Opening Ceremony FerMUN 2022
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On the afternoon of the 7th of January 2022, the 12th FerMUN conference began with a wonderful opening ceremony hosted by Galileo Grey, DSG for chairs. This year, we are honoured to welcome more than 600 students from 16 different countries, defined into 13 committees.
The ceremony started with a speech from Maureen BARTSCH, FerMUN SG, where she thanked all the students for their commitment to the conference. She pointed out that for years, young people were not taken seriously in politics but now, thanks to MUN, they can expose and discuss their ideas with people from all over the world.
This was followed by a speech by Tatiana VALOVAYA, Director General of the Office. She spoke about the global pandemic, its effects, the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and the role of the UN in conflict resolution. She then spoke about the importance of young people in the political field as they are the actors of tomorrow. Finally, she wished everyone a good conference.
After this beautiful speech, Mr Tedros Adhanom GHEBREYESUS, Director of the WHO, gave his own speech. Even though he could not speak live, we were lucky enough to listen to him through a pre-recorded video. He explained that showing interest in others is a way to learn more about the world around us, to make it a better place. For him, mobilising young people is important in order to bring in new perspectives and ideas.
Following this, Galileo broadcasted the video prepared by the communication team. In this video, Maureen reminds us that FerMUN is a place of exchange. Then, with the help of the board members, she presents the different issues through humoristic capsules. After this, Ms BAUDRY and Mr ACKROYD take part in an interview. We learned that Ms BAUDRY buys socks at every MUN conference and that, if he had been a delegate, Mr ACKROYD would represent North Korea. The video ended with a speech by Jordan MBOCK, DSG delegate.
Then, we had the chance to receive Kylian BARTSCH who spoke to us about CO2 emissions and the importance of aviation in them. He presented hydrogen as one of the solutions to this problem.
After this presentation, Galileo gave the floor to Ciara CAZUC, project manager at the IOM (International Organisation for Migrants), who spoke about migrants in the world and the effects of the climate crisis and the health crisis on migration tendencies.
Then students from different high schools gave speeches on different topics, such as their views on the UN, their issues, their views on engagement and their actions.
Afterwards, Timothée BALLENEGGER, head of the Interpretation team, spoke to us about translation and interpretation, two essential parts of the conference. Thus, the bilingualism team will work in the French-English bilingual committees (SC, HRC, WIPO).
Finally, the chairs presented their issues and explained their challenges on a global level.
To conclude, it was noted that all the members of the conference had to adapt in a short period of time to the last-minute change from a face-to-face conference to a conference on the MUN World platform with the help of Zoom.
We would like to thank all of you for coming, for adapting so quickly to participate in these exchanges and for animating the debates! The whole press and communication team hopes that you will have a pleasant conference!