EYP Swiss national session 2018 in Lucerne
On Friday, the 31st of September two delegations from our Gymnasium met at Basel SBB to leave for our 5-day trip to Lucerne for the European Youth Parliament’s Swiss national session. All nine people arrived on time and we were joined by the delegations from Gymnasium Oberwil (a one-man delegation), Gymnasium Münchenstein and the Wirtschaftsgymnasium.
After our one-hour train ride, filled with song and snacks, we arrived in Lucerne. We got twenty minutes to look around and then went to the Youth Hostel to check in. Afterwards, we went back to the train station.There, we were introduced to all the awesome organisers and journalists and started teambuilding – with the whole group. Sadly, it started raining, therefore we quickly transferred to Lucerne Hochschule and split into our individual committees.
All day, we spent playing games and getting to know our fellow delegates, greatly enjoying ourselves. When we arrived back at the Youth Hostel, we had a very interesting and tasty dinner: Swiss Village. This meant that every delegation had taken food with them representing their city and it meant a great end to our already very eventful day.
The following morning, we set out in smart casual clothing to start with committee work after two more hours of teambuilding. Each delegate was sorted into one of twelve committees, while each committee was tasked with finding possible solutions to various problems the EU is facing. For example, one committee was looking at the topic of gender equality, while another was looking at trafficking of drugs, firearms and human beings. That afternoon and the next day were spent discussing and debating the given topic, trying to agree on solutions which would be presented during General Assembly on the last two days.
The hours were interrupted by coffee breaks, which some committees were constantly late to. Saturday night the session was opened officially and on Sunday night, there was a Euroconcert. During this concert, everyone who wanted to was allowed to show off their talents, e.g. reading a story in Japanese or singing a song. We even had a professional singer on stage, Jan Oliver, and a self-written song from one of the organisers! Everyone was positively surprised by the acts, and what can be better than singing ‘Imagine’ together?
On Monday, the General Assembly started. Everyone made their way to the Bourbaki Cinema in very fancy, formal attire, where we would get the opportunity to show everyone our resolutions. Attack speeches, defence speeches, open debate, voting, very moving sum-up speeches, and lots of energisers kept us busy all day. That night, dinner was held separately for each committee, spread across the city. The farewell party after that made us dance until late into the night, letting us relax, though we slowly started dreading the end of this session.
Tuesday morning, we were transferred for the last time that session. More hours of speaking, listening, laughing and trying to get our resolutions to pass finally left us with more or less content, but ultimately happy committees. The afternoon consisted of an emotional Closing Ceremony, which moved some to tears and broke all our hearts
That evening, we left Lucerne behind us, barely catching the train back to Basel. We left behind a lot of new friends and an awesome adventure, filled with hard work, nights of staying up late and lots of coffee, taking with us the experiences and the memories. Tuesday night, around half past seven, we arrived at Basel SBB, tired but very happy with our decision to put in the effort of participating at this National Session.
