Draft:Junior Assembly of the Model United Nations

Junior Assembly of the Model United Nations

Founder(s)	Joshua Varon
Key people	Joshua Varon (President & Secretary General, North Carolina) Dustin Simon (Under-Secretary General, North Carolina) Nolan Zinman (Secretary General, Chicago) Mikey Evarts (Chief Technology Officer)
URL	jamun.org
Launched	2024 (2024)

The Junior Assembly of the Model United Nations, also known as JAMUN, is a Model United Nations (MUN) conference for middle school students. JAMUN teaches middle schoolers about diplomacy, international relations, communication skills, public speaking, global issues, and more.

History

JAMUN was founded in 2024. Two JAMUN conferences have been held since its founding. Its first conference occurred in October 2024 and its second in April 2025, called JAMUN I and JAMUN II, respectively. JAMUN I had two committees, a General Assembly and an Ad Hoc Crisis Committee. In JAMUN II, the conference expanded to five committees.

JAMUN currently plans to hold a third conference in November of 2025, called JAMUN III. Currently, there are nine committees planned for the JAMUN III conference. Registration for this conference opened May 1, 2025, and closes September 15, 2025.

JAMUN Resources

JAMUN provides many different resources for preparing for a JAMUN conference. The JAMUN website holds many examples and guides. Examples of resources provided by JAMUN are an Advisor Guide, a Delegate Guide, a General Assembly Guide, a Crisis Guide, a Draft Resolution Outline, a Directive Outline, a Crisis Note Example, Position Paper Organizers, and more.

JAMUN 101

JAMUN also provides tutorial videos on the basics of MUN. Each "JAMUN 101" video is short and gives a brief description of its designated topic.

There are two videos currently available on both the JAMUN website and on YouTube. The "JAMUN 101 - Crisis Notes" video is a short, 5-minute and 19-second video that gives a breakdown on the usage of crisis notes during a crisis committee. The "JAMUN 101 - Note Passing and Coalition Building" video is another short video, lasting 6 minutes and 19 seconds, giving guidance to delegates on how they can use note passing and coalition building to their advantage during debates and discussions.

JAMUN Conferences

Both JAMUN I and JAMUN II have been held at the Deerfield Village Hall in Deerfield, Illinois. For JAMUN III, JAMUN plans to hold two conferences, one at Deerfield Village Hall and one in a not yet determined location in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina. JAMUN III will be held the first weekend of November 2025, on November 1 and November 2. Registration for JAMUN III is submitted through a Google Form on their website.

Conference Format

JAMUN conferences feature various types of committee formats in which delegates can participate. Each conference is unique and focuses on different skills.

General Assembly

In the United Nations, the General Assemblies are the main policy-making groups of the organization. All United Nations members are entitled to equal votes. In Model UN, General Assemblies follow the United Nations format for a General Assembly, but are not required to be one of the six United Nations General Assemblies. Throughout the conference, delegates in the General Assembly work with each other to develop a resolution to help solve the issue at hand. During JAMUN II, the conference's General Assembly was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and they plan to hold General Assemblies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, World Health Organization, and International Criminal Police Organization for JAMUN III.

Crisis Committee

Crisis Committees are another type of committee during a JAMUN conference. Crisis committees are often fast-paced, smaller committees that do not always end with a neat resolution. Each delegate has their roles with a goal of asserting their character's viewpoint the most by the end of the conference. Crisis committees use both the frontroom and backroom. In the frontroom, delegates use debates, negotiations, and directives to help solve the continuous crises that come from the backroom. The backroom is where crisis staff look at crisis notes and directives from the frontroom, and then they present new issues and crisis updates to the frontroom. Directives are short pieces of legislation written by the committee and voted on. When passed, they are sent to the backroom to be reviewed and implemented into the next crisis update. Crisis notes are private to each delegate and are letters sent to an imaginary or real person to further the delegate's personal cause or the committee's cause. They are reviewed by the backroom staff, and if written well, can and will be implemented into the continuous crisis. In previous JAMUN conferences, they have held "The Korean War: South Korean Cabinet" crisis committee and plan to hold a crisis committee on the October Russian Revolution for JAMUN III.

Special types of crisis committees include Joint Crisis Committees, in which two different committees in different frontrooms experience the same crisis from different perspectives, with their decisions influencing what happens in the other committee. Another type of special crisis committee is called an Ad Hoc committee. Ad Hoc committees are almost the same as a regular crisis committees, with the key difference being that the topic isn't made available to the delegates until shortly before the conference, or even at the conference.