Life itself has been both hectic and chaotic. There are so many political, economical and social issues happening around the world that it really does make one’s head spin to truly know them in and out. So rather than talk about a current global issue that I am most probably not very familiar with, why not talk about the events in Taylors itself?
I’ll be focusing on one event, mainly the Taymun Conference 2009, as I was present then and can relate to it better.
In Taymun, students from different schools and colleges can sign up and act as delegates discussing different issues of concern around the world. We had candidates from Help, Sri Garden, Inti Nilai, SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 4, Sunway and of course, Taylors itself. The participants were assigned different teams and countries.
Yours truly was the delegate of Argentina who represented the Social, Culture and Humanitarian (SOCHUM) group. Her other fellow Argentina delegate who was in the Disarmament and International Security (DISEC) team is the always-ready-to-pose-for-cool-pictures, Lim Chuan Yang (Class of July 2010) whom I have had the pleasure of knowing beforehand as he was in the same class as me before this.
As I was in the SOCHUM team and spent most of the 3 days of my conference there, I will hence mainly be talking about SOCHUM itself.
The participants of SOCHUM were given two topics which are:
1. Welcoming a global trend towards the abolishment of the death penalty.2. The incorporation of social mobilization in acknowledging gender inequalities in national responses toward HIV/AIDS.
I was particularly interested in the former topic, hence me preparing a proposal with other the other delegates (participants who were acting as representatives of other countries) from India, Australia, Denmark, Brazil and other countries as well.
Most of us were really inexperience, including me, since this conference was our first. Although we were not able to come up with a very solid resolution, we had our fun trying to prepare them. I also made tons of new friends whose ideas were really eye openers for me.
Quotes I particularly remember from the conference were:
“This delegate assumes that all jails have spotlights, wires and CCTVs. A jail without one is called a 5 star hotel!” – The delegate of Australia when asked about the addition of flowers in jails to make it a happier place.
“This delegate agrees to go back to the ice age as long as he gets to keep his suit, house and air conditioner.” – The delegate of Russia when defending his stand upon the abolishment of nuclear power.
“Can the delegate of Canada explain what French fries are? The delegate of India has no idea what French fries are as there are none in India.” – The delegate of India when asking a question regarding an issue that was compared to fries.
All in all, this conference was truly an enlightening one and I had no regrets sacrificing my weekend to attend it. I congratulate the organizers for their hard work and dedication in making all this happen. If there was a Taymun Conference 2010, I would most definitely attend it. :D
By Audrey Tan
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