Doyens of Diplomacy
Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have been hearing of the 12th edition of the Global Leaders’ Forum’s flagship event: the Young Leaders Global Conclave or YLGC, in college. At the beginning of the decade when people are feeling mundane and glum, PSG Tech witnessed a myriad of young delegates dressed impeccably in formal attire on 10 January to represent countries in UN-like committees. The latest edition of YLGC was the biggest yet, with participatory numbers rising from the usual of around a hundred to a whopping 400.
Here are five reasons we think that made YLGC XII a success:
1.The Executive Board
The Executive Board heads and conducts the proceeding of the conference while also judging the participants. YLGC XII arguably had the best EB in South India. It goes without saying that the EB that brings out the best out of the delegates and they surely did – from moderating intense discussions on taboo issues to going out of their way to recognise a first timer for her performance in the conference.
2. MUN for Schools
The MUN for Schools initiative was the show-stealer of the event. It was unanimously praised by the EB and the participants alike, for giving the kids an opportunity to attend a university-level conference without having to spend a fortune. It is worth mentioning that GLF is also training school-going students from Coimbatore and helping them organise delegation teams.
3. A thematic approach
For the first time in its history, YLGC became thematic this year. The theme was Latin America and all the conference proceedings were planned accordingly. Seven committees were simulated this time (two of them being under the MUNs for School exclusively) and all of their agendas were based on the prevalent issues like drug trafficking, human trafficking, environment degradation, migration crises and rumbling economy in the Latin American belt.
4. The Publicity
Spreading an event’s essence far and wide is essential for its success. Social media allows for such marketing and GLF’s dedicated publicity team worked extensively on restructuring their handles to publicize the unique selling points of the event. The team started their work as early as September of 2019, ensuring that the posts marked occasions that bore a relationship with some aspect of the event itself. One such instance was the release on the MUNs for schools initiative on Vijayadasami day. Further posts discussed the Latin American stories that were relevant to the agendas of discussion slated for various committees, giving the participants a feel of the greater picture that they were about to deliberate on at the conference. The designing team that created the sophisticated illustrations and posters alongside the posts deserve a special mention here. The logo of this edition was the Greek letter Delta, which means change – change towards better. This might have signalled a meta-change as well – one that indicates the coming of age of YLGC itself.
5. The Organising Committee
This is the reason there are even other reasons. Surprisingly enough, the OC was fairly new to this role and have never worked at this scale. “There was a time when there seemed to be no progress. The sponsorship was low and most of the people working were feeling demotivated. But one of the members rightly said “We haven’t lost until the day we have to call of the event. Until then, we’re only inching towards success”, shares Hari Gnana Viswath, the Director General. From personally picking up the EB members from the airport, to not eating until all guests had, the team never gave up on their commitment to make the event a smooth sail.
When it has become indispensable to understand the events around us, people have started to think of MUNs as an ultra-competitive platform where most desire to prove everyone else wrong and stand out in the committee. It is important to remind ourselves of the true objectives of a MUN: intelligent debate, camaraderie and working together to bring about a solution that is acceptable to everyone. Afterall, the United Nations itself runs on diplomacy.
YLGC has covered some extensive ground on the way to becoming one of the most sought after MUNs in Tamilnadu and potentially been the only conference to constantly increase the scale of the event with each passing year while the rest of circuit reels owing to the lack of what is necessary to keep going further, with some almost entirely vanishing from the conference map. There’s no looking back now, it gets only bigger and better. Until then Ad meliora!
Team bridge would like to thank Hari Gnana Viswath, Ananya, Reshma, Gautham, Ram, Udhaya Pooranam and Poojitha for their inputs.
Image credits: The YLGC Photography team
