The Conference-Seminar of European Democrat Students took place in Prague, Czech Republic from 13th to 18th September, 2011.
Before the Conference-Seminar EDS decided to produce a document that would present a view of EDS on the sustainable development as a goal. Throughout the whole project the participants were intellectually engaged in the theme of sustainable development, especially from the point of view of availability of sustainably produced energy, and in the last two days of the Conference-Seminar they created a resolution based on their experiences, prior knowledge and acquired new knowledge.
Tuesday was an arrival day hosting welcome addresses and a foreword to the Conference-Seminar by patron of the event, Czech Minister of Environment Tomáš Chalupa. The evening was concluded by a welcome dinner and informal ice-breaking activities.
Wednesday and Thursday were centered around educational activities for the participants. Lectures aimed at providing accurate and up-to-date information from experts in the field of Energy security, environment and sustainable development (names and porfolios of the experts can be found at the attached programme). The lectures were mostly concentrating on Czech republic as a case study of the situation and challenges faced in Central Europe. Wednesday also hosted a group excercise of simulated session of the European Parliament, although the participants didn't quite warm up to this excercise.
During Wednesday and Thursday the participants also had a chance to get to know cultural heritage and political background of Czech Republic in the informal part of the programme by visits to the Czech Parliament and the Prague castle.
Part cipants were presented with the situation of sustainable development and energy security from a point of view of Czech Republic.
Friday's main content were the interactive Working Groups on the areas of Higher Education and Research, Human Rights and Policies for Europe. The groups were moderated by participants who had received training for the task during the preparation meeting. The main task of the working groups was to discuss and amend the proposed conference resolution taking into account the different perspectives of each working group. Participants had the chance to now debate the issues they had been learning about during the last two days and to make their voice heard in the resolution paper.
After each group had exhausted their input to the Conference resolution, they also discussed several group-specific political motions on various topics, which had been presented by member organisations of EDS before the event.
On Satursday morning, the participants gathered together to a plenary session to present the work of each working group and to merge the proposals into a single cohesive document. In Saturday afternoon, the Council of EDS had its formal session, where it, among other actual topics on the agenda, adopted the presented final Conference Resolution unanimously, making it an official position of European Democrat Students on Sustainable development.
EDS is a member association of