On November 8th, the 10th China (Guangzhou) Model UN Conference opened at GDUFS. This is the first time the conference has been hosted in Guangdong Province, ­even in all of southern China, ­and  is also the largest one ever held.

Conference Site

UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon and Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, CHEN Yunxian, sent letters of congratulation to the conference participants. Vice President and Director General of the United Nations Association of China, ZHANG Xiaoan; Counselor of International Department，Ministry of Foreign Affairs, REN Yisheng; Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, ZHANG Zhihua; Counselor of the Australian Embassy Geoff Bowan; Secretary-General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, Bonian; the Representative of UN Women in China, Julia Taylor; GDUFS President ZHONG Weihe, along with Vice Presidents FANG Fanquan and SHI Youqi, all greeted the media and the 446 representatives from 116 Universities attending the conference. Vice-Party Secretary, CHEN Jianping, presided over the conference.
 

Before initiating the conference, GDUFS President ZHONG Weihe welcomed the guests in the VIP Hall of the administration building; later, all the guests, school leaders, teachers and representatives took pictures in front of the building.
 

The participant photo session

ZHONG spoke at the conference and extended a warm welcome to the guests and representatives on behalf of our school. In his remarks, he talked about the relationship between the Model United Nations Conference and our school and, that since 2003, the MUN has invited GDUFS participation and our student delegations have made great achievements in successive conferences. Our school has held a Model United Nations Conference four times in total. President ZHONG hoped that the "diplomats" would be able to play their own role in the conference realizing the theme of "eliminating all forms of violence against women and younger girls" during the next few days.

Encouragements

There were letters of congratulation from UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon and Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, CHEN Yunxian. Ban Ki-moon mentioned the efforts made by the United Nations to promote youth development in his letter, fully emphasizing the significance of young people in changing the world. He encouraged the young representatives to develop the concept of dedicated public service in their lives, to solve the complex problems facing the contemporary world at the conference with good negotiating skills and ingenuity, so as to work together to forge a better future. In CHEN's letter, he expressed his appreciation related to the conference for its great importance to the construction of a strong province of international culture and high-level talents.
 

Vice President and Director General of the United Nations Association of China, ZHANG Xiaoan, extended her gratitude to our school for the thorough arrangements. She hoped that the representatives in this conference would be able to learn how to present meaningful talks, how to draft resolutions, how to consult with allies, and how to debate and reach an agreement, all in order to be good "student diplomats", so as to have an enhanced understanding of the philosophy and idealism of spirit of the United Nations. She also pointed out that safeguarding world peace and harmony is the responsibility and obligation of all young people.

Counselor of the International Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, REN Yisheng presented an address during the conference. He recalled the efforts made by the United Nations to protect women's rights and recounted some of his own experiences involved in that work. He expected that the representatives could master the rules of procedure of the General Assembly in the two-day conference, gain an in-depth understanding of the content and nature of the work, and learn to seek a common ground and enhance cooperation, and develop mutual friendship amongst themselves and others. Ren Yisheng wanted to teach the deputies to seek a common ground related to all basic issues.

Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, ZHANG Zhihua, made a speech at the conference in which he pointed out that the conference is an important opportunity for students to cultivate universal scholar abilities as well as for the international community to know Guangdong province. He hoped that the representatives at the conference could improve themselves and strengthen their capacities as they move into the world stage.
 

Counselor of Australian Embassy Geoff Bowan addressed the opening ceremony, saying "The issue to be discussed is full of challenge." He encouraged the representatives to make innovations and put forward new ideas and countermeasures for this global issue.

Secretary-General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, Bonian highlighted that the issue to be discussed in the current Assembly is a very complicated one and one that has a profound impact on society. Delegates, as he hoped, would seriously explore solutions to gender equality issues in the development in the social environment, thus to achieve the 2015 target.

The Representative of UN Women in China, Julia Taylor, reads the letter of congratulations from UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon first, then in her speech, she said that the damage to women is not only a personal injury, but also a damage to the family, and to the state. She illustrated examples to show the two ways of guaranteeing gender equality: "protective" gender equality and "substantive" gender equality. She appealed to people not to take special excessive protection for women, and hoped the representatives would remember the difference between two kinds of equality and protect "substantive" gender equality.       

"General-Secretary" declared the opening

General-Secretary of this conference, WANG Huiyi, postgraduate in the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies in our school, declared the opening of China Model United Nations Conference. In her speech, she introduced the three group topics for the conference: (1) The prevention of violence against women and girls, (2) The multisectoral services and responses to violence and (3) The primary gender equality issues included in the economic development agenda to be launched in 2015.

Following the opening ceremonies our reporters interviewed the participants including General-Secretary WANG Huiyi. She said that the Secretariat of the conference has done a full and creative work in terms of the aspect of the academy. "This conference, is closely linked to the theme of preventing violence against women, and has set up three sub-venues for discussing it, each from a different prospective." A representative, who comes from New South Wales, Australia, said that they had conducted investigations on Cuba's national politics in order to stay close to the country's position and, in addition, he expressed his expectation to take this exotic journey to further study the situation and said that they would enjoy both the fun and the cultural learning opportunities of the different cultures mixing together.

The conference was scheduled to last for three consecutive days from November 8th through November 10th during which various social activities, such as a social ball, and more would be held for representatives from all over the world so that they would have the opportunity to experience the opening-up enthusiasm of GDUFS.