A vote for diplomacy – Evergreen creates Model United Nations for first time at school

Four years ago, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, three students came up with an idea that still has an impact today. Juniors Arin Barde, Eastlake High School (EHS), Megha Ramachandran, Tesla STEM High School, and Sneha Sharma, EHS, created the Evergreen Model United Nations, or EverMUN. There have been four middle school conferences of EverMUN since it was created, with the fourth taking place on June 1 at EHS. During its run, the creators of EverMUN have designed a curriculum that teaches students about public speaking, diplomacy and global issues, which is currently taught in Evergreen and Timberline Middle Schools. 

"Students should never shy away from learning about global leadership," said the EverMUN creators. "EverMUN teaches young people to stay at the forefront of worldwide change, using creativity, presentational skills, teamwork and more to tackle complicated affairs in a hands-on way."

In Model United Nations (MUN), students represent a country in a United Nations committee, such as UNICEF or UNSC. Delegates debate relevant global issues and work diplomatically to collaboratively brainstorm and implement solutions. Through Model UN, students can immerse themselves in the world of global politics, becoming more informed citizens in the process.

Students at the most recent conference said that “EverMUN was challenging at the start, but it ended up being really fun to learn about the cool topics and debate about them!” In the past four years, more than 650 students have attended EverMUN as participants or members of the staff team, and Barde, Ramachandran, and Sharma cannot wait to see what is next in the future of EverMUN.

You can read more about EverMUN on their website at https://www.evermun.org/

Listed below are the award winners from this year’s EverMUN event including the award, the name of the student and the country/person they were representing in their committee: 

WHO

• Best Delegate, Nishtha Anant, Pakistan
• Outstanding Delegate, lshika Bhadra, India
• Best Position Paper, (non-LWSD student), United States 

UNHRC

• Best Delegate, Katya Sountsov, Belgium
• Outstanding Delegate, Sanvi Garg, Netherlands
• Best Position Paper, Aadishree Singh Gaur, China 

UNEP

• Best Delegate, Ziyi Wang, Japan
• Outstanding Delegate, Suhani Bajpai, Singapore 
• Best Position Paper, Jonathan Tadesse, India 

INTERPOL

• Best Delegate, Siddhant Ashok, Brazil
• Outstanding Delegate, Savir Divatia, Germany
• Best Position Paper, Sophie Jin, Canada 

CSTD

• Best Delegate, Ashwin Anup, Saudi Arabia
• Outstanding Delegate, Yufei Qu, China 
• Best Position Paper, Anika Bhadra (first choice}, Japan 

HCC

• Best Delegate, Vihaan Rawal, George Washington
• Outstanding Delegate, Saahil Dugar, George Mason 
• Best Position Paper, Jeswanth Sri Sai Battula, Edmund Rudolph