30 Year 12 students from The Cherwell School spent the morning live-streaming into the Euroscola conference on human rights and rule of law (innovation lab). Two students asked live questions through a virtual link, streamed into the hemicycle. Students posed their proposals through Slido, with one student’s suggestion making the final top four for the end vote in the hemicycle. Students then continued with a discussion ‘open space’ debate in school around the topics discussed in the morning’s virtual Euroscola.
Amber reflected on the event:
“Something that stood out to me throughout the conference was the stark contrast between questions from students from eastern states, such as Slovenia, and more western countries such as France. It is easy to stay in a small bubble, where all you see and all you think about are the issues that immediately affect your life, because these are the things that we feel actively changing around us. Therefore, it’s natural for Western states to be concerned about housing pricing, as a student from France asked, or AI development, as Urban asked. We are not worried about the things that we are able to take for granted, for example, basic human rights and country-wide peace.
The conference enunciated the importance of reflecting on the fact that we are lucky to have the luxury to worry about things such as climate change, the growth of AI and the cost of living crisis. Yes, it’s terrifying to think about, but there are many people our age who live in constant fear that they will lose their houses, their loved ones, and their right to live a safe life, at any moment. Hence when we think about the problems in our lives, in our country, we must also look at the situation from a global perspective. We cannot expect climate change to be a top priority for a country that is first trying to establish peace for its citizens, but perhaps this then means governments that have no imminent threat of peace within their state, should be stepping up and going the extra mile to cover for the countries who are otherwise engaged.”
The Cherwell School have shared the format they use to help their students learn from and reflect on their Ambassador Schools experiences: