KO Students Win Awards at Model UN Conference in Budapest

Fourteen students and two faculty members from Kingswood Oxford spent Thanksgiving week in Budapest, Hungary, competing in the third annual Yale Model Government Europe (YMGE) conference.

KO was one of only six U.S. schools at the event, which attracted about 330 delegates from high schools all over the world. Out of that large group, two KO students – Max Bash ’15 and Benjamin Waldman ’16 of West Hartford – were honored for outstanding achievement.

Bash was named Outstanding Delegate for the Lithuanian Cabinet and Ministry of Health, while Waldman was named Outstanding Delegate for the Polish Cabinet and Ministry of Justice.

In addition to Bash and Waldman, the other students who competed in Budapest were: Mike Barry ’15, Jessica Joyce ’15, Sophie Kruger ‘14, Jake Leshem ’14, Samantha Pinkes ’14, and Noa Silverstein ’15, all of West Hartford; Griffin Maloney ’14 of Avon;  Areesha Irfan ’15 of Farmington;  Zach Mendelovici ’15 of Glastonbury; Liann Waite ’15 of Wethersfield; Peter Fisher ’14 of Manchester; and Talia Zimmerman ’15 of South Windsor.

The students were accompanied by Stacey Savin, KO history teacher and Model UN advisor for the past 11 years, and Donna Dudzik, assistant to Carolyn McKee, Assistant Head of School for Student Life. The group also spent a few days sightseeing in Vienna.

"This trip was stimulating, exciting and rewarding," said Savin, who founded KOMUN (Kingswood Oxford Model UN for Middle Schools) in 2012. "We were going from dawn until dusk, on three different tours with university professors, and the students took it all in like sponges. They were as interested in learning about the places we visited as they were in the conference itself.

"Our students made friends from all over the world and represented KO beautifully," she continued. "The School was lucky to have such fine ambassadors at an international conference like this one."

This is the second time KO has participated in the YMGE conference; in November 2011, the school sent a team to Prague in the Czech Republic. Savin said the YMGE is an excellent complement to KO's other Model UN experiences, including the Yale Model UN each January and KO's own KOMUN each March.

Cultivating global awareness has long been central to Kingswood Oxford’s mission; for more information about Model UN or KOMUN, contact Stacey Savin. For information about September 2014 enrollment at KO, contact the Admissions Office at 860-727-5000 or admissions@k-o.org.