Three juniors received awards at the 52nd annual Arizona Model United Nations (AzMUN) conference this year. Andrew Jensen, JJ Andrade, and Austin Garrett each earned individual awards for their representations for different countries.

This year, PHS sent 9 students from the MUN club to the conference. Although all students did an exceptional job, 3 juniors stood out.

JJ Andrade received the Exceptional Novice Award and is the current president of the club.. Andrade, representative of Bulgaria, had to address the violence against migrant workers all around the world and determine how to sustainably develop countries in Africa that are not getting the aid that they need.

“I’ve really always been interested in international politics, national too but on a greater scale I’ve seen the importance of international politics and how countries really work issues out,” Andrade said.

Andrew Jensen received the Exceptional Novice Award for his representation on the international Court of Justice which is a bilingual committee. He had to come up with a solution for Thailand and Cambodia fighting over temple land and Uruguay vs Argentina over the pulp kills on the Argentina river.

“I want to be on the International Court of Justice when I grow up, so its kind of a good experience to get into that,” Jensen said.

Austin Garrett received the Exceptional Delegate Award. Though representing a different country, Garrett served on the same committee and faced the same challenges as Andrade.

“Being able to work in a group setting, discussing things, and proposing ideas and it was more free-flowing than debate so i thought that would be useful,” Garrett said.

The AzMUN conference has been held at the University of Arizona every year since Dr. Clifton E. Wilson founded it in 1963. It started off with just students from some high schools in Tucson and now it involves 100 schools from all around Arizona. It also involves students from schools in Sonora, Mexico so there is guaranteed to be a diversity of students at the conferences. This two day event challenges the students and gives them a chance to experience a real conference between nations.

Delegates at these annual meetings are put into differents groups and each student is assigned a country. They take on the role of representing their country and try to resolve the issue they are assigned. Students strategize, debate and come up with a solution to the conflict. This program really benefits students because they are able to experience global cooperation and how nations view important issues.