Model United Nations (MUN) members participated in the Los Angeles Invitational Model United Nations (LAIMUN) conference at Mira Costa High School on Dec. 4. Participants acted as delegates of different countries and conducted mock diplomatic debates on real world issues.

Mina Lavapies ’24 won a Novice AU Commendation, Tanya Anand ’24 received a Novice Commendation, Stephen Purdum ’22 earned Outstanding Delegate, Cory Porter ’22 won Best Delegate and Jackson Tanner ’24 was honored with Best Delegate.

Anand, who represented the Czech Republic at the tournament, said she found several MUN discussions, such as those on the topic of women’s rights and equality, challenging.

“I loved being able to come up with solutions for refugees and terrorism as the Czech Republic because the nation has some really strong laws and values regarding those topics,” Anand said. “However, when in a social committee, there is a lot of discussion around women and equality, which is not one of the Czech Republic’s main focuses. Coming up for solutions on that topic was a challenge.”

New team member Lily Stamboulli ’24 said she learned how to compete at the tournament.

“Since this was my first conference, a lot of stuff was unclear to my partner, [Danielle Leibzon ‘24], and I, who represented Canada,” Stamboulli said. “However, as the conference progressed, we began to understand how MUN worked.”

MUN Faculty Advisor and History Teacher Sandra Brasda said LAIMUN is a particularly competitive tournament because Mira Costa High School is especially successful in MUN conferences.

“Mira Costa has an academic program for MUN, so their students have been doing MUN since they were in middle school,” Brasda said. ” It’s an academic class, so the students were getting graded on it. They’ve been preparing all year for this conference, so the level of competition and the level of expertise that they bring to this conference is very high. It’s cutthroat competition.”