General aspects

PARTICIPANTS

During the month of September, 2021 the Civil Association “Democracia Global”, along with partner the organizations - “UMA”, “Democracy Without Borders”, “UNPA Campaign” and two Regional Academic Partners - Goa University and Sharda University, carried out the second Model of the Parliamentary Assembly of the United Nations (UNPA) in India on the theme Gender Equality.

 In view of the Covid pandemic situation, Second UNPA Model was organized virtually. The Model counted on the participation of more than 40 students from Goa and Sharda University, from the disciplines of Political Science, International Relations and Education.

ORGANIZATION

The UNPA Model was coordinated by Camila Lopez Badra (Executive Director of Democracia Global and International Coordinator of the UNPA Model), Emilia Ismael (Executive Coordinator of Democracia Global and International Coordinator of the UNPA Model), Rodrigo Hazaff (Coordinator of Democracia Global and Communication Coordinator of the UNPA Model), Rita Kakati-Shah (Founder and CEO of UMA and Secretary General and Principal Coordinator of the UNPA Model), Smita Singh (Academic Relations Coordinator of the UNPA Model), Shraddha Naik (Assistant Professor at Goa University), Disha Maheshwari (Assistant Professor at Sharda University), Rahul Tripathi (Assistant Professor and Head at GOA University)and Alakandra Shringare (Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Goa University).

OBJECTIVE

The UNPA Model’s main goal was to create and encourage conscientiousness surrounding an issue that affects humanity as a whole. The Second UNPA Model centered around the theme of Gender Equality. Inequality in gender hierarchical relations has resulted in deep seated gender equalities that is embedded in all facets of our lives. In order to tackle the global challenge of gender bias, we all need to unite and design feasible and pragmatic solutions. Hence, based on the concept of global citizenship, the students that were part of the Model were able to represent, as members of a Parliamentary Assembly, the citizens of the world, allowing them to work altogether to devise and propose plausible and effective solutions to issues that transcends boundaries, and, therefore, require global solutions.

ENCOUNTERS

A student’s portal was created on the website of UNPA Model for the students where they could find relevant materials (videos and documents) regarding the concepts of Global Citizenship, the purpose and functioning of the UNPA Campaign, Gender Equality and the instructions on drafting bills. Furthermore, there were four educational encounters concerning the UNPA Campaign and the concept of Global Citizenship, a lecture on how to improve communication skills, a talk regarding the understanding on bills and how to draft them and, finally, a session on Gender Equality and how to focus the proposals on sorting out the issues under consideration. Debate in parliamentary commissions The debate in the Parliamentary Committees began with the remarks of three Indian Parliamentarians: Shri K.J. Alphons; Shri Ritesh Pandey and Dr. Achyuta Samanta. Then, the participants were divided into the following four Commissions and each one was chaired by a Professor from the University of Goa or Sharda: Gender Bias Across Household, Gender Equality in the Workplace, Culture and Systemic Gender Bias and Gender Bias in Politics. Within each Commission, the students were organized into smaller groups with three specific roles they were going to play: Spokesperson, Advisor and Press Officer. Their main goal was to present a Bill concerning one of the topics relevant to the Commission they were in, for the purpose of carrying out a debate and then vote on the most urgent and feasible bill.