March 13th was a huge day for the students of the GZAAT. American Academy has had a Model United Nations club for 5 years already. Many students attend it as an extracurricular activity. Every year students head to New York City to attend the NHSMUN (National High School Model United Nations) conference, but this year, the conference was held online. 17 high school students from GZAAT attended the conference and represented Norway. These students include Elene Berelashvili, Mariam Begiashvili, Elene Chinchaladze, Tinatin Dolidze, Lizi Ebralidze, Achi Gogokhia, Mariam Gogorishvili, Natalia Gvinadze, Mariam Kalandadze, Nikoloz Kvaratskhelia, Alexandria Lominadze, Lizzie Melashvili, Tako Mikhelashvili, Barbare Tetvadze, Ana Tvaladze, Aleksandre Vacheishvili, and Barbare Melikidze. Each student was a member of a different committee, SPECPOL, UNICEF, UN-HABITAT, UNHRC, and WHA being a few of them. The conference lasted for 4 days. It started on March 10th and the closing ceremony took place on March 13th, during which GZAAT was given an Award of Excellence for the first time since the club was founded. The excitement among us, the students, was unreal: all the work and extra hours we had put in for an excellent performance at the conference, the research we had done, the position papers we had written had all ended up being worth it.
There are two people to thank for pulling everything together on such short notice, during these difficult times, the head of the club, Tako Mikhelashvili, who is also a Junior at our school, and Ketevan Sturua, who is a History teacher at GZAAT and leads our club with Tako. I asked them to comment on the win, and here is what they had to say, starting with Tako:
“We started preparing for the Model United Nations conference in September. At first, we met regularly once a week to deepen our understanding of the United Nations: we talked about the process of the United Nations creation, its purpose, and how it operates. Then, we learned about the specifics of the Model United Nations conference. I introduced the students to the terminology. They learned how to write well-structured speeches and position papers, how to identify the country's policy about a specific problem, how to form alliances with the counties, and how to write a resolution. When students were familiar with all the procedure details, we made a mock trial to better practice the MUN conference process.
We took part in an online NHSMUN conference and represented Norway. Students actively debated about various problems with high school students from all around the world to come up with ideas to solve these issues.
Our school, as a delegation, received an Award of Excellence, which is an award based on students’ performance during the conference. It is a significant achievement for the delegates and our school. Congratulations to everyone who participated in the conference and did their best!”
Keti Sturua said the following:
“Preparing for the conference is the most important part of the club, although part of the time is dedicated to the subject of comparative politics as well. We acquaint ourselves with the basic themes of political science. These include political and economic systems, ideologies, regimes, sovereignty, and legitimacy. We discuss the creation and development processes of political cultures and civic society through the examples of different countries. Once the MUN informs us which country we are going to represent, the students start studying this country and preparing the material. Members of the club work on the themes needed by the committee individually and then send to the head organization. Other than this, members of the club practice, intensively, the procedural questions, present and prepare speeches. This part is very interesting and routine, as it demands the knowledge of internationally defined protocols and development of important skills. The stage of preparing for the conference is led by our wonderful coach, Tako Mikhelashvili. Overall, the leaders and participants of our weekly meetings and discussions are intelligent individuals. Working with them is pure pleasure. Every year, I expect that our students’ work will be noted, and this happens every year -members of our club have received awards, although it is the first time we’ve ever been recognized in this way. I was very happy to see the team receive an award of excellence, which was received not by individual members (which is, of course, wonderful on its own) but was awarded, deservedly, to the entire team. This year’s preparation period was especially coordinated and impressive. This was the fourth time the club has participated in a conference of this size. The intelligence, genuine interest, hard work shown by our students, and experience gained over the years, brought the team to victory. The club, as a rule, has representatives of all years - newbies and veterans both. This is great, as it allows the team to share experiences, gain new strength, and work as a team. This is why I was not extremely surprised, simply very, very excited, that the exceptional performance of our team was evaluated this way. Our club is open to all. The number of participants is not important. Only eight members participated in the first conference, quite successfully. It has happened before that we had to split into two teams, to keep the meetings in smaller groups. If you are interested in this subject, join us! You will see, and realize, that our work is really interesting and valuable.”
Once again, thank you to Tako and Keti for their help and support and congratulations to the seventeen students on their win!
Edited by Mariam Begiashvili
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