SSUNS 2016 Interview Series: Deputy PR Gelila Bedada

Avalon Hebert: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today! To start off, I’d love for you to give me an idea of your day today. It’s now the second day of the SSUNS conference. Can you give me an overview of your day?

Gelila Bedada: The main task today was, firstly to organize the Montreal and McGill tours for the visiting delegates. I feel like this gives a good idea of what the PR team is about, and it’s not really about organizing PR or sponsorship in particular, but really about enriching the delegates’ experience through external activities. We got a lot of great feedback, and everyone really liked it, and the PR team is really happy about that.

That’s great! So, to follow up on that, what kinds of interactions have you had with the delegates today? Have you been discussing any specific issues, or just general facilitation of the experience?

So, unlike the team committees, who deal with the actual debates and the “fun” parts, we do end up handling the more logistical questions, which mainly means interacting with the sponsors and faculty advisors. That’s sort of the other side of [the conference] that I really enjoy, but I mostly get questions from the kids if they need stuff, mainly directing them to the right rooms, etc., but they all seem very eager and positive, so that’s a good start.

What made you want to be involved with that side of the event, vs. being on the team committees, and what’s the most rewarding part of that for you?

I used to be very heavy on the team committee side of things, and I really loved writing background guides, but I also really like organizing things, and the behind-the-scenes aspect of it! It’s sort of like watching your project come together, and watching people enjoy it. They’re both equally rewarding to me.

So what would you highlight as the PR team’s biggest success of this year’s conference?

We’ve been really pleased with all the social media campaigns we ran leading up to SSUNS, I especially was working on spotlighting our staff, throughout the preceding months, and I think that’s really changing the focus from general committee stuff, to the reason why people are actually doing this, and dedicating their time and energy to the conference, and literally spend at least 8 months working on these committees. I was really excited about that, and you get to hear a lot of different and interesting stories from all these people.

That kind of ties into my next question; what would you say to delegates who are interested in pursuing model UN at the university level?

I would of course say just to go for it, and stick with it! You’ve already started this journey of learning about international relations, and why stop? Wherever you end up going [after high school], you can find that club, or start that club to continue this.

It’s definitely awesome to see young people taking an increasing interest in these clubs! So with all the changes made to the conference this year, including livestreaming, what do you think the biggest change has been, and how does it benefit the delegates?

I think the livestream project has been a really great step forward in the PR portfolio, just because it’s very millennial thinking, and how it goes away from the more traditional type of conferences we’ve had in the past. This goes back to the question of how do we make this conference more interesting, and reach new platforms. Of course there are still people who aren’t going to have Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. who aren’t so much plugged in, but that is the direction millennials are moving in, and it’s very forward thinking.

It’s definitely important to cater to those platforms more in the present day. So do you feel like this helps the delegates get involved more and motivated to learn?

I definitely think it’s one of the ways in which future SSUNS will keep building up the conference.  So far, we’re only livestreaming one committee at a time, but in the future who knows what could happen.

And why do you think this year’s theme is important to emphasize?

This year we’re really trying to emphasize education, and I think that it’s so important (now more than ever) to have educated youth. It’s a little bit serendipitous, but I think that the atmosphere here has been a lot more “here to learn” and that sort of curiosity, and I’m so inspired watching that.

Of course, and a couple of the delegates have mentioned the recent election, so it’s nice to see that you’re getting the feeling that there’s definitely an interest to be inquisitive and learn more about the world today.

Yeah, and we have here mostly non-voting Canadians, so it’s sort of amazing that they’re educating themselves and each other, and that’s so valuable to get all these different perspectives on these complicated issues that are not even easy to tackle for voting adults, so I think that all goes back to the emphasis placed on education this year.

It’s definitely great to see people pushing to learn this at a younger age.

Yes, and that’s something our key-note speaker actually talked about: the necessity to educate ourselves about these issues at a really young age, and how this is more necessary now than ever before. It’s definitely incredible to be a part of that, and a great feeling to be starting off early with people who are going to be future leaders.

What’s your favourite part of the job, and what do you consider most valuable to facilitating political education in youth today?

I would say sort of being a representative of SSUNS, it means you’re hearing so many different stories, from so many different backgrounds, and you’re just really trying to bring it all together. I know that sounds a little bit vague, but it’s really important, and managing that, and making sure we project SSUNS on social media in a way that facilitates that, building a brand and making sure we’re inclusive of all these different people and the kind of image we want to project to them for future years. And with PR, we’re thinking about what we want to achieve here for the future, so it ties into the super macro picture of things.