Puebla American School Model United Nations

PASMUN (Puebla American School Model United Nations)is the high school level Model United Nations of the American School of Puebla. Founded in 1985 by Mrs. Joanne Chaffe, it stands as the oldest such conference in Mexico and Latin America. PASMUN has been held every year since its foundation in the La Paz campus of the American School, hosting as many as 850 delegates in a given year. As of 2005, PASMUN is held during January [http://www.unausa.org/site/apps/cd/content2.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=877365&event_id=%7B3BFEA218-DDEE-49E7-B445-DBDAC4AA76D8%7D&content_id=%7B9D80B965-D214-43D1-A42D-E173A4D61518%7D] ; this was changed from the previous dates in May because these interfered with the school's students taking the IB exams.

Secretariat

The secretariat at PASMUN is the group of students in charge of organizing the simulation. There are over 60 students in the secretariat [http://www.cap.edu.mx/] and it has several committees, which in turn organize debate for a specific topic. Each member of the secretariat, other than those in the High Command, must belong to a committe as well as participate in either logistics, housing for foreign delegates or public relationships efforts. PASMUN is ususally made up by 10 to 15 committees. The High Command is made up by the General Assembly's Secretary General and Under-Secretary and ECOSOC's Under-Secretary. These three students are in charge of overseeing the entire conference. Spots on the secretariat are scarce and students must have at least a 9.0 average in order to be a member. Furthermore, several interviews and examinations are held in order to accept a student as a member of the secretariat. Finally, a project sponsor supervises the entire program. He is the only member of the organization who is not a student, and the position is currently held by the honourable Roberto Ávilez.

Participation

Throughout the years, students from a diversity of origins have participated in this conference. Although most delegates are from Mexico and the city of Puebla, delegates from as far as Japan have also participated. Every year, at least a couple schools attend from the United States and from Puerto Rico. In 1998 the total number of delegates reached exactly 865, but as of that year the maximum number has been set at 700 to avoid overcrowded commitees. The schools that have attended include the Humboldt School, also from Puebla, [http://www.colegio-humboldt.edu.mx/proyectos.php] , and the John F. Kennedy School of Querétaro [http://www.jfk.edu.mx/12/documents/feb_12_eng.pdf] .

Awards

Delegates in PASMUN may aspire to receive a Best Delegate award, an outstanding delegate award, or an honourable mention. As a result of criticisim concerning the methods of determining award winners that PASMUN and other simulations have received in the past, the twentyfifth conference will use a hollistic system of evaluation whereby the relevance and quality of commmentaries will be evaluated in addition to other factors. The criticisim was essentially proposed because in the past, delegates tended to have an extremey large number of participations, but hardly any of them were even relevant to the simulation. An award is also given to the best delegation [http://www.pasmun.org/awards.html] .

External links

* [http://www.pasmun.org Official home page of PASMUN]