Darna and her cousin, Ryan Villanueva, Best Delegate Co-Founder and Executive Director at the Santa Margarita annual MUN Awards.
Everyone’s MUN journey is different. Some delegates start off with natural confidence, debate skill, and public speaking prowess. Other delegates start off shy, and slowly build their skills as their confidence grows through practice. No matter how your MUN journey plays out, each delegate goes through formative experiences that have positive outcomes for their confidence and skills.
Darna Tajonera is one of those delegates. Her MUN journey began in 2014, when her cousin, who happens to be Ryan Villanueva, told her about his awesome job at Best Delegate. As a 7th grader, Darna had never participated in MUN before, but she opted to participate in the MUN Institute Junior Diplomat program at U.C. Berkeley in July of 2014. Darna also attended the Ambassador program at UCLA during the summer of 2016 as well!
During her first MUN Institute program, Darna worked on her public speaking and debate skills: “[At the beginning of the week], I was using filler words and mixing my words up. I was still confused about the process of MUN and its purpose, however, throughout the week I got more familiar with it.”
Now, a few years later, Darna’s skills have evolved. “Now, I am much more confident when I speak. I focus on projecting my message to the other delegates in committee. Before, I relied so heavily on reading my speeches off a notecard, but now I am warming up to memorizing my speeches and saying them with meaning.”
Darna’s skill progression has grown so much over the past couple years that she won the Best Delegate award for representing Italy in the General Assembly at Gaucho MUN, hosted by U.C. Santa Barbara. She also won a team award and was selected to speak at her high school’s annual MUN Awards last year.
Santa Margarita students at their annual MUN Awards.
Darna is especially grateful to be a part to the MUN program at her high school, Santa Margarita Catholic High School (SM). The program, which has been profiled previously on Best Delegate, focuses on building a supportive team community while encouraging students to be confident in their everyday lives.
When asked what makes SM’s MUN program stand out the most, Darna mentioned the team’s advisor, Mr. Remmell. “Dedicating hours on end to our MUN program as well as being a determined teacher, Mr. Remmell is one of the best teachers I have ever had and [has facilitated] a great start to my MUN high school career. [He] has led us to be outstanding MUN students who are confident and achieve our goals.”
In addition to bringing home numerous awards each year, SM’s MUN program also runs the South Orange County Model United Nations conference (SOCOMUN) each year, which is the largest one-day conference in the world. Darna is very proud of working on SOCOMUN – “[The conference] is a great learning experience and helps test out the waters for what delegates are getting into for the rest of the year.”
Overall, Darna has worked extremely hard since the beginning of her MUN journey until now. By attending the MUN Institute (twice!) and working on her public speaking, debate, and caucusing skills, she has grown her confidence and has found success in many aspects of the MUN world. We’re so excited to see what she does next – congratulations Darna!
