, so they wanted to form their own factions,” Kuchio said.

Tripathi participated in an Ad-Hoc committee, where committee members don’t know the discussion topic until the day of the conference. In this type of committee, which is considered a crisis committee, the topics are generally less serious and members often represent a person instead of a country.

“I really like crisis committees because they’re really fast-paced, and you can exercise personal powers to affect the committee,” Tripathi said.

THSMUNC was Resnik’s first high school Model UN conference. “It’s different from middle school Model UN because most of the people really knew what they were doing, which made it more fun because we didn’t have to go through all the procedures,” Resnik said.

Resnik participated in a 10-member specialized committee, where delegates represented characters instead of countries, and played Rose Cameron from Outer Banks, with the goal of getting treasure for themselves and their family. Although the resolution Resnik advocated for didn’t get passed, he recalls the excitement of winning an award at the ending ceremony.

“Towson High School has a huge auditorium, and I walked up to the stage and got my award. It was really fun, and I was super happy. I put in a lot of thought into how I would act and prepare for it. I was really proud,” Resnik said.