LOS ALAMITOS, CA — On Feb. 18, students from all over LA County gathered on Los Alamitos High School’s campus for a day of fun, politics, and friendly debate at the GRIFFMUN 2023 conference. The conference was hosted by Los Al’s MUN club with teacher advisor Ms. Kibtya.

The student board had been planning for the event all year after settling on the theme of ‘Empowerment of Youth.’ The conference lasted from eight a.m. to four p.m., but the board and other volunteers began their setup at seven that morning.

Each committee was manned by a dias made up of student volunteers, including a Head Chair, Vice Chair, and a Legal. These students were excited to participate and led their roomfuls of delegates through committee procedure while bestowing awards for exceptional delegates. While delegates certainly learned a lot from this exciting experience, this was also an eye-opening learning moment for the dias members who were given the opportunity to experience what classroom life is like from a teacher’s position.

“One of the jobs my head chair assigned me was the grading [of delegates], which gave me a lot of power, but, also, it allowed me to see the perspective of those who have chaired past conferences that I’ve attended,” shared Vice Chair of the ICJ committee Sydney Mastick.

Students who competed in the conference as delegates were sorted into individual committees where they were required to give speeches and present policies on behalf of an assigned country regarding a specific topic. Many of these topics were highly diverse and interesting as they were chosen with care by the club’s student board and with the help of their staff advisor, Ms. Kibtya. The diverse list ranged from ‘Violations of the Law by the Russian Federation’ to ‘Tackling Mental Health throughout Humanitarian Crises’.

“Throughout the conference, we were awed by the amount of research, energy, diligent work, and engaging hooks of the delegates that attended,” shared Ally Hatakeyama, Head Chair of the UNICEF committee.

The conference had two special types of committees that were available to advanced delegates. One of these was a committee following the procedure of the International Court of Justice in which students were able to try Russia for its crimes against humanity. The other was a crisis committee that was based on the Japanese anime called “Attack on Titan.”

“Hosting the conference was a lot of stress yet also very rewarding, when the day came it was exciting to see it all come together after all the hard work put in,” Mastick said.

Overall, delegates and dias members alike enjoyed the conference and were eager to see what next year’s conference would hold.