Highlight of the MUNth

by Sara Miyake-Singer

Model United Nations takes home fve awards in New York for multi-national conference

world in the committee which was cool.” than in that moment. We were all so excited, and it was a really good experience,” Ngo said.

Langa’s eforts were rewarded when she and Bonn won an individual award. This came with giving a minute long speech on the committee’s debate at the closing ceremony in front of 3000 people. Notably, other members Romel Kassaye and Jack Raynor were honored with an Award of Excellence, as well as club president Katarina (Haven) Beches.

MUN had fun in New York City where from March 9-13, they participated in the National High School Model United Nations (NHSMUN). The 17-member delegation won four individual awards along with the delegation Award of Distinction, the highest recognition of the conference. They were one of six teams out of hundreds to win.

This trip was the team’s frst East Coast travel conference since 2020 and their second time overall at NHSMUN (National High School Model United Nations Conference). This year, NHSMUN drew over 3000 delegates from 70 diferent countries as, according to advisor Nicholas Sklarenko, NHSMUN is “one of the biggest and most famous conferences in the country.”

“It was really cool to give those kids that, for the most part, had Zoom conferences their whole MUN careers the chance to be in-person. So, for them to meet kids from Portugal, Italy, Japan, Peru, China and the Middle East, to name a few, was really special,” Sklarenko said. “A big part of diplomacy is those personal connections that you make. It's hard to do via a screen, and I was so proud to see making those connections on such a big scale.”

The delegation represented Turkey

by Stavyah Naveen

As sophomore Mia Cielak walked through the streets of Los Angeles for a community outreach activity where she donated essential provisions to unhoused people around the city, she encountered both a military veteran who was unable to fnd housing and a pregnant woman living in a tent on the side of the road. Harboring feelings of “empathy” towards the homeless community, Cielak’s participation in the outreach project was “eye-opening,” as it exposed her to how diverse the homeless community is.

Cielak is the only RUHS member on The Giving Spirit Youth Council, an organization aimed towards providing “tangible aid and [education] on how workable solutions informed by direct community engagement…can alleviate and ultimately end homelessness,” according to their website. The Youth Council’s upcoming community service project, which starts March 22, focuses on assisting unhoused high school students in making the transition from a school environment into the workforce or into higher, collegiate education. This fundraiser is aspiring to raise enough money on GoFundMe and on The Giving Spirit website to purchase at least 10 Chromebooks for at least 10 unhoused students in the Los Angeles Unifed School District (LAUSD), a minimum of $1500.

“Every Chromebook matters,” Angela Liu, USC student and moderator of The Giving Spirit Youth Council, said. “I think all of the Youth Council students are very committed to just putting in their best ef- across several committees simulating real international agencies where they debated issues ranging from migrant abuse to free speech rights. The team prepared by individually researching their topics for several weeks. In total, every member participated in at least 20 hours of debating with one session lasting for eight hours straight.

Because this was such a big conference, junior MJ Langa prepared intensively. Knowing they would represent Turkey, Langa and her partner, junior Calvin Bonn, strategically picked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) because Turkey has the most immigrants worldwide and a favorable position towards them. Although she felt a bit of pressure since the 2019 team had won a Distinction award, Langa was “more relaxed” at NHSMUN as she was incorrectly told there were no individual awards. She believes this lessened pressure aided her performance.

“I was a lot less stressed out about trying to speak and went a lot more with the fow. [Calvin and I] would speak at every opportunity available, and I think having individual awards out of our minds allowed us to be calm, speak more eloquently and be more open to meeting people and having fun. I got to meet people from all over the

“It was a huge honor, and we were really happy because [Calvin and I] really didn’t expect it,” Langa said. “But, it was kind of nerve-wracking because we were told a day before and had only ten hours to prepare [the speech.] Because we were so busy, we worked on the speech until 1 AM. Even though we were nervous, I think we did well.”

Another award recipient was junior Michelle Ngo who, with her partner, junior Serena Daley, won an award of Excellence in the Commission on the Status of Women.

“[Daley and I] went to the bathroom and we weren’t really sure why but our moderator tried to prevent us from leaving. When we came back to the room, we got a huge round of applause, and I thought, ‘Wow, everyone must really like us!’ Then, they announced we got an award, and we were really shocked,” Ngo said.

Despite their individual awards, Ngo and Langa were really excited when the team won their award as both stated that it was unexpected. According to Ngo, this resulted in everyone “jumping up and cheering.”

“They did the awards in order from lowest scores to highest, and I didn’t think we scored that high so when they hadn’t announced us, I was kind of down and lost hope. I then laid my head on the club president's [Katarina (Haven) Beches’] head, and they announced Redondo Union won. I don’t think my head ever popped faster

Although, according to senior and Director of Training Maddie Toth, the team’s days were flled with “MUN, MUN and a lot more MUN,” they still got to sightsee around New York City. Langa cites that the delegation “managed a good combination of working and enjoying New York” due to the team’s prior preparation.

“Mr. Sklarenko is the best. He made sure we got to see everything we wanted and that we took advantage of our time in New York City,” Langa said. “We weren’t one of those teams that stayed in a hotel room and studied the whole time. But it came at the cost of our sleep schedule, and we averaged three to four hours a night which made all of us exhausted. “

One of the team’s stops was a trip to the actual United Nations (UN). There, they sat in the General Assembly room and listened to Iraqi-American poet Ahmed M. Badr as he read his poetry and spoke of refugee crises.

“I’m not sure if I was really awake enough to process that we were in the UN. It was really cool to be in such an exclusive room. I felt like a world leader,” Ngo said. “I loved the speaker. He was young, very articulate and just really easy to listen to. I was really captured by his poem.”

Moments such as these helped make NHSMUN fun and a success. But “it’s kind of a bummer” for Toth as for her and the other four seniors on this trip, this was their last high school conference.

“I’ve been in this club since I was a sophomore so this trip was a culmination of everything I’ve done in MUN for three years,” Toth said. “I’m glad, proud and incredibly grateful the team won an award but it’s sad because there’s no more [MUN.] It’s bittersweet.” forts with that goal in mind.”

The entirely teenage Youth Council solely determined the premise and purpose of this upcoming fundraiser, inspired by their goal of representing and aiding under-resourced people within the Los Angeles community. In order to inspire ideas, Liu invited guest speakers to oversee the Youth Council as the students completed self-guided research and gave presentations on a particular interest of their choice regarding the homeless community, including homelessness in Asia, Africa, pregnant women in homelessness and similar topics.

“It became apparent very early on that the Youth Council students this year were particularly interested in helping students who experience homelessness or poverty,” Liu said. “One speaker who came in was a woman who had come out of the foster care system and spoke about her difculty facing both the system and homelessness whilst being a student.”

When refecting on the speaker, Cielak mentions that it was a very “surreal experience,” seeing as she and her fellow Youth Council members never thought about homelessness from the perspective of a foster student. The speaker had been sexually assaulted, an attribution to how her situation as an underprivileged youth increased her vulnerability. According to Cielak, this reveals just how “deeply rooted the problem of homelessness is.”

Initially, the project was intended to directly provide supplies (including Am- azon wishlists, hygiene products, etc.) to help the students until Liu and other Youth Council advisors began coordinating with LAUSD to plan the fundraiser.

“We have deep connections with LAUSD,” Liu said. “In the past, The Giving Spirit has held events with LAUSD to create backpacks of school supplies for unhoused youth, and they are currently working on an initiative to donate USB thumb drives to those youth and their families. So when we talked with LAUSD about creating an event to assist students in homelessness or poverty, we really just had to work on funding technology for them because LAUSD was already open to this idea.”

Between editing the pamphlets and creating informational blurbs regarding how the fundraiser is going to help the students, Cielak has put “many” hours into the community efort, and ultimately hopes to see the Youth Council get their message out and see that “people are actually paying attention and empathize with unhoused students.”

The idea for this fundraiser was backed by the rationale that Chromebooks are taken away from all students, prior to graduation, which contradicted the necessity of technology in the pursuit of higher education or entry into the workforce. Considering the existing fnancial burdens on unhoused students, the Youth Council hopes that the access to a funded computer removes some of that fnancial burden, allowing them to “succeed in higher education,” according to Liu.

“Since we are all students ourselves, I think there was just a personal connection that we, the [Youth Council], had to this project,” Cielak said. “And we can defnitely understand what supplies or necessities those students might need because we are all in high school, and we can relate to each other.”

Cielak, who has participated in community outreaches led by the greater Giving Spirit organization for almost 10 years, appreciates the general impact that the Youth Council has on her developing empathy towards parts of society that don’t always receive kindness. Cielak describes the events and outreaches organized by the Youth Council and The Giving Spirit organization as a way of connecting with repressed and “disillusioned” parts of society.

“It's a great feeling to help other people,” Cielak said. “And being on the council has given me that exposure to the world that I think a lot of kids do need."

Michelle Light gets creative doing 3-D art by taking classes at SCROC

by Ariya Anvari

When it comes to 3-D animation, everything is made of code, making it “changeable” and “complex” in its nature. During the COVID-19 quarantine, sophomore Michelle Light found art as a new hobby. They started of with digital art on the free animation program FlipaClip but transitioned to 3-D animation.

Transitioning from digital art and paper sketches to 3-D modeling is not simple, as it depends on code and vector animation. Vector animation is art composed of multiple reference points and curves instead of pixels, allowing the image to be resized without distorting or ruining it. Despite starting out with no experience in art, Light enrolled in SCROC: the Southern California Regional Occupational Center that offers classes in more specialized felds outside of what RUHS ofers.

Initially, Light planned to take a 2-D animation program at SCROC in freshman year, but they couldn’t attend as too few people signed up. This year, they were able to take 3-D animation classes at SCROC, causing Light’s interest to shift more towards learning 3-D modeling using Blender, a popular 3-D animation program.

“3-D modeling is one of those skills in the animation industry that's good to have. 3-D modeling in general is not easy,” Light said. “There's a lot more efort you have to put in to actually make anything work. But it also gives you a lot more freedom to work with in animation rather than trying to draw everything, so I thought it would be really cool to do that.”

Light’s after-school classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5–7 p.m. Even uncharted territory for them, which can be challenging.

“When I started taking the class, I thought it was cool because it's difcult and it is a challenge,” Castellanos said. “Trying to keep up with the teacher is kind of difcult because he does something and then you're trying to fx something that you're doing on the model and by the time you look at the screen, he has done 10 other

Aside from the fast pace, the both have niques, such as lava mating explosions and creating realistic textures. Through consistent practice, over time Light has grown as an artist, according to Michelle Light’s father, Hal

“It's blown my mind how they’ve improved as an artist in the last couple of years. They've been using all kinds of diferent media, which is interesting and great,” Hal Light said. “With respect to this class alone, they seem to be developing really well in that regard.”

Light.

“To be a well-rounded person, it's helpful to do things outside of school and sometimes even outside of your comfort level that you wouldn't necessarily think to do. When you try something new or diferent, that will stimulate your brain and the way you view the world,” Hal Light said. “Art is something that makes [Michelle Light] happy and that's one of the reasons why I'm a big fan of them taking this class. They are taking an interesting step away from what they have at [RUHS], and it's something that I think is going to be good.” ing programs’ complexity is

Despite their current interest in art and plans to take art classes in the future, Michelle Light plans to pursue a diferent career path more based in scientifc research, but will continue to do art as a hobby.

Light pursues diferent types of art, practicing painting, digital drawings, paper sketches and now 3-D modeling. Succeeding in felds beyond academics has helped Light to gain diferent perspectives in diferent aspects of life, according to Hal

“Art is one of those things that I’ve had to work to be good at. I feel really good about seeing myself improve in art,” Michelle Light said. “That's something I didn't see as linearly as with other subjects in school. I don't feel that improvement when I do math, but I do feel that when I look at art from this year versus four years ago.”