By Michelle Huang | Staff Writer

Irvington’s Model United Nations club competed at the East Bay MUN conference on Dec 12th and Dec 13th. The conference, held at California High School in San Ramon, hosted over 300 delegates and 22 schools. Of the 16 Irvington students who participated in the conference, senior Zainab Khan, the MUN club president, won an Outstanding Delegate award for representing Germany in the European Union.

Every delegate was assigned to act as the representative of a specific country or historical figure in his or her assigned committee. Committees ranged from the International Labor Organization to Organization of American States, where delegates put forth policy proposals to address topics such as labor rights in Qatar and narco-terrorism. The conference even featured special crisis committees, where delegates represented the Spanish and Aztec empires during the 1519 Spanish Conquests.

“I represented Germany in the United Nations Development Programme and one of our topics was conflict minerals. My favorite part of the whole conference was that it’s easy to get lost in the topic, and you can say anything you want,” said senior Sabia Babul. “That’s what makes the whole debate fun and interesting.”

Aside from being an educational opportunity, the conference also gave the club a chance to bond.

“We all sat at the bottom steps of the high school’s main building and had a blast talking about what went on in our individual committees,” said Babul. “During breaks, we’d meet up to give each other support and relieve stress from our topics too.”

As it was their first conference of the year, students gained valuable competitive experience from East Bay MUN.  

“Overall, the team did amazing,” said Khan. “For a lot of our delegates it was their first time competing, so everyone was nervous, but despite that everyone did spectacularly.”