The report on the two study trips to New York and Washington DC organised cooperatively by GIMUN and IFIL.ch in summer 2008 is now available (see attachment below).

Judging from the participants' feedbacks as well as our own impressions, both study trips were a great success and apart from deepening their knowledge of the UN and our topics in general, the participants also learned about career possibilities at the UN and got to meet like-minded students from all over the world. The cooperation between GIMUN and IFIL.ch worked out perfectly and should certainly be further developed.

Additionally, these journeys have inspired two participants, Ine Declerck and Johan van Rijn, to become the first two representatives of the newly created GIMUN US Chapter. In this function, they will organise various events at the UN headquarters and might be involved in the organisation of the next GIMUN-IFIL journeys to New York.

Probably the most memorable moment was a Senegalese who has served in Congo for MONUC and described with tears in his eyes an experience in a Congolese village: After they had finished giving information about MONUC to the villagers, they put up a projector and showed a Mickey Mouse movie; the whole village, young and old, gathered around the screen and watched their first movie ever. After the movie they clutched together and provided a young chicken as well as three eggs and gave them to the peacekeepers – a present only really appreciated if one knows that they had not eaten any meat for at least half a year.

This story inspired not only our participants but also us organisers and when we drank a beer together that evening, many of us were discussing the possibility off joining UN peacekeeping missions as UN volunteers – an unanticipated result of these trips which might be more important than all the knowledge we have acquired during the meetings.