By Timothy Giang ’26
EVER WONDERED HOW WORLD LEADERS CAN GET ANYTHING DONE?
Model UN club at Bellarmine has seen a major energy shift this year. It is a club on campus that simulates what it would be like to be a delegate in the United Nations. Starting this year, it was in the works of juniors Vivaan Chopra and Avi Deshpande and sophomores like Ari Freedman that reinvigorated what had been a dormant student club. Meetings are held in the Principal’s Conference Room and moderated by Mr. Jemison.
The way you compete in Model UN is through participating in “conferences.” These are events in which you simulate representing a country and navigate around diplomatic negotiations and conflicts with other teams representing other countries. Navigating around debates, presenting research, providing counterarguments, and more exciting procedures are all a part of this event. The way you win in Model UN is by representing your country in the best possible manner in the whole process determined by judges.
Bellarmine’s Model UN had been dormant for years since 2020, but through the ambition of its student leaders, it has risen to success and will host its first conference again since 2020 this week. One of these ambitious students is sophomore, Ari Freedman. Freedman had been a consistent participant of Model UN since middle school, having an interest in learning about foreign affairs and politics. It was this interest Ari had of learning “how different people are thinking” that is a key component in the purpose of the club as a whole: understanding the views of others different than you. As a leader in the club, Ari sees this importance of fostering understanding about our place in the world and the world in the views of other people: “I want people to understand the world the best they can.”
Another Bell that had a big contribution in seeing Model UN come to fruition this year was junior Vivaan Chopra. Chopra admitted that the club’s founding had “been a journey rife with impediments,” but credits his passion for Model UN for helping him persist through the challenges of starting up a club. He had seen the club die out in 2023 and almost gave up on fulfilling his passion, but with this unshakeable passion and the help of a friend who has a successful Model UN, he took it upon himself in his junior year to revive the club. But, why did Vivaan have this determined passion anyways? Well, because like anybody’s strong faith in anything, it stems from a dedication to what matters most to us. Vivaan credits the lives of his grandparents courageously immigrating from Pakistan to India during the 1947 British Partition of India, gaining a sense of gratitude for his grandparent’s sacrifices and that of other people in the world facing similar challenges, saying that “hearing their stories has inspired me to respect every immigrant, no matter what their documentation status is. It has also ignited my love for politics — politics gives us a chance to make real change to the lives of marginalized people.” A student of politics for social change in all regions of the world, Vivaan is grateful for the club as Model UN “gives me a chance to analyze politics from a global lens, rather than a purely domestic one.”
As much as rhetoric and competition is intertwined with Model UN, the ultimate goal is to cooperate with other people representing their own valuable interests. Model UN teaches diplomacy, researching, communication skills, negotiation, learning about different cultures, and chiefly the importance of working together with people you may disagree with to create something positive and productive for the world.