Five individual student delegates from Bridgewater-Raritan High School recently signed up and attended a Model United Nations conference at West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School. These Bridgewater-Raritan students were Inaaya Ashar, Raina Khakharia, Kush Dave, Mahathi Karthik and Aayush Dhar.
While the conference was not part of the team’s normally-scheduled season, it served as a good experience for delegates who attended the event.
Model United Nations, or MUN, is a simulation of the real United Nations for high school and collegiate students. BRMUN attends various conferences throughout the year, including NHSMUN in New York and NBTHSMUNC in North Brunswick. However, SouthMUNC was not part of the team’s conference list this year. Delegates brought themselves to the conference on April 5, with opening ceremonies starting at 8:30 a.m.
The ceremony featured a keynote address from Senator Andrew Zwicker, a physicist and a member of the New Jersey Senate representing New Jersey’s 16th Legislative District. After the opening ceremonies, delegates were dismissed to their committees.
Four delegates from Bridgewater-Raritan were in the General Assembly novice committee, working to solve the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. The fifth delegate was in the General Assembly Advanced committee, which focuses on addressing the impact of the 2020 Beirut explosion.
Delegates set motions, delivered speeches and collaborated with other delegates to ultimately establish a set of solutions, by writing a developed resolution paper with their group of countries, called a “bloc”. At the end of committee, they presented their papers to committee members and voted on them. Chairs, also known as the judges, also set up fun MUN sessions at the end to let the delegates connect with one another.
At the end of the conference, three Bridgewater-Raritan delegates were recognized for their hard work in the form of awards. Sophomores Mahathi Karthik and Aayush Dhar received a verbal commendation while sophomore Inaaya Ashar was awarded an honorable mention. All of these students were a part of the General Assembly committee.
Sophomore Aayush Dhar reflected on his time at the conference.
“SouthMUNC was really fun, especially because I went with great friends. I was able to demonstrate my Model UN skills, and lucky enough to win an award. I love Model UN as it gives me something to continuously improve upon, something I hope to continue as I get into junior year,” he said.
Moving forward, Bridgewater-Raritan MUN delegates will attend JPSMUN at John P. Stevens High School in May. The team’s end-of-year banquet is also set to be hosted around that time.
