Mentor High School’s Model United Nations team took on the Cleveland International Model United Nations Conference (also known as CLEIMUN) at St. Edward High School on February 14-16th and was named the conference’s Best Delegation for the fourth time in the history of the nine-year-old conference. Just a couple of weeks later, the team took a trip to Case Western Reserve University for CCWA’s Spring conference.
CLEIMUN
Mentor’s Model UN team is an academic club with more than 30 members, 20 of whom attended CLEIMUN February 14-16. Each student acts as a delegate to represent one of the 193 countries in the UN in different committees like the Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC), Security Council, Human Rights Committee (HRC), World Health Organization (WHO), and the Economic and Environmental Committee (ECOE). CLEIMUN, however, puts a twist on traditional North American-style MUN by intertwining European-style elements into the conference. Mentor’s team represented the countries of Brazil, Iran, South Africa, and the United States, with delegates from each of these countries represented in each committee.
Instead of writing resolutions (papers that aim to diplomatically solve the world’s problems) at the conference, delegates were tasked with bringing four pre-written resolutions that best fit the interests of their country. On the first day of committee, delegates lobbied and merged resolutions in order to gain support and signatories to submit their papers to the almighty Approvals Panel (read: Model UN’s version of Gamemakers from”The Hunger Games”).
On the second day, the Approvals Panel strategically selected papers for the delegates to debate and vote on, therefore guiding the flow of debate. Delegates picked apart resolutions in their speeches and wrote amendments that best fit the wishes of their designated countries whilst the Approvals Panel regulated debate from the backends.
The third and final day of the conference merited a drastic shift; rather than being separated into designated committees, the entire conference came together in a General Assembly (GA) to write resolutions and directives on crises. Rather than working individually, each country came together with all six delegates from each committee to work together towards a solution. Each delegation was also joined by a couple of middle schoolers (with Memorial and Shore’s Jr. MUN teams also in attendance).
At CLEIMUN24, the GA crisis reflected a fictional escalation of real tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, where every delegation was assigned to one caucus: pro-India, pro-Pakistan, and neutral. Delegations had to work diplomatically to gain support for their designated side and figure out how to deal with the situation.
“[It was] incredibly exciting and [was] a great example of the diplomatic power the United States on the world stage,” says Tatyana Sowerby, Mentor MUN’s Parliamentarian.
Mentor’s team had great success at this year’s conference. The United States delegation, comprised of Sarah Blakemore, Ayesha Faruki, West Matthews, Isabel Quinones, Tatyana Sowerby, and Loren Wandersleben, won Best Delegation, marking Mentor’s fourth time receiving the highest honor of the conference. The United States delegation additionally won Highly Commended Delegation within the GA. Isabel Quinones and Sarah Blakemore both won Best Delegate as the United States in their respective committees, while Ayesha Faruki and Brian Mignogna won Honorable Mentions as the United States and South Africa respectively.
“I loved CLEIMUN!” exclaimed Membership Outreach Coordinator Loren Wandersleben. “It was such a fun conference and the European style was somewhat new to me, but overall it was an interesting experience. I’m glad the USA was able to keep our reign as Best Delegation.”
CCWA Spring
Eleven of Mentor’s delegates attended the Cleveland Council on World Affairs’s Spring Model UN conference hosted by Case Western Reserve University from February 28th-29th, similar to the conference CCWA held during the fall.
Different from CCWA’s past conferences, however, was the introduction of crisis cabinets. Held in the typical general assembly-style debate were the committees for the GA (of course), HRC, UNOOSA, ECOSOC, and the Data Privacy Summit. At this conference, CCWA also introduced the Pakistan Cabinet Crisis Committee and Panama Canal Crisis Committee, where instead of representing countries, students represented a real person to try to combat numerous previously unseen crises thrown at them by the backrooms.
After several assassinations (including that of Theodore Roosevelt, unfortunately), the almost-arrest of the entire Pakistan Cabinet, kidnapped goats involved with money embezzlement, and an India-Pakistan cricket match, the committees finally compromised and achieved their goals.
Like at CLEIMUN, Mentor’s team found much success! Juliana Nichols won the Gavel Award in the Data Privacy Summit representing the United States, Ayesha Faruki and double-delegates Nick Payne and Nathan Colagross won Excellent Delegations in the Pakistani Crisis Cabinet and UNOOSA respectively, and Mentor MUN co-prez West Matthews won an Honorable Mention in the Panama Canal Crisis Committee.
“I thought it was a very good experience as one of my first conferences in MUN instead of Junior MUN,” says freshman Owen Medved. “I loved my chair, and my crisis committee was very interesting. A ton happened and I think it was a great experience for public speaking and collaboration with [other people]. [I would] definitely do it again if I had the chance.”
