With their priviledged status, UN staff sometimes suffer from the stereotyped image of well-dressed penguins hanging around with a concerned face and doing nothing all day long like in Albert Cohen's novels. But sometimes, things are happening. This week-end, the Youth Perspectives pole of the GIMUN (Geneva International Model United Nations, kind of a UN "simulation") will hold a conference entitled Environmental issues in contemporary societies, composed of the following committees:

  1. Modern societies' weaknesses facing environmental catastrophes
  2. Degrowth: a solution to protect the environment?
  3. Protecting biodiversity: issues of urbanism
  4. Future of traditional knowledge: threats and solutions?

It's probably too late to apply, but don't hesitate to give a try if you're interested. It is the second edition of a Youth Perspectives conference; last year for the International Year of Youth the topic was Education in the 21st Century. The committees were at the time:

  1. Education - The Path to Citizenship
  2. Integration through Education
  3. Teachers and the Promotion of Gender Equality
  4. Universal Access to Higher Education

As one easily guesses from the blog, education is a stimulating topic, hence this brief essay and this laconic position paper were written to attend the conference in the first committee. As complements, a talk of Ken Robinson entitled Schools kill creativity, and a link to the Khan Academy.

The results? After some long exchanges on definitions and proposals, some insightful debates on the arcane differences between "informal" and "non-formal", and some subtle considerations regarding where to put commas, the "Education: a path to citizenship" committee produced the following document. Nevertheless it was an inspiring experience, an opportunity to play the devil's advocate and to observe that people who state that the next generation is moronic are just plain wrong.

In the end, after approval by vote (was harder for committee #4), all contributions from different committees were merged and synthesized, and a final statement was addressed to the Economic and Social Council (EcoSoc). Still wondering if the purpose of such meetings is to have real-life consequences or to share a UN-like moment. Probably the latter: it was a first-time experiment, and it worked, what's better than such human adventures?