The December and already the second preparatory meeting was held successfully, and apart from the Christmas mood, another specialty was present – the greatest number of guests in the history of the Summit.

The second preparatory meeting of the Prague Student Summit began with a speech of the Deputy Chief Coordinator Filip Jelínek. It was followed by addresses of coordinators Iva Gejdošová and Jáchym Vintr, who initiated students not only into the agenda of the preparatory meeting, but into the whole year’s agenda as well.

The Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”), a UN programme for the upcoming 15 years, composed the first block of seminars. The SDGs supersede the successful agenda of the Millennium Development Goals. They form an ambitious plan of the international community to eradicate poverty and hunger, to provide equal access to education or to slow down the global warming. The seminar about the SDGs and the environment was led by Bedřich Moldan, who said, “I tried to underline the importance of global pacts which themselves demonstrate that the world is able to agree on something. And the level of global pacts has its reflection in the national politics, in the people’s behaviour, not only on the level of politicians, but on the level of common life as well.”

One of the other lecturers was, for instance, a former participant of the Model NATO and now a student of Oxford, Petr Vilím: “Without the Summit, I certainly wouldn’t have the interests which I have now; I also wouldn’t be where I am now and I wouldn’t have got the passion for debating and, consequently, for education.”

During the second block of seminars, the students were split into groups based on geographical location of the states they represent. They were lectured in an interactive form about the current development of the regions. Seminars were held by interesting personalities, such as analytics of Association for International Affairs, Jan Michal and others.

The afternoon part of the programme was filled with a variety of activities. The students were introduced to individual rules of procedure in order to start with the negotiations. Soft skills and teambuilding activities were also stressed. At the end of the preparatory meeting, chairmen of the bodies prepared special Christmas activities to tune in to the Christmas mood. There was a traditional regional specialties’ degustation in the Human Rights Council, which was composed of food prepared by students. The Model EU prepared gingerbread, the Model NATO even came up with a chocolate cake with a logo of the Alliance.

Saturday’s meeting was preceded by side events, which the Summit regularly prepares for its delegates. The first one was Polygon, which took place on the premises of the partner Metropolitan University Prague. Human rights cinema held in the American Center showed the students the political scene of Estonia. The documentary Ash & Money was full of political humour criticizing Estonian environment and presented a lot of opaque and populist practices.

Students could also feel the Christmas mood during the fourth advent Sunday as a special Christmas minisimulation from the world of Harry Potter came to life. Deputies of the Ministry of Magic, Association of pure-blood wizards, house-elves, centaurs, and other magical creatures intensely negotiated about the post-war order of the wizarding world after the defeat of the lord Voldemort. However, the conservatism prevailed in the wizarding society and the propositions to equalise the races, to start teaching science in schools or to close down the Azkaban prison did not pass.