Published on: 17 October 2019




Boys from Christ Church excelled at the inaugural Model United Nations event recently hosted by the Public Schools’ Association (PSA).

Year 10 student Ed Stoddart received an adjudicator’s choice award on the night for best speaker, while fellow team members Max Brampton, Stuart Everett and Aditya Muthukatu representing Sweden were voted 3rd best team (out of 16) by peer voting.

Also representing Christ Church at the University Club of Western Australia were Luke Colgan, Nicholas Johns, Ben Dreyer, Lachie Robson and Nicholas Tan.

Competing in teams of three and representing China, Sweden or Vietnam, diplomacy skills were challenged as participants took on the role of speaker, researcher or negotiator.

“After the UN Resolution was distributed, the boys had to prepare opening statements in response to the resolution, based on facts and research conducted on their respective countries,” said Assistant Head of Humanities, Mrs Vanessa Badaraco.

“The boys quickly learnt that empathy is the essence of diplomacy as they negotiated the resolution on environmental refugees.”

“They debated whether social and moral obligations to the international community trumped political sovereignty in light of climate change and its displacement of people.”

“Our boys performed incredibly well and were successful at prosecuting their countries’ agendas.”

The adjudicators of the event included Professor David Sadler (Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) UWA), Charan Bal (Lecturer, School of Social Sciences), Dr. Sagi Peari (Lecturer, UWA Law School) and Professor Sarah Prout Quicke (Senior Lecturer, Centre for Regional Development and School of Agriculture and Environment).