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Hello there!

 

 

 The weekend is soon here and we are happy to inform you that another great week has past. We are slowly getting closer to our longed for Kenya trip and of course also a week closer to Christmas. We have only two classes left before the project (L), but that doesn’t mean less work. Sometime before the school project start on Wednesday we have to hand in our bibliography for our final paper. This means that right now everybody is working very hard to find only the best sources for their final paper.  For our final paper we need not only 10 sources, five of them has to be books! This can be really hard for some of us, however Richard was willing to compromise and we now can use some types of journals as well. At least we all have chosen an interesting topic to write about.  As you will see we have 12 interesting essays to look forward and a lot of work ahead of us. Here is the list of our groups different topics:

Jonathan –  Why does the conflict (the conflicts) in Congo keep continuing?

Charlie –  What is the effect of corruption on the distribution of oil revenue in Nigeria?

Niclas – Why has there been such a tremendous difference between the development rates in Kenya and Vietnam respectively?

Danielle –  Why was the genocide in Rwanda largely ignored by the world’s media?

Michaela –  How is China’s investment in Africa affecting development?

Adam – Why does Ghana have the same GDP as it did 50 years ago?  What factors have contributed to this lack of development?  Which factors have been most influential?

Arad – How can African countries motivate foreign cooperation, in particular foreign companies, but at the same time learn how to invest their money and improve their economy?

Emily – How to reduce corruption so as to help development?  Need to narrow focus.

Alex – How to facilitate and foster entrepeneurship in Africa?  (too broad)  Kenya or Tanzania

Pauline – How can the education of women help reduce poverty in Africa?

Sara – Democracy in Botswana and Kenya: why working in Botswana and not in Kenya?  Both have background as British Colony.

Hanna – How to improve Nigeria’s economy?

 

This week has been special not only because it is our last week in EAMUN before Christmas, but also because we had a special guest this Tuesday. Her name was Matilda and she works for MCM – Making Commitments Matter. MCM is an organization working across 19 countries developing an internet database with easy access to UN agreements. They are focused on researching on ways to improve the implementing of UN resolutions and conventions. For more information about MCM visit: http://makingcommitmentsmatter.org/

 

Well, since I am the last person obligated to write something on our wonderful blog this year I just want to summer it up by saying how much fun we have had together. Yet we have the best parts left!

Have a great Weekend and I know it’s early but… Merry Christmas!

/ Pauline

 

The group – thoughts and decriptions.

Honoured readers and visitors,

These last weeks we have been working a lot on the resolutions. As it is documented in our blog all groups have been focusing on their own topic and resolution, trying to make their as good as possible. Some students, who are doing this course, have even been fighting about which commiteé that has the longest resolution. Then some smart students have replied; quality before quantity! We are now in our final week to complete the resolutions and it is all working out pretty well.

Enough with the resolutions, I think it is time for a little presentation of our group because no one seems to think the group is important. The group is pretty small, it only consists of 12 students + our teacher Richard. We have a lot of fun at our lessions where we discuss global problems, search in groups or listen to Richard. the atmosphere in the classroom is usually at top, I assume it is because everyone in the course is interested in the same things.

When we were informed that we had been given the opportunity to learn about Africa and its culture in a deep and big perspective, Everyone was happy. However, the EAMUN-trip to Nairobi in February were probably the most tempting part of the course.

We were told that we were chosen by our results and achievements in English- and Social Science A. I Believe they were only telling us this because no one else wanted to do this course. Nevertheless, it is soon project-time in the school. This means no more lessions but however it indicates to a lot of work at home. this project ends with a presentation and then it is vacation and x-mas! After the break it is roughly about a month before we go to Kenya, Nairobi, it is really exciting to think about what is ahead of us! I think everyone, including Richard the teacher, are already dreaming about what we are going to experience in Kenya.  

Yours sincerly,
Adam Sandström

Resolution-writing and thoughts about Nairobi

Hi everyone!

Another week has passed just as rapidly as always! Due to this week the resolution draft was supposed to be done. We all worked hard and I think all the thoughts are slowly forming something great! We are divided into groups writing different resolutions. Our group had some problems agreeing on the resolution topic. Inspired by the wonderful film Sharkwater I suggested illegal shark-fishing, a huge problem around the world, creating corruption a threatening to extint many species. After intense discussions the group considered it a little bit of topic and we went with piracy instead: Another huge problem costing the world millions of dollars every year.

For ten days around the fall break me, Arad and Richard attended, with four other VRG students, the 59th International session of the European Youth Parliament. It is basically about the same thing as EAMUN: Writing resolutions and debating them. The fruitful experience of meeting youths from over 30 European countries made me think about how fruitful the experience of meeting youths from all around the world would be! I strongly believe that the amazing experience we had i Rennes will be vastly exceeded by Nairobi! I was already longing for the Nairobi trip but Rennes made me long even more!

Well well, back to the serious parts: This week the final version of the resolution is about to be handed in. Although we have a good ground to stand on the resolution still needs to be improved, developed and structurized. We have some hard work in front of us, but I have faith in Niclas, Danielle and me! I will publish the resolution here when ready so you all can take a look at it and comment.

That’s it for me, have a great Sunday/ Alex

Resolutions

The resolutions take some time and effort for making them good. There is a lot of work to be done in a fairly short time. Everyone is aiming for their resolution to be brought up in the EAMUN conference in Kenya. Therefore the Social Studies C lessons are becoming more and more stressful. A rough draft of the resolution should be handled in the our teacher this week.

In my group we are writing about how we should reverse brain drain in the African countries starting with Nigeria. Brain drain is the issue of highly educated people moving from their original developing country to for instance an European or a American industrial country where there are better job opportunities. What makes this such a big problem is that the highly educated people are the ones most needed to build up for example the economy and the infrastructure of the developing country. We have chosen to focus on the brain drain of doctors since that seems to be the largest problem area of the issue.

To come up with a solution to a problem like this the first thing that needs to be done is to define the problem. You need to know why the doctors are leaving. For instance if the doctors are leaving because of the bad salaries or bad working conditions. In this case nobody can know for sure.

An other thing that needs to be looked at is what already has been done to solve the problem. You can use them as solutions in the resolution and get inspiration to come up with own suggestions for solutions.

Some measures that have been suggested might be very helpful while others you might disagree with. To reverse brain drain some people seem to think that a good way is to introduce rules which make it more difficult for the Africans to move abroad to some countries. In a way that is to force someone to stay in their home country. In our group we rather want to focus on measures with the intensions of making the skilled workers want to stay. You decide in the group which measures that you think is likely to work.

 

At last you write down your resolution. It must follow a very strict structure. There are introductory clauses and operative clauses. In the introductory clauses you write what the different problems are and in the operative clauses you write the solutions.  Each clause should be one sentence long and have very formal language. If just a punctuation is wrong the resolution will immediately  be excluded.

 

When you are done you hand it in and hope it will be chosen for discussion in the EAMUN session!

 

/Emily Thorselius