This summer I had the opportunity to attend two conferences in Europe where the issue of landmines was thoroughly discussed.
One of these conferences was the European International Model United Nations conference in The Hague, The Netherlands. The general assembly, of which I was part of, had to deal with two key issues; landmines and terrorism. Our speaker for the preparation talks of the general assembly was Mr M. Dubois from “Medicins sans frontiers.” He gave a very informative presentation on landmines through which we all learnt a great deal. I spoke a few words about the Youth Against War Treaty and on youth advocacy. People were very interested in getting involved in campaigning and I gave them appropriate contacts to get in touch with. A large number of people also signed the treaty, so its nice to see that there are so many people supporting our campaign. An interesting part of this conference for me was that I was representing Canada and as such I had to keep Canadian foreign policy in mind when voting for resolutions. Like me, everyone had to represent countries other than where they were from. There was someone from India representing Pakistan and there was someone else from Russia representing China. This proves that all people around the world are fully capable of working together as long as they can learn to listen to each other.
The second conference I attended was the world civil society conference in Geneva. I was only able to attend the youth forum which lasted three days but it was time well spent. I learned a great deal through incredible speakers and through group discussions on a vast range of topics. I along with one of my co- workers held a panel on landmines. Here too, people were very interested in learning more and getting involved in campaigning. I shared the information I had and spoke about the campaign in Pakistan, concentrating on this year being the target year for Pakistan and India. I spoke about the youths’ role in campaigning and I feel that through this sharing of information, ICBL gained more volunteers and supporters.
I am grateful that I had this amazing opportunity and I hope and I feel that this sharing of knowledge is certain to assist our campaign as well as other efforts for civil society.
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