Post-TYA Reflection

As I wrap up another conference in a long consecutive string of conferences, I wanted to look back on my experience as a whole.

After my last conference (in 2009) I decided to call it quits. I had been invovled with the TYA organisation for two years and in that time had attended 3 conferences and a symposium and I had just gotten tired of the ordeal. I had been approached on numerous occasions asking if I was going to be the next conference and if I wanted to help run the conferece (serve as a deputy president) but I kept declining, citing one reason after the other always trying to steer away from or bend the truth that I just didn't want to come back, feeling that I would be ostracized for some sort of minor betrayal.

The reason why I didn't want to come back was very simple; I had been involved in 3 groups projects with lofy goals (each from a separate conference) and each one had crashed and burned either because of apathy of the partso of the students or the possibility of the task and I had had enough. The worst part of the projects was that I knew going it that most of these projects were logistically impossible which made it even harder to keep going back. With all that said, I did go back, of my own free will even.

Why, you may ask, would I return to the very conference that had frusterated so much of the last two years of my life? Well, the answer is very simple. I love it. Earlier this year, about the same time that I started shopping around for a winter term project, Emilie O'Herne, January's president contacted me changes in the format of the TYA 14 conference and I was immediately hooked. Instead of all the participants working on one project, they each were going to work on separate 'individual' projects where the incentive and focus wasn't so much on direct action, but on giving the youth actors the grassroots skills that are viable for creating and implementing a political project from scratch. Also, it was going to be heavily workshop based and would give a lot more time for discussion and speakers as opposed to computer driven research. Essentially, the new format changed everything that I hadn't liked about TYA to what I had originally though it should be.

Throughout the week though, my passion waxed and waned at one point almost snapped. There certainly were some moments in which I felt overwhelmed by everything that was going on or as if I just couldn't handle what was on my plate at the time. However, these times were very much in the minority and for the most part I had a blast. As I mentioned in the committee summary (which can be found here) our participants came from 9 countries and hugely diverse political and cultural backgrounds but sharing a common interest in the issues in Gender Issue. Because of this huge breadth of experience, the conference was amazing I really felt that I learned so much about all the cultures of the participants I had the privilege of working with. Truly just spending a week talking with someone from a very different walk of life (compared to yourself) is an eye-openning and deeply introspective experience — you learn a lot about them, but often times you learn even more about yourself.

At the end of it all, I would have to say I really enjoyed the conference. Especially when listening to my participants rave about how much they loved the conference, I really felt so accomplished and proud to have gotten my way through another tough week or little sleep, fewer breaks, non-stop politics. What I always find most satisfying about this conference though, and has a lot to do with the overarching reasons that I keep coming back to TYA and to Den Haag, where the conference is held is the very real chance I have to make a difference.

In the world of politics (international, national, regional, local) youth actors are making bigger and bigger waves and in these last few years especially they are truly becoming the most important driving force in the political arena. However, as true is this may be, the are still under appreciated and underutilized. The intensely patriarchal, ageist engine that is politics often sees the youth as nothing more than a non-voting, apathetic, moderately amusing demographic. They are naive in the eyes of the world and are self-interested and dependent solely on the older and wiser members of society to make decisions for them because they lack the knowledge or even interest to make them for themselves. This concept may have been true a couple of decades or maybe even the last generation of people to grow up but that is definitely not the case now and in my mind, that is what TYA is really all about; changing that one sided discourse into a dialogue, forcing people to talk with you and not at you. Making your voice heard by doing some sort of action be it giving a speech or holding a fundraiser is really quite easy and when I see young people's eyes light up when they realise this - that is what makes all the work (before and during the conference) worth it.

When the phrase "the sky's the limit" ceases being a trite idiom and becomes an axiom for life, that is when I feel as if I have succeeded and hearing all my participants chatter excitedly with one another during the last two days we had together about all their plans and how everything was going to work out really brought a smile to my face and a warmness to my heart and I knew that somewhere, no matter how small, I had made a difference, in someone's life that week.

Gender Issues: Committee Work

As was mentioned before, the final outcome of this week (for the participants) was the creation of a project proposal in the realm of Gender Issues in their community. In theory, what was then supposed to happen was the participants would then return back to their communities to implement the projects that they created to try to rectify or eliminate the problem that they were trying to address.

The following index contains the names of the participants and links to all of the project proposals that worked so hard to create:

"Fortunate to be Feminine" - Ayca Atabey, Miray Atesoglu, Ozge Armutcu
"'You're Beautiful' Awareness Campaign" - Kristin Kim, Pearl Kim
"Bridging the Gender Pay Gap in Cyprus" - Christina Papamichael, Evelyn Ioannou
"EMBRACElets" - Sarah Palazzolo
"Breaking through the Glass Ceiling (Het glazen plafond doorbreken)" -Vivian Wildeboer
"Freedom for Women (Freiheit fuer Frauen)" - Yannick Saive
"B-eat-it" - Naila Imad Eldin
"Respekt für harte Arbeit (respect for hard work)" - Christoph Schöneseiffen
'WiTHIN" - Ashton Ng Jing Kai

Gender Issues: Committee Summary

At the end of the conference every committee had to write a summary of all the week of the conference and what we did in our committee. We collaboratively came up with what should be contained within our summary and then I typed up the following piece that appeared in the 'end of conference' booklet.

At the beginning of this week, the Gender Issues committee convened - 15 strangers spanning 3 continents and 9 countries, by the end of the week left 15 friends, all citizens of a global community.

During the week the committee worked, discussing all manner of difficult issues found under the auspices of Gender Issues, ranging from the glass ceiling women face in the workplace to the rights of transgendered individuals. However, no matter where the discussion went or how tired everyone inevitably became, there was always a positive attitude and as unanimously voiced by the committee, a great sense of community.

One the of the best things about the Gender Issues committee at TYA 14 was its ability to balance hard work with play: diligently slaving away at their projects at one moment, always ahead of schedule, and having massive committee-wide photo shoots the next. This perfect balance of the formality of a conference and the informality of a group at ease with each other really fostered a the creation of friendships, so much so that one participant said that they felt we were all kind of “meant to meet together.”

With final projects going to be implemented for all walks of life – from an awareness campaign about the illegal sex trade in Germany to EMBRACElets, a fundraiser selling bracelets that serve as visual reminders of equality between all genders – every participant really poured themselves into their ideas. The entire committee is very excited about returning home beginning to work, some have even begun the second stages of their projects already.

With all the varied topics, ideas,and project that have been thrown around this week, it has been a whirlwind event for all involved. While some days the committee did seem to barely make it through the long intense days, they always came back and dedicated themselves all over again the next, truly a testament to their passion and stamina.

One purpose of TYA is to teach youth what it means to be an actor in the global community but another is to teach them what it means to be a human. In the words of the participants - we learned about more than just gender issues, we learned about foreign cultures and about our own.

DAY 5 (The Ending of TYA)

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Participant Reflections

On Thursday, we discussed the participants opinions about and the reactions to the conference, asking them each to say a few words. The following bullets were their reactions:

• I thought that all of our coordinators were really cool and didn't really tell us to get to work if we got distracted. It seemed that they knew when we needed a break and when we should be doing work.
  
  
• I really enjoyed the sense of community that developed amngst all of us, we worked together really well.
  
  
• I enjoyed the chance to work with everyone and I thought that we didn't really split into cliques but instead worked as a whole.
  
  
• I feel as if I have a much better understanding of all the different cultures that everyone was from. We have people from the United States from Singapore; from Turkey to Belgium and I feel as if I have a much more rounded view of the world now.
  
  
• I felt that the workshop discussions were really useful and I thought the variety of individual feedback that we got during the peer reviews was great, we really got to share our honest opinions on other people's projects.
  
  
• I felt that the conference was really fun but that we had some time where we weren't doing anything but waiting — I think that we could have accomplished the same amount of stuff with shorter days.
  
  
• The formalities and also the informalities of discussion were nice — the balance worked well.
  
  
• I think what was especially interesting was not only did we get to learn about other people's cultures, I think we really learned about our own cultures as well. We really got to examine the stereotypes and feelings inherent in our own societies.
  
  
• What I think I like best was that even if I don't end up finishing the project that I planned to do, i really learned “how-to-do-a-project” in the future.
  
  
• I liked the conference on the whole but I would have really liked more interaction with all of the other committees.
  
  
• I really was forced to think about issues that I never thought about before and the ones that I did know, I thougt about it different and new ways.
  
  
• I really appreciated that we not only learned about Gender Issues but that we really learned about a whole range of issues, some of which are related and some of which aren't.
  
  
• I really liked making all the new friends.
  
  
• I like how we got to take pictures as well as work really hard, both sides are really important and I like how both were expressed.
  
  
• In Singapore education is caged is really caged. At TYA, I really liked the cooperation, and the freedom to share ideas. This is truly the best form of education

DAY 4

Today was a relatively straight-forward day, in terms of what we planned to do and what we accomplished.

During the morning, we revisited some of the issues and concerns that were brought up during the day before (in the peer talk-back session) and after discussing different options that everyone had for their projects, the participants really dove back into their research and planning for another few hours, essentially trying to fill in the last remaining caps on the 'project proposal' forms that O'Herne (the TYA 14 president) had given them yesterday during her workshop and then formalize the entire document (typing it up, proofreading it, adding illustrations, etcetera)

When all of this was done and the documents were all submitted, we all met again to discuss what everyone, in the committee thought of the conference on a whole (a more detailed summary can be found here) in terms of the preparatory phase, the schedule, the workshops, the projects, and the general TYA management. As this weeks format was a very large change from all previous formats, it was really important that we got feed back as to what worked and was was not as successful.

Overall, everyone was really positive about the entire process and loved the conference; people especially loved the opportunities to meet so many new people from so many different cultures and backgrounds. One thing that was also brought up multiple times was that the participants especially enjoyed working with myself and my fellow coordinators because "unlike some of the other committees, we [myself and Mattia] really knew how to balance working hard and taking much needed breaks." There was one complaint that was shared across the committee though: people thought the days were too long because on some days, it seemed there was a lot of free time. I think, however, this was more due to the fact that everyone worked much harder and faster than we than we expected as we had never run the conference in this format before.

Finally, to end the day, we had our conference wide photo taken at the World Forum (where we met the first day for registration) which was a great because you got to see all sixty-odd people together at once and you really appreciated the magnitude of work that must have been done in the past few days. All-in-all, it was a nice moment to end the day with

DAY 3

Today, we started out the morning with a special speech by TYA 14's president, Emilie O'Herne addressing how the rest of the conference was structured and what is entailed by the projects that participants are supposed to do. Additionally, she gave a short speech on the subject of project management and risk analysis of projects - basically a checklist of common problems to look out for. Basically, the point of her speech was to give the participants all the tools that they needed to be thinking about in order to have a successful project and because they all understood this it was very well received. The only complaint that I heard about the speech is that people had really wished it had come earlier in the week (at least the points about what the project was) because they had been slightly confused for the first two days.

Irregardless, armed with a wide array of new knowledge all my participants really dove straight into their projects as soon as the speech was over – most choosing to remain working as individuals, while a few who happened to be at the same school decided to combine their smaller projects into a big campaign.

For the most part, this is what the participants worked on for the rest of the day, only stopping for a short speech by one of the deputy presidents Akua Nyame-Mensah about sponsorship and TYN and the quais-requisite mid-afternoon photo shoot*. Nyame-Mesah's speech was focused on how to ask organisations for money and what to do for in order to get funding; like O'Herne's speech in the morning, its intention to supply the participants with yet more tools to help them create and implement their projects. Additionally, Nyame-Mesah also talked about the TYN (THIMUN Youth Network) and what you could do after this conference, and outside of it; the potential to join international delegations to proper United Nations conferences such as the UNCSD in New York, or the World Water Forum, which was last held in Istanbul. Both of things really grabbed the attention of the participants and even though their attention span was beginning to waver, I think they found both parts of the speech really useful.
*On the note of the photos, it was actually really amusing to watch — one person who basically start staring off into space and within minutes another person would join them, then another, then another, until the entire committee was completely distracted and out would come the cameras. This would then go on for a few minutes but the participants would always go back to work immediately as soon as their 'break' was done.

About an hour before the end of the day, when it seemed that most of the participants had self-proclaimed themselves 'finished' with their projects, we came back together for a peer review session. Very similar to the presentation/discussion we had the day before about people's research, the basic structure was one individual would give a short description of their project and maybe some background and then everyone was invited to give comments or questions on what they thought it, specifically focused on the feasibility of the project and its potential risks. Once we had then gone around the entire committee and discussed all the projects, the participants then split back up and continued working on their projects using the new ideas that they had gotten from the review.

Finally, today ended a bit early because we it was the middle of the week, the 'slump' so to speak and the school that was housing our conference DiSDH (Deutsche Internationale Schule Den Haag) wanted a picture of all of us so we all had to file out onto the stairs and pose for the cameras.

I have always that Wednesdays are always the hardest days during conferences like these. Often times people have lost their initial excitement but have yet to gain the "it's-almost-over-must-savour-it" kick and so they tend to be particularly low energy. Also, it is usually at this point that the stress, wear, and tear begins to appear in the participants which can be equally hard to deal with. All that being said, I think all of my participants performed admirably; it was long, tedious, and some parts downright boring, but they humoured me and stuck with it 'till the end. In short, they are the best committee I have ever had.

DAY 2

Like the previous day, today started out with lectures by guests, but this time, not one but two speakers address the assembled conference.

The first speaker was a rather eloquent Australian by the name of Thom Woodroofe. He is a political writer for numerous prestigious publications and an adviser to all manner of political mucky-mucks as well as the founder of the first non-partisan, youth think tank, Left-Right, in Australia. Last year, he was voted one of the 100 most important people in Australia and this year he turns 21.

Though his ego seemed more than a bit inflated (his presentation was very me, me, me oriented), he also really seemed to be deserving of it. Living in a house with no power, gas, or running water until he was 17, Woodroofe attacked the world of politics with a brash vigour altogether uncommon in today’s society, simply pushing and pushing and refusing to give in to defeat, even though it apparently did rear its ugly head from time and time again.

Based on his experiences, Woodroofe spent a good deal of his time talking about what he had learned and his ‘ten step plan’ for project implementation, which I personally found fascinating and while fairly intuitive, a really useful list of talking points.

The second speaker was a recent Boston University graduate and TYA alum named Sid Efromovich who spoke about the one successfully implemented TYA group project Hug Don’t Hate, which he started during his time year at BU. Over his student career, Hug Don't Hate grew from simply one guy with an idea to a huge organisation with many branches that sponsors hundreds of events every year.

While Efromovich and Woodroofe were both successful in similar ways (if not scales) there presentations couldn't have been more different. Efromovich or Sid as he liked to be called spent most of his hour and a half pressing into us the importance of being happy and how people truly happy seldom to bad. He also was extremely high energy and just bounced around the entire time, seemingly barely restrained by his clothes.

After both of the speakers, the participants could barely wait to start on the projects and so we delved right in. We immediately returned to the list of projects that we had come up with the day before and continued adding to it from the new ideas that the participants had garnered from the speakers in the morning.

Once the metaphorical well of ideas had run dry, my participants headed to the computer lab to do some research. Their task was, based on all the brainstorming that we had done thus far, to look up some aspect of gender issues in their country that could be wanted to do their project about.

After about an hour the participants came back and each did a short presentation about what they had wanted to research, what they had found, and what ideas that they had for their project. After everyone had a chance to speak, we then a short discussion about the project ideas that people had and then set them to work, which they did dilligently until it was time to leave.

What I really like about my committee is that they are always positive and upbeat, something I really appreciate. When we were listening to some of the speakers, there were a few participants from other committees who were being a bit obnoxious and trying to steal the 'spotlight' for themselves, but my participants were always receptive, respectiful, and representative of what real togetherness and cooperation is like

Day 1.5

This evening, as a bonding activity, my committee organised to go, en masse to a restaurant located in the sleepy beach town of Scheveningen (only sleepy due to Winter's inclement weather). Due to various curfews and tight train schedules, we ended up scheduling at early dinner starting at 6:30 but inevitably, when it came time to arrive, we were all late.

The restaurant that we had chosen was Het kleine Pannenkoekenhuis: a restaurant which specialised in pannenkoeken or dutch pancakes. For those of you that do not know, pannekoeken are not like traditional pancakes at all, but instead more like non-sweet crêpes. Additionally, while you can get them served with sweet toppings ranging from the traditional butter and powdered sugar to the more exotic: Grand Marnier, apple, and ice cream, most people prefer to eat them savory (my personal favourite: Spek en Kaas, or Bacon and Cheese). Irregardless of which you opt for, pannenkoeken are delicious and definitely a full meal as they are normally more that 30cm in diameter.

Though some of my participants could not make it, most everyone did come (including some extras from one of the American delegations who were required to travel in packs). Also, though many participants were wary about the concept of 1) pancakes for dinner and 2) savory pancakes, they all were raving about the food by the end of the meal and having a blast.

I always really enjoy the committee dinners that we have in TYA because it really gives people an opportunity to relax and enjoy each others company without having to stress about their projects or the fact that they are spending 8.5 hours a day discussing politics. So much about this conference is about being excited and passionate about the issue that the participants are discussing and working on and that is really helped by promoting and ensuring a positive space. To me that is what these committee dinners are really about, connecting people and making sure they feel comfortble and at ease with everyone else in the committee so they don't go into the conference trying to compete, but instead trying to cooperate.

And on that note, the dinner was a success.

DAY 1

Even though Monday technically falls on the second day of the conference, in all actuality Today marks the first day of the conference.

The morning started with a guest speaker, Elsa Van De Loo, the recently elected Dutch youth delegate to the United Nations who spoke about her position as a the voice of the Dutch youth and the overall point of youth actors in the oft patronising world of international politics. Though some of the more spirited participants often lead her off track, on the whole she was a very interesting speaker with a lot of good things to say.

After this we split into our committees and for the first time were able to see the people who we would be spending the rest of the week with. My committee started out with a few ice breakers — a name memorisation game where everyone tried to remember everyone else's name as they tossed around a ball, the game two truths and a lie where everyone trys to guess which is which, and new anti-stereotype game that was all about debunking cultural stereotypes since all the participants were from all around the world. After all this, we then joined up with another committee or yet a fourth ice-breaker so that the participants would just know people in their specific committees, but the conference as a whole. Once we all had had our fun though, myself and my fellow coordinator, an Italian graduate student named Mattia then got down to business.

For most of the morning, we had the participants discuss their motivations for being in the committee on Gender Issues and what their personal stance on the matter was. Some ranged from living in a repressive society that they felt was archaic and in need of changing while others lived in liberal 'equal opportunity' societies, yet they still felt the same need to try to improve the lot of people in life.

After lunch, our discussion continued, turning more towards the specific. We talked about what Gender Issues really meant and came up with a series of buzzwords that we felt effectively encapsulated the subject.

• The glass ceiling/pay gap between women and men
• The illegal trafficking of women
• Domestic Equality
• Same-sex marriage
• Women's image/self confidence
• Men's image/self confidence
• Transgender rights

The participants were extremely receptive and while they seemed to be divided almost perfectly in half on the issue of women being legally equal versus inferior and tipped slightly in favor of same-sex marriage and the transgendered being a stone's through from daemonic spawn in terms of their country of origin, all-in-all none of them seemed to share any negative beliefs/predjudices.

Finally, at the end of the day, the committee started brainstorming different ideas for things that could be done as projects on the topic of Gender Issues. Immediately there was a cry that we should all take initiative and try to start and finish a project that we could implement by the end of the week; people were shouting about possible T-shirts we could design or bracelets that we could and it almost dissolved into an enthusiatic awesome puddle of excited, empowered individual. When calmed down though, the participants were very positive and really thought outside of the box to com up with difference things that they could due about the ranging rom the ubequitious poster campaign to peer counselling groups and radio spots.

Probably the best part of the day was when, right we were leaving I looked out over my committee and asked them what they thought of the day and I was greeted by one unanimous response. It was awesome :)

The Beginning of TYA

As many of you know, my winter term project this year is coordinating a committee on Gender Issues at an international youth political conference in the Netherlands. During last January, I was the deputy president for the previous conference (which meets anualy) and this conference intself will mark my fourth THIMUN Youth Assembly experience.

For those of you who don't know, the conference (which is different than it years past) is basically focused around the idea of equipping [future] youth actors with the skills and knowledge to create and implement, from scatch, a political project (such as an awareness campaign). The participants are given advice on how to craft a project in a specific topic (ergo the different committees) but the end-all-be-all aim is that they will technically be able to transfer the skills to any sort of thing they are interested in doing.

Anyways, the conference started earlier today (actually yesterday, I just forgot to post this) with a very nice opening ceremony followed by a conference wide 3 course meal at a local Dutch restaurant. Due to some transportation issues I unfortunately missed the opening ceremonies but I did make it for the dinner which was very nice and by the end of it I was already befriending some of my participants.

After the dinner, many participants were eager to hit the bars (those not from Europe edging to get the full European experience and those from eager to get some non-european experience ;p) but as I was rather overzealous with my bar hopping the night before I opted to return to the apartment I am renting with a few friends for an early night.

Over the next week or so, I will be spending approximately 9 hrs a day with my participants and fellow coordinators and in honour of this I have decided to maintain a daily blog of my exploits of the conference both in and out of the committee itself. This will not only serve as a nice little update from me to you about the fun that is my old home but will also probably form the basis for my WT report.

enjoy.

p.s. sorry about the rambling nature, it was very late and lets just say I have not been getting the requisite amout of sleep.