Washington / New York
Global Youth Leader
Conference
I am a student at The City of
Leicester College and I was
nominated to represent my school
and community as a member of the
Global Young Leaders Conference in
Washington D.C and New York.
In summer 2013 I attended the
Global Young Leaders Conference
(GYLC) in Washington and New
York, with the help of SPA (UK).
SPA (UK) aided me by contributing
funds to cover part of the trip and
by doing so enabled me to embark
on an incredible experience. I was
able to meet hundreds of young
people from across the world, as
well as many inspirational men and
women. This conference helped me
to develop leadership skills as well
as teamwork and social skills. It
was a tremendous experience and
one that I will never forget.
The main part of the conference
involved participating in two
events; “Maintaining World Order”
(MWO) and a Global summit. On
arrival I was assigned a country
group and this formed the basis
of my time at GYLC. I was part of
the South Africa group and I had
to work as part of this team for the
duration of the conference.
The MWO Simulation was held
in Washington. At this meeting
all the countries had to put
forward their proposals on how
to deal with the issue of Cyprus
having Turkish troops at their
borders. I was nominated as the
ambassador of South Africa and I
performed a speech, highlighting
my country’s position on the
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matter. This experience was one
of the highlights of the whole trip.
It allowed me to further develop
my public speaking skills and it
gave me the confidence to take on
leading roles in other activities.
In the simulation, each country
group had the opportunity to
discuss with one another to try
and persuade each other to agree
with their proposals. After the
discussions each country had to
agree on an end proposal and then
vote on whether they were going
to support this proposal or veto it.
This simulation gave me a better
insight of politics and how hard it
is to agree on a particular course
of action that is beneficial to all
parties involved.
The Global Summit Simulation
was held in New York. Here my
group had to vote on whether a
specific set of ten proposals would
benefit our country of South Africa.
The group also voted on who was
going to represent South Africa
in different commissions. I was
nominated on the Environment
Commission to look at ways of
maintaining the environment and
sustaining natural resources,
which is a very important issue in
politics today. In these commission
meetings I had to put forward
proposals that would benefit South
Africa’s interests. This involved a lot
of negotiation and pe