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 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 :)
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 :)
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