Bringing the world closer

The agenda for the day had highly innovative and creative programmes, which proved wrong all arguments on lack of focus among the younger generation. Each of the eight schools had to represent a particular country other than India. This gave them an opportunity to learn and discover information on different nations. Though the students were handicapped as far as choices of various associations of different countries in Pune was concerned, they made superb use of what they had. There were three schools representing Germany and the others Japan, USA, France, Switzerland and Great Britain respectively.

The programme began with `Pages of History’ wherein each school was required to present on stage a glimpse of a historical event of the nation they were representing. The audience was taken back into time from Thomas Beckett in England to Martin Luther in Germany to William Tell and glimpses of Japan. It was obvious that great care had been taken to recreate history with special attention given to costumes. The quiz programme titled `Earthquest’ had students racking their brains on questions related to general awareness. A jigsaw puzzle round called `Global Pieces’ required students to put together a world map. Another interesting competition was that of collage making called `Melting Pot’ where each participant was given magazines to cut out from and come up with the picture showing brotherhood of man.

The `Mock UN Session’ was another event which proved that the participants had really done their homework. The topic that this session of the UN was dealing with was the justification of testing the nuclear bomb by India and Pakistan. Each country spoke up on its behalf `for’ or `against’ the motion as the case was in the real UN. The event titled `Utopia’ was an interesting one. It was the only non-competitive event. Each of the schools had to present their idea of the ideal world not leaving even the minor details through the medium of pictures and charts which took into account the ideal topography and the socio-economic and political scenario.

An essay competition titled `Expressions’ required the participants to write on a peaceful tomorrow or the global village as they would have it. The event on debate was titled `I Believe’ and the topic was “English lords to US senators: Is India still in bondage?” Each of the schools had also set up stalls representing different interesting kaleidoscope of a small part of the world was entitled `Globe Trotting’.

It was evident from the back thumping and the friendly booing that the students were not only enjoying themselves but were also deeply involved. It was encouraging to note that entertainment centres like the Thunderbolt sponsor such meaningful events.

The Global Village proved beyond doubt that the purpose of AIESEC was being fulfilled in its contribution to the development of our people with an overriding commitment to international understanding and cooperation.