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Grandview Heights Secondary Model UN

President (previously VP, Director)

Grades 9–12

Four years spent lowering the barrier to entry for an activity that usually filters people out early.

This club is where I first started thinking seriously about who gets left out of opportunities like debate. Model UN rewards students who already read the news at home, already own a suit, and already have parents who can cover a conference fee — and it quietly sorts out everyone else before they ever try. Most of what became my instinct for accessibility I built into a club rather than a company, and I think that order mattered.

Consistent membership grew from 10 students to 60 over four years. We attend three conferences a year, including Canada's largest youth-led one.

I raised more than $6,000 in funding so that cost was never the reason a student could not attend a conference. Nobody had to ask for help in front of anyone else, which was the part I cared most about getting right.

I launched a program to help five students with neurological disabilities learn debate. Half of them went on to win awards at conferences. That result mattered less to me than watching them choose to keep coming back.

I started an online MUN class outside school hours for 30 students at other high schools with no program at all — the students I could not reach by fixing anything inside my own club.

A club is small enough that you can actually see who is missing. Once you notice, the work is not persuasion. It is removing the specific thing standing in the way, one student at a time, and then not making a show of it.

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