UPDATE: On April 30 through May 1, Amador’s Model United Nations (MUN) club competed at the Sequoia Conference, where they won first place. They have continued their winning streak, as they have also won at prior MUN conferences, such as the Berkeley Conference.

“Model UN is where student delegates get together and represent a country to simulate the discussion of a specific issue, [similar to] how the United Nations does today in New York. Conferences can be broken down into committees and committees discuss special topics. Delegates simulate what countries would do and how they would come up with solutions,” said Runab Dixit (’24).

Prior to conferences, student delegates dedicated many hours to prepare and research so they could be well versed on their specific issue they were going to discuss during the conference. 

“In order to prepare we have to write something called a position paper, where you write your country’s policy and the general information about the topic you have,” said Ishmeet Dhillon (’24).

At the campus of UC Berkeley, six Amador delegates set out to compete in the Berkeley Model UN Conference. 

“This weekend, we all went to Berkeley and tried our best at this tournament,” said Maanas Shah (‘22), current president of Model UN. 

The Berkeley Model UN conference is one of the oldest and most prestigious conferences of all time, being founded almost 70 years ago. Over the course of 3 days, the six delegates that Amador sent to represent their school participated in numerous conferences and won multiple awards. 

While the concept of Model UN is quite an old one, the club here at Amador was only founded last year, and with COVID-19, the only tournaments that they could go to were those that were online. This conference was Amador’s first in-person conference that was in an official location. 

“With our club being really small and new, it’s really nice to be able to win at big conferences such as these,” said Ishmeet Dhillon(‘24), the vice president of Model UN.

Amador sent six delegates to this tournament; Maanas Shah (‘22), Ishmeet Dhillon (‘24), Arman Dhillon (‘26), Ziyan Liu (‘24), Anika Parkhi (‘24), and Ava Albright (‘23), who were set out to win some fame for their school, managed to win a total of four awards. 

“It was really tough without a proper coach of our own, but we have some really good people in our team so it was alright,” said Maanas(‘22).

Berkeley Model UN is an international tournament, with schools throughout the country sending people to California. To meet these people from all over is an amazing experience. 

“We got to experience tons of amazing food and made lots of friends while we were there,” said Dhillon.

Many of these people who joined the Amador Model UN have been doing this since middle school, so going to conferences like these are regular for them. 

“This weekend was super enjoyable and I got to learn and see so many different people and things,” said Ziyan Liu (‘24).