De laatste foto's zijn (na erg lang graven door alle sd-kaartjes) naar boven gekomen en op de smugmug gezet. Dus vooral nog keertje kijken! Ook belangrijk: het nieuwe team dat volgend jaar het Barlaeus zal vertegenwoordigen bij EYP. Eerst op de regionals, dan hopelijk op de nationals en internationals.
Debate 7 was about queer rights in schools. How should discrimination be dealt with? CULT I chose for radical change, including an encouragement for school to let go of the gender binary, by for example, including gender neutral bathrooms.
The debate was quite fierce, with comments flying across the room. A lot of direct responses were made about the gender neutral bathrooms, including some complaining about how Barlaeus-boys treat their bathrooms...
A very strong, emotional, summation closed off the debate and with that the session has closed, with another resounding 38 votes in favor!!!
Stay tuned for the last post
The next debate is on LIBE I: fake news, what to do with it? The delegates from this committee spend yesterday trying to figure this out. The result? The committee proposes AI technology to protect citizens from fake news, an EU-standard for fact checking, and harsher regulation on social media companies.
After a powerful opening speech from the proposing committee and two insightful position speeches from their peers, the debate broke loose. Naturally in these days, AI was a controversial solution. Multiple points were made about the environmental consequences of the new technology. A few delegates even went so far as to propose a new solution, in which human specialists take over the AI's job. The proposing committee responded with a realistic answer: only an AI can do so much work in so little
Regulating social media companies also proved to be quite a difficult topic for the delegates to agree on. Questions arose about the focus on social media as well. Is fake news limited to social media, after all? While the delegates could probably continue discussing this topic forever, but eventually, it was time.
Two wonderful summation speeches closed the debate off, leaving only voting to be done. And even though this topic led to fierce debate, a resounding 38 votes in favor decided the debate.
With an invigorating lunch in their bellies, the delegates begin their fifth round of debate! JURI presents their resolution on how to ensure the rights of LGBTQIA+ families and urges to create a harmonious legislation across all EU Member States, spread awareness throughput a younger audience and put funds aside for platforms that support LGBTQIA+.
Immediately after an insightful opening speech about these pressing matters, the floor is open for debate and the delegates do not hesitate to question the resolution’s effectiveness. Koen doubts the coordination of certification for LGBTQIA+ families across Member States as stated in operative clause one. Moreover, other delegates, such as Sophia, worry about JURI’s proposal to process cases within a limited time frame, as some precarious situations require more time. Multiple delegates also find the idea to create a new social media platform will not change anything.
JURI immediately clears up that they are striving for a sound foundation of LGBTQIA+ support, so that it will be easier in the long term to help rainbow families. Also, to clarify the platform debate, JURI says that a platform is not strictly synonymous with social media.
After a few rounds of debate and explanatory responses from the proposing committee, Charlotte and Bink close this debate with a spectacular summation speech. And with that, they manage to convince the delegates to vote in favour.
Let’s see how LIBE I will follow this tough act!
Next up is DROI. This committee is on the increasingly violent human smuggling happening in and around the EU. At the same time, anti-smuggling legislation often harms refugees. DROI worked to find the following solutions to this difficult challenge. Firstly, it wants to have a strict legal definition of smuggling and refugees, then it proposes investing in local NGO's to reduce the stigma around refugees, and lastly it urges wants to heavily increase funding to human rights control.
The debate started off with a fiery opening speech that had everyone hooked. During the rounds of open debate, the most challenging part of this debate proved to be pronouncing DROI correctly... Commonly made points were concerned with the long bureaucratic processes that these plans would result in. Additionally, Abel made a point about the importance of dividing the potential burden from taking in refugees across Member States. Thalia critiqued the resolution for being too light on human smugglers, but the defending committee defended itself by claiming the opposite.
A motived summation speech by Kick, highlighting the relevance of the topic with passion managed to convince enough delegates to vote in favor!
Time for debate number 4
Our very first debate of the day was on a resolution by the CULT II committee, concerning artistic freedom in light of governmental subsidies of the arts. Briefly, the committee called for neutral actors to be involved in the process, regulation regarding funding, protection of freedom of speech, while limiting extremism in artistic expression.
The debate started off strong with a clear and passionate defense speech by Sophia, explaining her committee's plans in detail, through the example of Henk, an underpaid artist. LIBE I and DROI delivered challenging position speeches, but these were defended effectively.
During the rounds of open debate, it got fiery very quickly. Points were raised on the importance of freedom of speech, efficiency and transparency. Hugo raised an interesting point on reliability of trusting Member States to be the main actor solving these problems, while Kerem raised a point on the reliabillity of "neutral" actors.
Despite emotional summation speech calling on us to remember Henk from the opening speech, the resolution did not convince enough delegates to pass, with votes being 20-27. However, it is clear that the resolution was made with a lot of effort and commitment!
On to the next one!
Everyone is ready to go: delegates are sitting down, the jury are preparing their sheets, the journos are ready to make photos: the session is opened!
Fastest group of delegates ever! By 8:30, all committee rooms looked like normal classrooms again, the luggage was downstairs, yoghurt with red fruit and cruesli went down a treat, and we still have half an hour before the General Assembly. Lots of last minute fine tuning of speeches going on right now and then it is time for the moment we have all been waiting for: GA2026!
See you in a bit! Margriet
Goodmorning everyone!
We hope you had a wonderful night's sleep, because we struggled. With a full-on dance battle going on yesterday night and all the stress for the General Assembly today, sleep probably was not the delegates biggest priority...
Now, as the first delegates are slowly coming down for breakfast, they are nervous, finalizing their speeches, and excited for what's to come.
Now that the everyone's work is public, it is time to write some speeches. The delegates need to be well prepared for the big debate tomorrow. They're reading the work of their peers, researching other topics, trying to find the most affective phrases, and listening to great music.
To see what they come up with, visit the big debate tomorrow!
Hi everyone, I hope you didn't miss us too much!
Now it's for teambuilding! To get comfortable with each other, the delegates played games and had to solve some difficult problems. Sometimes they had to solve Ischa's murder mystery, while others had to find a way to untangle themselves. From animal sounds to chasing each other, the delegates are quite busy.
Now its break time!
And we have started! All delegates have arrived and have just participated in General Teambuilding. To get rid of all the nerves, we started off by playing some lovely games in the gym hall.
Having played an exciting game of rock, paper, scissors with 80 people, the delegates split up in their committees and started teambuilding.
Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!
Good morning everyone! As the officials are waking up and the first delegates are arriving, it seems that the 15th installment of BYP is finally starting. Everyone is a bit tired but excited for a fun, and educational weekend. Throughout this weekend, you will be kept up to date by our very own journo team! So keep reading the blog...commenting and reacting is highly encouraged (in Dutch as well). See you on the next post
One day, two nights...food's been ordered,
placards have been made, rooms have been allocated, officials are packing their
bags to arrive at the Barlaeus at 20.00 tomorrow to prepare the building for
you...actually, all we're waiting for is delegates! Prepare like mad for one
more day and please remember to bring your deodorants, because it's going to be
sweaty...
Dear delegates,
Only five more days and BYP will be off and running...time to get your engines started, practise your English, research your own and other resolutions, find your suit, sharpen your pencils & your tongue and in general, prepare yourself for one of the most fatiguing, educating, stimulating, frustrating, communicating and exhilarating weekends of your life.
The officials’ team is looking forward to organizing, boarding, jurying, chairing and journoing for you: now it is up to you to make it worth our while!
Five days. Get ready.
Margriet & Rein
Beste leerlingen van klas 4 en ouders,
