Having won through the Regional Finals, our European Youth Parliament team went on to represent South Wales at a four day summer national session at Liverpool Hope University. In preparation for the event, the girls undertook extensive research in a wide range of areas including fracking, human trafficking and Turkey’s accession negotiations.
The four day session began with team-building exercises. For the first time this year the event was modelled on similar European events with school teams being split up over the nine committees. Team building, therefore, became very important as developing a cohesive team could be the key to performing well.
Following this, it was straight into committee work with the opportunity to thrash out policies and draw up resolutions. The resolutions not only require a wide understanding of the issues but also lateral thinking as policies need to be drawn up that the committee wishes to see come into operation.
Once completed, it was on to the General Assembly where each committee had the opportunity to propose and try to carry its resolution. Other committees, of course, were on hand to attack the policies; the debates were determined and of an excellent standard revealing the level of preparation that had been put in by all the participants.
The session was not without social events. A particular highlight was the Euro Concert, in which Rhiannon Symonds represented us with a vocal piece accompanied by a fellow participant from another school.
Over the course of the event our team certainly learnt much about how the European Parliament works. The girls were articulate and passionate about the resolutions they were involved in and also were prepared to question and probe.
Whilst the team weren’t chosen to go further this year, all the girls benefitted from the experience and are looking forward to helping next year’s team to prepare.
Special mention must go to Lizzie for stepping in at the last minute to represent us on the committee for security and defense.
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