Harvard Model Congress Europe

Hey NGO Delegates!

My name is Alison Schumer, and Brenda Maldonado and I will be your chairs at the HMCE Conference in Brussels in March.  I am a sophomore History concentrator at Harvard.  Besides HMC, I am involved with Harvard's newspaper, the Crimson.  I am also a member of a group called the Crimson Key Society, which gives tours on a daily basis.  Additionally, I am a Peer Advisor to the Freshman class. 

I just wanted to take this time to say how excited Brenda and I are to be chairing NGOs and to meet all of you!  The more prepared you are before the conference the more successful of an experience it will be.  The point of this message board is to faciliate just that.  If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask Brenda and me!

Hi Alison ,

just wanted to ask are we supose to prepare an opening speach ? and do we need to prepare a position paper ?


regards,

Roudha Al-shriem
albayan secondary

Thanks Alison for your greeting!
I think we NGOs are all excited to be attending this conference! This will be my second time at HMCE and if I recall, this is the first time that NGOs are being introduced as a committee, hence my excitement!!

Just to comment on Roudha's inquiry, don't NGOs have specific positions for every topic which demands their intervention or support? So that you need to know your organization's policies and procedures for each topic? I would say that an opening speech would have to be very general for NGO committee sessions, but very thorough and "to the point" for other committees that we NGOs are working with! Maybe the chairs could clarify this as I have never actually been an NGO before!


Staying green,
Jessica Newfield and Elena Bell ( GREENPEACE)

EABJM

Hey NGOs!
So to respond to Roudha's question, you do NOT have to write an opening or closing speech. Just have research on hand. Please don't hesitate with any other questions. - Alison

Just to echo Alison, since I know that NGOs is a new committee at HMCE and there is some confusion. You do not need to prepare a speech for your committee, nor do you need to prepare speeches to give in other committees, but definitely have the research and knowledge to be able to speak on the relevant topics in other committees. Typically, when NGOs go to give testimony in another committee, the brunt of that will be in the form of questions and answers. Occasionally delegates may give a brief speech, but it is more important to understand the topics than to have speeches prepared.

Hopefully this helps clarify! You will likely give a speech or two, but they will be very short, so be ready for questions!

John Wilson
Director of International Programs

thank you both, Alison and John for clearing all the miss understandments .

:)

Roudha Al-shriem ( Red cross )
albayan secondary

Hi

I just wanted to ask a couple of things about NGOs. How many NGO delegates will there be at the conference?
Also what methods are we expected to use to lobby delegates of other committees about policies and resolutions?

Thanks

There will we 12 NGO members in total. Three delegates each will be representing the four NGOs. Essentially, during the conference you guys will try to convince Congressmen and Senators to vote for legislation that your NGO is in favor of. You'll argue the benefit of the legislation and explain why your particular NGO is in favor of this. You may also want to delve into the positive/negative ramifications of the legislation. Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions. - Alison

Just to add on to what Alison has said--some of the methods you can use (but you are certainly not limited to them) include: providing testimony in other committees, directly lobbying the other delegates during caucus, helping to draft legislation and resolutions, or doing press interviews.

Keep the questions coming, we are more than happy to answer them!

Looking forward to meeting you soon,
Brenda (co-chair)

Thank you both so much. Sorry for not introducing myself when i first asked the question.

Yara Galal (Oxfam International)
The British International School of Jeddah

Hi again,
thanks for the tips! I was wondering who else was a Greenpeace delegate? Could the Chair post the list of the NGOs with the names of their representatives (name and school), so that we could get in touch more directly with each other before the conference?

With only a little more than a week to go, very excited,
Jessica (Greenpeace again)

Hi everybody ,

thanx for your help , i'd like Emphasis on jessica's request of the NGO's list , to get to

know each other ...


Roudha Al-shriem ( red cross )
albayan secondary

Hey everyone,

It would be difficult to share everyone's information because we would need to get permission to share contact information. You should all take advantage of this forum to do so. Feel free to start new threads in the NGO forum for each of your groups, and you can communicate with each other this way. This forum is not only for delegate-chair communication, but delegate-delegate as well.

Hope this helps!

John Wilson
Director of International Programs