This is a summary of the first day of the Student Solidarity Conference
This was the first official day of the Student Solidarity Conference 2010. The Laureates arrived at saturday, and we have had various program since then.
The open day contained three sessions. We started with the opening ceremony. The ceremony included speeches from project leader of the Student Solidarity Conference 2010, Sanna Brattland, the director of the Student Peace Prize secreteriat, Eirik Vikum and the rector of the national university of Timor-Leste, Benjamin de Corte-Real. The speeches focused upon student solidarity, the Student Peace Prize and the Student Peace Prize laureates as well as linkages between students from Norway and Students from Timor-Leste. We also had a cultural performance by a local dance group calle Saint Antonio. The Laureates got the chance to present themselves and their cause to the students of Timor-Leste as well as prominent guests such as the Norwegian ambassador to Timor Leste, Hans Peter Christophersen, the ambassador from Cuba and various parliament members from Timor-Leste.
The next session was the session of SAIH and the representative from Rabab Amidane, Basiri Mohamed. Antero Benedito da Silva was also involved in this session. SAIH presented their organization and talked about student solidarity from a practical point of view. Basiri Mohamed presented the history of the conflict in Western-sahara, while da Silva made a comparison of the situations in Timor-Leste and Western-Sahara which is very much alike.
We ended the day with a session facilitated by the UNDP which talked about conflict prevention. In this session we got a heated discussion between local Timorese students and the UNDP. Many of the timorese is unsatisfied with the way the UNDP runs their organization in Timor-Leste, and the session became quite interesting, even though it did not develop the way we envisioned it to be.
It was a great first day, and hopefully one of many.
Jonas Sønnesyn
