Granada Hills Charter’s (GHC) Model United Nations (MUN) team began their competitive season at TritonMUN and BruinMUN conferences held at UC San Diego and UCLA respectively.
The leadership team won the Best Small Delegation award at Triton MUN on November 1. The team was composed of the six head captains and two Valley Regional MUN (VRMUN) Upper Secretariats.
BruinMUN was held from November 8-9, officially marking the beginning of MUN’s competition season as the first entire team competition. Over 150 teams from California and surrounding states traveled to UCLA to compete at the two-day event.
Delegates argued in 26 different committees on several topics such as biases in Artificial Intelligence (AI) health diagnoses, global trading of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and federal disaster relief response. Numerous GHC students received commendations for their preliminary research and speaking performances at this competition.
“It was exhilarating to cheer on our team members who were recognized for their hard work,” junior Natalia Diaz said.
As one of the largest high school MUN conferences, BruinMUN has hosted over 2,000 competing students for 33 years. BruinMUN is also GHC’s biggest conference with a delegation size of 70 students.
MUN has undergone intense practice to prepare for the first conferences of the year. Delegates engage in enriching activities during after school practices to enhance their presentation skills alongside their teamwork abilities.
“We prepare our delegates through hosting mock committees and speaking stations, where delegates give speeches about their research and focus on different fundamental skills of speaking such as body language, volume, or inflection,” captain and senior Farrah Chavez said.
MUN fosters students’ knowledge in international and public affairs through allocating members to different countries to represent.
After receiving their assignments, members research background information on their country’s stances on the students’ assigned committee topic before engaging in debates with delegates from other schools. During the committee portion of the competition, delegates work together to draft resolution papers describing how the countries are to solve the issue at hand.
“MUN is not only about speeches and persuasive articulation,” Diaz said. “It is primarily about a delegate’s ability to be diplomatic and collaborative by bringing together multiple solutions and being able to guide and lead others.”
Since TritonMUN and BruinMUN, the team is preparing for conferences such as the National High School MUN (NHSMUN) in New York City and the yearly VRMUN hosted here at GHC.