Report of the YEL-club meeting of 16.12.2016

Today was the big day! Today we finally held our own (little) MUN. Obviously our members were quite nervous, but they were all well prepared.

The meeting began with the chairs (Jil, Kai, Mika and Mart) reminding the delegates of some of the most important rules and tips. The delegates then started to present their policy statements and their country’s opinion. We noticed that our members had worked hard to find out their country’s position in the matter of climate change and to represent it as good as they could.

After everyone had presented his or her policy statement and no real discussion started to flourish, the chairs decided to have an unmoderated caucus of 15 minutes. So the delegates could discuss their papers and get acquainted with debating on a less formal level.

After a few more debates and unmoderated caucuses, as the delegates started to feel more at ease, allegiances and cooperations started to form and our members seemed to find solutions and even started to write drafts.

However, we had run out of time and we had to adjourn the meeting.

All in all it was a great experience for our members, but they still have to learn quite a bit: the chairs main points were that the delegates had to speak loud and clear, and avoid speaking too fast. Furthermore, they really have to learn and get used to the rules that come along with these MUN’s, so that they can respect them and also use the right vocabulary.

Nonetheless, we were all quite satisfied with the result and our first MUN was surely a good basis for other ones.

YEL-LMRL promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J46j-6ramek&feature=youtu.be

COP 21: 

• Mika Lorang - 07.02.2016 11:45

  Here are the projects the YEL-Club Luxembourg did in January involving the topic of climate change and COP21

  LORANG Mika

  IT-Manager, YEL-Club LMRL 

   
•  

  Mika Lorang - 07.02.2016 11:48

  The YEL-club had an interview with the luxembourgish Minister of environment Carole Dieschbourg, asking her questions about the COP21. 

  You can watch the full interview here:    www.yelluxembourg.tk

   
•  

  Mika Lorang - 07.02.2016 11:52

  We also worked on a list with suggestions to make our school eco-friendlier :

   

  How to improve the ecological situation of the LMRL

   

  Climate change is a subject affecting everyone of us. It is therefore that a group of students from the LMRL-YEL club worked on some ways to make our school eco-friendlier. This would not only be good for the environment, but the LMRL could also act as a role model for other schools.

  What’s more, the youth group of the “movement écologique” (move.) is currently working on establishing a ranking of schools regarding their ecological standards. This project being in the making, would be an additional inspiration for the LMRL to help the environment.

  
   

  • Recycling:

  Recycling is an essential part of creating an eco-friendly environment.

  The following suggestions would be a considerable step in the right direction:

  
   

  1. Improve the waste separation system in classrooms (for instance Valorlux)

  2. Equip the school`s printers and copiers with recycled/eco-friendly sheets of paper

  3. The paper sheet units sold in the direction should be recycled paper as well

  
   

  • Encourage the students to act more sentient

   

  By putting up posters or informing several teachers (for instance the headteachers) the school can reach the students. Informing the students about what they can do for their environment is a crucial part of turning the school into an eco-friendly school. Because, without the help of the students, the school won’t accomplish very much.

   

  • The cafeteria

   

  The YEL-club had the idea to introduce one meat-free day in the school cafeteria. The consumption of meat, especially ruminants, has excessif consequences for the environment, because of the methane emissions during meat production (which contributes to the greenhouse effect). Establishing only a single meat-free day a week would already make a big difference.

  
  
  
  
   

  • The building:

  Regarding the future renovation of the school, we came up with some changes that would reduce the ecologic footstep of the school.

   

  • Improve the regulation of the heaters in classrooms

  During winter, the heaters are often hotter than they’d need to be.

  The problem being, that the classes can’t regulate their heaters individually, so sometimes the heat (even in winter) is uncomfortable and the only way to solve the problem is opening the windows.

  This means that a lot of energy is being wasted.

  So maybe it is considerable to install regulators in every classroom during the renovation.

   

  • The faucet-situation in classrooms could be improved too.

  The current faucets allow the user to press one time to get a limited amount of water. With one touch of the button, half a liter of water is wasted. If regular faucet controls were to be installed, the user could control the water current, so that only the needed amount of water emits from the faucet. One simply has to remember closing the tap after using it

   

  • Finally:

  We thought that it would be favorable for the atmosphere in school to have some plants in the classrooms. It would also be a symbol for the school caring about the environment. We do know this poses the problem that someone has to care for the plants (especially during holidays). We thought that the students themselves could keep the plants alive, which would also be a good exercise to teach responsibility.

   

  Thank you very much for considering our ideas.

   

  Kindest Regards,

  YEL-Club LMRL

   

   

• Mika Lorang - 01.03.2016 17:27

  Here is the project the YEL-club LMRL did in February involving the topic of migration.

  Part of the YEL-club did an interview with our "classe d'acceuil".

  In that class are students who ran away from, among other countries, Syria and Iran and live as refugees here in Luxembourg. 

  Read the interview here:

•  

  Mika Lorang - 01.03.2016 17:31

  Interview with the teacher:
  Y= YEL-Club members    
  T= teacher
  Y: What was your first impression?
  T: I felt very nervous because it was a challenge to deal with the children the first time.
  Y: While teaching did something influence you for the future?
  T: I’ve got more open-minded.
  Y: What’s the difference between teaching any other class and this class?
  T: The children are more thankful to be able to study. You can see and feel that, because they impress themselves really well in showing their joy.
  Y: Did you voluntarily want to work with migrants and refugees?
  T: Yes, I’ve asked to teach such a class.
  Y: what is an advantage of working with the migrants?
  T: I think it is a good experience. I’ve learnt a lot, like new methods of teaching. You have to be spontaneous because sometimes the children don’t understand you and you have to improvise.
  Y: Did you learn anything from the children?
  T: yes, I actually learnt a lot from the children like cultural differences and different languages.
  Y: Do you want to take another classe d’acceuil in the future?
  T: Definitely. I already had the class from last year this is my second year while I’m doing this and I will ask for another next year.
  Y: Do you get any new children in class from time to time?
  T: There are always coming new children to the class but now we arrived to the max. of 15 students
  Y: Do they rest in this class until the end of their school career or will they change the class?
  T: After one year they will change to the lycée technique. They only learn in this class the basics of our school system and get integrated and after a year they can finish their studies or work.
  Y: Thank you for your time.
  T: Thank you.
  Interview with the children
  Y= YEL-club members
  M= Mohammed
  Y: Hi. How are you and what’s your name? 
  M. Hi, I’m fine thank you. My name is Mohammed I’m 16 years old and I come from Afghanistan.
  Y: What was your First impression when you arrived to Luxembourg?
  M: I was really excited when I arrived in Luxembourg because in Luxembourg it exists no war.
  Y: When did you arrive to Luxembourg?
  M: I arrived in November 2015.
  Y: How was journey from Afghanistan to Luxembourg?
  M: It was really dangerous. I took all kind of transports. I came by feed, train, bus, and from Turkey to Greece I took the boat.
  Y: You always say ‘I’. Didn’t you come with your family?
  M: No, I came alone. My parents were killed in Afghanistan when I was 5 years old. My travel took about 2 or 3 months and I came alone.
  Y: Where do you live now?
  M:I live in Limpertsberg in a orphinhouse.
  Y: Do you learn Luxembourgish?
  M: Yes we learn Luxembourgish in school.
  Y: What other subjects do you have? In what language?
  M: We have French, Luxembourgish, math, history, geography,… Nearly everything in French.
  Y: Did anything negative happen to you in Luxembourg?
  M: No, it’s nothing bad here. The people are all very kind.

   

   

  Interview with Larissa
  Y= YEL-club members
  L= Larissa
  Y: Hi, what is your name?
  L: Hi, my name is Larissa and I am 14 years old.
  Y: Where are you from?
  L: I am from Montenegro.
  Y: When did you arrive in Luxembourg?
  L: I arrived a year and two months ago.
  Y: How did you arrive and with whom?
  L: I arrived with my mother, my sister and my brother. We arrived by bus and it took 52 hours. I didn´t know we would leave our country. I thought it would be a vacation.
  Y: So you didn´t know?
  L: No. My parents are divorced and I couldn´t say goodbye to my friends and my father.
  Y: What was your first impression?
  L: The first 6 months I have got a depression because I had problems with the language and I missed my friends.
  Y: Where do you live in Luxembourg?
  L: I live in Strassen with my mother (39), my little sister (7) and my little brother (13).
  Y: What is your intention for the future?
  L: I would like to work as a translator perhaps to work with refugees. I want to work in the foyer.
  Y: Do you also have contact with other students?
  L: Yes, sometimes I eat lunch with Luxembourgish students, but I met my best friend in the Foyer. She is also a migrant. We understand each other.

   

   

  Interview with Sally
  Y= YEL-club members
  S= Sally
  Y: Hello. What´s your name?
  S: I´m Sally. I´m 14 years old and I come from China.
  Y: How did you travel to Luxembourg?
  S: I came by plane because my father works here.
  Y: Where do you live now?
  S: Ilive with my family in Bettembourg.
  Y: Have you ever had any negative experiences such as racism in Luxembourg?
  S: No, I never had any negative experiences.
  Y: What was your first impression?
  S: I was shocked because of the many cultural differences like traditions, language, …

   

   

   

   

   

  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 16:52

  Everytime the club meets, one of its members volunteers to write a report.

  These reports will be uploaded in this thread, so everyone can keep track of the clubs activities.

  LORANG Mika

  IT-Manager, YEL Club LMRL

  
   

   

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  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 16:53

  Yel- meeting : Friday, the 13th November 2015

  
   

  At the beginning of the meeting, we elected our president ,vice-president and our IT manager/secretary:

  President: Adela Ozkan (2C2)

  Vice- president: Moritz Ruhstaller ( 4M4)

  Secretary and IT manager: Mika Lorang (2G2)

  
   

  Mika and Jenna took a chocolate cake into the YEL-club, so we had something to eat during our meeting. After that, we introduced ourself and said the reasons why we applied to come into the YEL-club.

  The main reasons were:

  • The travels

  • The students exchanges

  • To develop our debating skills

  • To collect experiences for our future life.

  Lisa Reichert from the 4M4 applied for the students exchange for Spain.

  Next Friday we are going to talk about our future projects and plan our team-building evening.

   

  -Jeff TRIERWEILER

   

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  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 17:41

  Report of Luxembourg’s YEL meeting 20/11/2015

   

  -First, there was the big announcement of who would go to Slovakia and who to Spain during the third term. Jeff Trierweiler is going to Slovakia an Lisa Reichert to Spain.  

   

  -Because of the fact that we couldn’t do the planned team building activity, we agreed to do it the 9th January 2016. We will, in a lodge, cook something all together, play games or watch a film and then sleep over there.  

   

  -We got computers (Surface) from our school that we can use during the meetings. Today was the first time that we used them.  

   

  -We talked about how we could get in touch with the YEL clubs from the other countries. We are planning to do a video chat with all of them so that we get to know each other.

   

  -We talked about the work procedure we will apply for the future projects. Pitt Sietzen, who is one of our members, is going to summarize it in the following days.

   

  -We were told to surf a bit on the twinspace to see how it works.

   

  -Adela ÖZKAN

   

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  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 17:48

  YEL Club meeting - 27th November 2015

  1. Finland exchange

  • not with the YEL club in Finland but with other 15 students

  • trip end of January

  • 300€ for flight, hostel and pocket money

  • exchange lasts a week

  • we’ ll spend a week in Helsinki

  • we have to write a short presentation about ourself and send it to Mme. Galli

  2. rest of the lesson we started to debate

  • played a short game named „block & tackle“

  • important things about debating:

  • brainstorming

  • research your theme on Internet ≠ Wikipedia

  • first exercie of debating-> Luxembourg against Terror

  3. 3 rules of argumention:

  • Claim

  • Fact

  • Warrant

  Lisa REICHERT

   

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  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 17:51

  YEL Club meeting- 11th December 2015

  So this week we started with the debating. We formed two groups, one in favor of the death sentencing and one against it. Carmela, Lisa and Moritz were in the group against death sentencing and Louis and Jeff were the mentors (they were leading the group and helping the younger ones to come up with arguments). Lisa K., Alessandro and Jasmin were in the group in favor of the death sentencing and Mika and Mart were their mentors. Meanwhile Jenna, Antoine and me were planning the schedule for the Bazar next Tuesday (more details will be posted on facebook). We also got a rough schedule of our Finland stay. Next week we will continue with the debating.

   

  -Leila ONDOBO

   

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  Mika Lorang - 11.01.2016 17:52

  Report YEL meeting (8th January 2016)

  After being introduced to the skill of the month, the COP 21, we brainstormed some ideas.

  We decided to create 3 groups of people, where each one of those will have a different charge.

  The first group is going to try to set in a more eco-friendly approach of our school.

  The second group is going to interview, if possible a politician who is connected to this topic, or a class of our school to get to know their opinion about the topic.

  The last group will inform themselves about projects our school is involved in to improve the climate situation.

  -Louis SIEBENALER

   

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  Mika Lorang - 01.03.2016 17:21

  Report YEL meeting 19th February 2016

  Selecting process for the Model United Nations 2016

   

  Firt we talked about what we are going to do about this month's topic about the refugee crisis in Europe right now. Some people did an interview with our "classe d'acceuil". In that class are some kids who ran away from, among other countries, Syria and Iran and live as refugees here in Luxembourg. (annotation: you can read the interview in our FEBRUARY thread) 

  Then we proceeded to the selecting process for ZAMUN. First Louis presented himself, then Jeff, Mika, Mart. While we had to wait for the two other student which were still in their Latin class, Mme Galli and Mme Droste gave us some information about ZAMUN. Then we talked about the conference which is going to take place this Wednesday, where the consultant of the EU and the director of the European Investment Bank are going to talk about the future of Luxembourg as a country. We decided that we are going to attend that meeting.

  The two last student arrived and Tom and Drago held their speeches. Afterwards we discussed who is going to ZAMUN and who stays here, and we decided that Drago, Louis, Tom and Mika are going to attend the Model United Nations 2016.

   

  -Leila ONDOBO

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  Mika Lorang - 13.05.2016 19:12

  Report YEL meeting 29th April 2016

  At the beginning of the afternoon, we talked about the task of the week: do a film about the Yel-Club of Luxembourg including the Zamun conference and Finland exchange. Videos and pictures are the biggest part of it. After this some students had to organise how we could represent fallacies of our society. After this, we talked about future exchanges and people which had already done an exchange shared us their experiences and what they have learned during their exchange. The five people which went to the Zamun conference also told us their experiences and what they did there. At the end, we planned the Finland visit and finalised our week planning.

   

  -Chiara CAMERLYNCK

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  Mika Lorang - 14.05.2016 10:53

  Report YEL meeting 13th May 2016

   

  In today’s YELclub session we were once more really active. First we had a brainstorming on ideas for the task of the month “Producing a film clip on the YELclub”, led by Loris Laera, a year 11 students being very much into filming. The students were then given a working task by Loris for the coming Pentecost vacations.

  Then we welcomed seven new students who came to have a look what the YELclub is like and with the intention to become definite YEL members from next school year onwards. Our “old” YELers explained the club to them, answered questions and showed them video clips of ZAMUN2016 and of our interview with Minister Mrs C. Dieschbourg on COP 21.

  Afterwards, we did a final check-up of the schedule for our Finnish YELschool group visit at the end of this month (May 23rd- 28th). Several students volunteered to do reservations and we also gathered the welcome packages to be distributed to our guest on their arrival day.

  To sum up, the YELclub coaches S. Galli and S. Droste were really happy about these committed YELers being the last students in our school building on a Friday afternoon starting a week’s holiday ;-)!

  -Sandra DROSTE

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  Mika Lorang - 30.09.2016 15:29

  YELclub report 19.09.2016

   

   

  As this was the first meeting after our (long) summer holidays, everybody had quite some catching up to do, so we chatted a lot at the beginning.

  Once we were all up to date, we could start our session. First we welcomed our Slovakian exchange students, Julia and Samir, who will be staying with us for 8 weeks. We then had a photo shooting, where we took a group picture for the school homepage as well as the etwin space. After that we held elections to decide who would occupy the important positions in our YEL-club and these are the results:

   

  Moritz Ruhstaller à President

  Alessandro Orellana à Vice-President

  Mika Lorang and Kay Thiry à IT-managers

  Antoine Rousset and Mart van der Ent à Secretaries

  Lisa Reichert and Carmela Santos à Catering (because let’s be honest, who can work

  hard with an empty stomach?)

   

  We then discussed how the project year to come will proceed and also what its future might be.

  Towards the end, the members of our club who will be travelling to Torun and participate at the Model United Nations had the chance to ask our more experienced members, who had already been to a MUN, questions, so that they would be as well prepared as possible.

   

   

  Mart van der Ent

   

  

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  Mika Lorang - 21.10.2016 15:29

  Report 30/09/2016

   

  During last week’s meeting  week we got the chance to welcome some new students in our YEL club. After this little presentation , the members who went to the ToMUN conference in Torun / Poland talked about their new experiences. They also wrote a report for more details.

  Last week was also our first meeting held in English.

  We talked about the new topic of this month, the future of the EU, and finally voted whether to talk about refugee integration, safety in Europe, the Brexit or about Ttip and Ceta.

  Loris Laera, a member of the EYP and the Youth Parlament of Luxembourg explained to us how to register in one of these projects and what they are about, like how to be politician or participating in political conferences through Europe.  

   

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  Mika Lorang - 21.10.2016 15:29

  Report of the YEL-club session of 14.10.2016

  This week’s meeting started with a general discussion about the club and how we imagined its future. One of the important points was attendance: Every member should regularly be present, so everybody can stay up to date about the topic we’re discussing and that the club doesn’t become a simple pass-time.

  We then talked about this month’s topic: the future of the EU with regard to the recent migrant crisis, the issue of integration of refugees as well as the problem of growing nationalism. We began with a general overview on the topic and quickly realised that our duty and also that of the EU is to find a solution for these problems.

  Most members had prepared papers as a base to debate about the topic. Loris raised a few interesting points, which most of us agreed with: The EU has an out-dated migration policy. As a consequence countries cannot cope with the huge influx of refugees and therefore they are wrongly treated. We should not let refugees and migrants in if we cannot help them. He also proposed minimum quotas; this means that every country should have a minimum number of refugees they accept.

  After that we had a discussion about Frontex: What is Frontex? What does it do? What is its role in this crisis?

  Alessandro had an idea about creating a place or even a country for the refugees. This however seemed like a bad idea as the world has had an atrocious experience with this in the past (i.e. Israel and Palestine). The creation of safety zones looked like a better idea.

  This brought us to the issue of integration. We asked ourselves how refugees should be integrated in our country. We exchanged our own experiences with refugees and what they wanted and expected. We came to the conclusion that refugees do not want to be treated differently and do not want to have a frame put on them. One of the best solutions seemed to integrate the younger part of the refugees through school.

  Nonetheless we realised that they also need to adapt to us and accept our culture, our habits and our customs.

  We then continued talking about the Brexit, an issue that is closely linked to nationalism. We discussed the roles of Nigel Farrage and Boris Johnson and the impolitic that occurred. In our opinion the EU needs to put pressure on the UK.

  At that point, our time ran out and we ended this week’s session so we could enjoy our well-deserved weekend.

  Mart van der Ent

   

   

   

  Yel-report of 18th November 2016

  This meeting was a bit different from the other ones: Jil, Kai, Mika and Mart (me) had come up with the idea of having our own small Model United Nations conference.

  As our teachers agreed with the idea, we decided to present it to our fellow members. Obviously not everyone is very experienced with this form of discussing and debating, so we explained the rules (we used the rules of TOMUN), how they should address each other, the vocabulary they should use and terms they could/should use like points, motions etc. We also showed them what a resolution should look like and gave them a few tips on how to write one.

  We then gave our fellow members the chance to ask questions. After that we moved on to composing the delegations, which turned out as follows:

   

   

  Kingdom of Norway	Olivier
  Federal Republic of Germany	Majda / Carmela
  Grand Duchy of Luxembourg	Maya
  Russian Federation	Moritz
  Republic of India	Ajlin / Lisa K
  People’s Republic of China	Miguel / Felix
  Kingdom of Saudi Arabia	Loris
  United States of America	Noe
  United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	Jeremy / Madeleine
  Commonwealth of Australia	Annik / Lesley
  Republic of South Africa	Christelle / Lisa Z.
  Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela	Alessandro
  Japan	Erwan
  French Republic	Filipe
  Federative Republic  of Brazil	Antoine
  Republic of Finland	Lisa R

   

  The delegations now have two weeks to prepare their opening speeches.

  Jil, Mika, Kai and I decided that the topic of our MUN would “climate change” , as it is quite an important topic, second, it is easy to find information about it and third, the positions taken by the different countries are often quite clear.

  We then moved on to discussing about the big, international MUN’s such as YORKMUN, KAMUN and ZAMUN. The people interested in participating in these conferences are getting the opportunity to present their motivation on the 25th November.

  This concluded this weeks YEL-meeting and everybody could go home and begin their weekend after a long and exhausting week.

   

  Mart van der Ent

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