Dear Delegates of the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee,
I am delighted to welcome you to this year’s BERMUN conference.
This year's conference theme is Fostering Global Citizenship among Identities and Responsibilities. Global citizenship is not a physical passport, rather it is the idea that citizens worldwide carry global responsibilities. For example, while battling issues such as climate change, global citizens have a duty to protect the environment on behalf of the international community. Global citizens have to acknowledge that global supply chains affect everyone, consumers are closely linked to people and their surroundings in other continents, where the wares they import are produced
In the SOCHUM, we will be debating two topics: “Promoting health equity in rural areas” and “Addressing child labor in supply chains”. Even though the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) sub-target 8.7 requests to end child labor in all its forms by 2025, the harsh reality persists that it is deeply embedded within supply chains. Often the survival of a family depends on the children, meaning that the children have to work. Poverty can become a negatively defining aspect of an individual’s identity according to Western Michigan University (WMU). Global citizens have to be aware of the effect their actions can have on the other end of the supply chain, both in terms of identity and responsibility.
On a personal note, I am 15 years old and currently attending the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin. I have been part of my school's MUN program for three years and have attended seven conferences. In my free time, I play three instruments and really enjoy math and philosophy. I have lived in New York, Windhoek, which is the capital of Namibia, and Berlin. Together, I hope that we will have a productive debate regarding our committee topics!
I am very excited to meet all of you. See you then!
Sincerely,
Clemens Schmid
Co-Chair of the SOCHUM
