AIESEC in NUS Blog

Nabeel Khalid | Year 2 NUS | Year 2 AIESEC | NUS Branding & Communications Coordinator

GV (Global Village) was a first-of-its-kind event for AIESEC Singapore and let me explain why before you say anything. I mean sure, we always have a GV at every AIESEC conference and it is always more spectacular than before. But AIESEC conferences are attended by AIESECers only, and people outside of AIESEC never get a chance to witness GV. So the GV event at NUS was an attempt to try to give that same feeling to non-AIESECers (and perhaps, draw them towards AIESEC).

It was held at the Central Forum at NUS (right below the Central Library) which is one of the busiest spots in NUS, enjoying a traffic of thousands of students. I was the project's director and I had an amazing Organizing Committee (OCP and OCVPs - all brilliant). We had a good idea of what we wanted to do and what we wanted to see happen at the Central Forum. Unfortunately we could only do so much in 1.5 months. Nevertheless, the event can be best described as having mixed success.

We had Indian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sikh and Thai cultural stalls, apart from the stalls put up by AIESECers, which included a display of different hats from around the world and AIESEC T-shirts from different countries and conferences. I may have some bias when I say it was a fascinating display that was put up by all the stalls.

While some stalls gave out brochures and other published materials about their countries, others displayed teachings or items depicting their culture. My favourite stall was the Pakistani stall put up by PakNUS (bias alert! bias alert!). They had free bangles to give away and they were also applying henna (mehndi, a.k.a. temporary tattoo) for FREE! (I got the star and moon from the Pakistani flag on one hand and the Ashoka Chakra (wheel) from the Indian flag on the other, as you can see in the first picture above.)

But I think the most popular stall was the one with the hats from around the world - it was empty most of the time - because everyone would steal the hats to camera whore! It was quite a sight, really, as you can judge from some of the pictures.

Coincidently BTMICE (sector of Business Travel, Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) and the Services Communications department of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) were organizing an overseas media familiarization trip for international journalists in conjunction with the upcoming Singapore Education (SE) Awards 2008.

The 5 media finalists nominated for "SE Awards Best Media Coverage" [Print and Broadcast] were to visit NUS on the 27th of March - the same day as GV, and one of the highlights was a campus tour - so how could they miss the Central Forum! (Especially since one of the reasons for NUS to invite them over was: "The NUS student community comprises a cosmopolitan mix of over 32,000 students from 88 countries, contributing to a vibrant and thriving campus life." How much more relevant could GV be?)

For your information, by the way, NUS is a nominee for ‘Best Host for International Students Studying in Singapore (Schools)' for SE Awards 2008, so NUS surely must have benefitted from GV. When they came over, they had an entire camera crew that took pictures of the people present, as well as videos of a couple of AIESEC dances ("It's the time to disco!").

Some scandalous pictures:

Labels: Global Village, Pictures, Updates