Medford Middle School Student Wins Award at Highly Prestigious Model United Nations Conference

Nine middle school students representing the Arlington Regional Model United Nations (ARMUN) Program recently attended the United Nations Association of Greater Boston’s Middle School Model UN Conference held at Northeastern University on November 22, 2014. Of these students, two were chosen as “Distinguished Delegates” and invited to the prestigious DiMUN invitational conference held in Boston on December 12, 2014. The Northeastern Conference was attended by over 450 middle school students, whereas DiMUN was attended by only 82 students who had won awards at the Northeastern conference. ARMUN’s two delegates at DiMUN were 6th grade student from Arlington (Ottoson Middle School) Milo Kiely-Song and 7th grade Medford Student (Andrews Middle School) Ansel Miller. The conference was an all-day crisis committee in which the situation kept changing and developing, and it began with the current situation with the Ebola Crisis in West Africa. Milo drew the role of Political Minister of Liberia out of the hat first thing in the morning, and found he had a great time being in the middle of all the action and negotiations that were happening throughout the day. Ansel drew being the Defense Minister of China, and he also had a great time trying to act as he believed the actual Chinese Defense Minister would act in response to the many developments in the crisis that occurred throughout the day. Both boys did an excellent job in their role and had a great time while doing so.

Ansel Miller, however, got something very special to go along with his great experience -- at the end of the day he was awarded ”Best Defense Minister,” one of the three Best Delegate Awards given at the conference -- one given for each type of role the delegates were assigned to play.

The students who attended the Nov. 22 UNA-GB Conference at Northeastern all deserve praise as well, for they all participated quite well, learned a lot, made new friends, and behaved in an exemplary manner as a group. Along with Ansel and Milo, those students included Gabrielle Yamamoto of Medford, Oscar Berry of Cambridge (International School of Boston), Isabella Lui of Cambridge, Connor Bresnahan of Cambridge (Cambridge Friends School), Varun Gopal of Arlington (Ottoson Middle School), Pranav Sriramulu of Arlington (Ottoson Middle School), and Tyler McNally of Saugus.

Twelve ARMUN Middle School Students are currently preparing for the Jan. 31 & Feb. 1 BUAMUN Model UN Conference held at Boston University. New students are always welcome to come visit the club, and more information can be found on our website (www.arlingtonregionalmun.weebly.com). The website will be updated over the winter break. To reach the Clubs please email armun2013@gmail.com. To reach ARMUN Program Director Kim Kay Holt directly email her at kimkayholt@gmail.com.