On February 9, 2026, the Model UN club went to New York City to compete in a Model UN conference led by We the People Model United Nations (WEMUN).
Model UN is a club in the NHS that meets every Tuesday in room 202. Started up and run by Sophomore Abby Gorman, the club is designed to help students understand global issues through quality education programs. Students are assigned different countries or communities and act as delegates to try to come up with an agreed-upon resolution with other countries. Model UN is used to emphasize collaboration and cooperation among students.
“It helps me understand how countries work together and come up with conclusions because I am learning about their governments and their history,” said President Abby Gorman.
Model UN is a great way for students to get involved in the community, make friends, and expand their knowledge of how different countries work together to form an agreement or solution.
During the trip, students were broken into different committees. NHS students represented the country of Colombia. The different committees that students participated in were the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Special Political and Decolonization Committee, the United Nations Human Settlements Program Commission, the Human Rights Council, and the United Nations Environment Assembly. They had multiple sessions throughout the trip, with the most in one day being 3 sessions. Sessions can span from 3 to 5 hours.
Norwood students were split up into groups of two on each committee. They worked with other high school students from all over the world to create resolution papers on the issues that they were assigned to.
Sophomore Riley Adams said, “we worked with other delegations representing countries of the UN to make papers that would be mock versions of papers that the actual UN would make to pass laws.”
Biology teacher Rachel Stokes organized the trip and was the teacher chaperone for the 10 students in attendance.
“She [is] very encouraging… She was also very proud of us, and she just helped us. She [takes] a lot of initiative… and really cared about our safety,” said freshman Riley Creamer
To fund the trip, the Model UN club held a bake sale. Treats included magic cookie bars, an assortment of cookie types, and candy from all over the world.
The club had “a table just filled with [treats for the] bake sale and ran it for about two weeks,” according to Janaii Lamar.
To get the scholarships to go, principal Cindy Derrane emailed biology teacher Rachel Stokes with a form. They put their names in and waited to hear back, and fortunately, the conference still had space, so the students were able to go.
There were many challenges along the way, one of the biggest being that many of the kids were unsure how Model UN worked and how to participate in it. Due to the fact that it is NHS’s first year doing Model UN, they weren’t sure how the conference would go or what it was going to be like. Overall, they were going in with little expectations because they were unsure.
“And I didn’t expect the kids to be winning any awards because this is our first conference and it was super last-minute, but they did amazing,” said biology teacher Rachel Stokes.
Besides going to the conference held at the Marriott Marquis, they went to places like the M&M store, the Lego store, Olive Garden, Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’, and other places all around the city.
Students also went to a burger restaurant, which, according to freshman Riley Creamer, was her “overall favorite food place to go.”
The trip was a memorable experience that students won’t forget for a long time. It was a great chance for students to make friends, learn new things, and cultivate their debate skills.
Junior William Creamer said, “I made a lot of friends. I met Whoopi Goldberg; that was pretty cool. I learned a lot about diplomacy, and we got our draft resolution papers passed, which was a very good thing. And, I’m going to remember it for a while.”
