Pallotti’s latest club challenges students to take on the world.

The Model United Nations is a nationwide program for students to learn more about diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations by simulating it themselves. Students get together into committees and try to diplomatically solve global problems.

Members of Model UN talk about different problems that are occurring throughout the world, including, but not limited to, sex trafficking, poverty, and hunger. The Pallotti Model UN group will be traveling to Delaware this Saturday, December 1 to participate in a conference with other schools.

Secretary Delegate of Communications for Pallotti’s Model UN Jada Okundaye ’19 said that “Model UN helps me understand the world on a wider aspect. Model UN also allows me to learn more in international politics.”

Jada will be speaking along with Lauren McFadden ’19, who is the Secretary Deputy of Training for Public Speaking, and will be addressing sex trafficking problems in Argentina.

Kirk Marchand, who joined the faculty this fall is responsible for bringing the club to SVPHS. “I started with MUN at the Academy of the Holy Cross in 2002, taking over from the retiring MUN moderator. Since then I have taken delegates to over 70 different conferences, the bulk of which were at Seton Keough HS in Baltimore which closed in 2017. I have also co-sponsored 11 conferences with Mount St. Joseph HS in Baltimore. Pallotti went to the Baltimore Area TrainingMUN Conference II (“BATMUNC”) this October.”

Through participation in Model United Nations members are able to educate others on international problems that many are ignorant too. McFadden said that “Model UN fills the whole left from speech and debate”. 

“We are going to the 32nd annual conference at the Salesianum High School, in Wilmington, Delaware,” Marchand said. “We have seven delegates representing Argentina, Somalia, Burundi, and Angola. We will be in the General Assembly working on the peaceful use of outer space and human trafficking. We will also be in UnitedNations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization working on the safety of journalists and socioeconomic issues facing youth in El Salvador.”

Model UN has been around in one form or another since the League of Nations was founded in the wake of World War I. Its current form took shape in 1949 and has come to be used in middle and high school and colleges around the world. Students not only learn about contemporary global issues and how they impact specific countries but also learn Robert’s Rules of Order, which govern the conferences.

“We will be going to the Calvert Hall HallMUNC in March, The fifth annual Baltimore Area MUN Conference in April and the Bishop Ireton MUNC 44 in May. Next year we will be adding a big event, the Johns Hopkins University MUN Conference, which is four days in February at the Baltimore Hilton with 1800 students from many different countries. It requires about six months of planning for schools to attend so we won’t be going this year. We will be going Friday afternoon on Feb. 8 to look around though,” Marchand said.

He stressed that the club remains open to any interested student.