Creative - EAMUN 30TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE (3)

30^TH ANNUAL EAMUN AT THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE HERE IN NAIROBI, KENYA

I had the opportunity to participate and be part of the 30^th annual EAMUN Conference at the United Nations Office here in Nairobi Kenya, from the 13^th to the 17^th February 2012.

EAMUN is a once in a lifetime opportunity; I say this because you get to meet about 950 high school students from 61 schools [from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Sweden, Tanzania, and Uganda. Students from the DRC, Malawi and Sweden were participating in the conference for the first time]. Surprisingly, we all were involved in the same projects at school!

During this conference we were challenged to adopt views and attitudes other than our own; breaking away from narrow self-interest and developing international cooperation, which is one of the core values of the United Nations.

We also met Ambassador Solomon Maina, the Director of the International Organization and Conferences Directorate in the Kenya Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he urged us to engage our energies in "activities that would help make a difference in the environment, culture and enhance diversity in the world.”  He underlined how the Government had pursued the youth agenda through the Ministry of Youth and Sports by establishing the Youth Enterprise Fund. The Fund has been instrumental in the creation of over 300,000 job opportunities and disbursement of KShs 5.9 billion to over 157, 000 youth enterprises across the country. The EAMUN conference is one of three such conferences hosted by the UN in Nairobi.

Thanks to the EAMUN Conference I was exposed for the first time to authentic simulations of the UN General Assembly, Security Council and other multilateral bodies, which introduced me into the world of diplomacy and negotiations.  EAMUN provided a forum for discussions on different topics of international concern, and since I was in the Human Rights committee, we addressed issues such as; Women’s rights, Child labor in Africa, Human Trafficking, Modern day slavery, Education in south Sudan, and Malnutrition in central America.