New candidates arrive to present their candidatures during the second AEGEE Online Agora of this year of 2020, which takes place from the 15th to the 18th of October and marked for the SARS-COv-2 pandemic. This time, The AEGEEAN Magazine interviews one of the candidates to be a member of the Mediation Commission of AEGEE-Europe: Marlijn Mulder from AEGEE-Delft!
Hello and thank you so much for the interview, Marlijn. Many AEGEE members do not know you, so, could you introduce yourself to readers?
Yes, thank you for this interview. I am Marlijn, 24 y/o, from Delft. I’ve been a member since 2016 and I have done a lot of local projects and events. Especially in my board year (2018-2019) I had the chance to work with two amazing boardies and we’ve done a lot in that year. Since last spring agora I am a member of the Mediation Commission and I am now a candidate for the next full term. I love reading, cooking and travelling, and in the current situation the first two go very well, but the last, sadly not so. Thus, I am currently playing a lot of board games with my family :)
You have applied for being a member of the Mediation Commission after being in the team since the last Agora. What were the most important things you have developed and learnt during this period of time?
I’ve had the fortunate experience to work with very experienced members that are both very good at mediation and communication. I’ve learned the most about communication from them. And that is a skill that I’d like to develop further. We are now trying to develop trainings together with AEGEE-Academy to also make the work the Mediation Commission does more visible.
Despite of the SARS-COv-2 presence, what can the Mediation Commission bring to AEGEE members to be more visible?
We are trying out several ways to make ourselves more visible, as you may know we have a highly confidential task and that makes it hard to make ourselves more visible to the network. I think the development of the workshops on e.g. non-violent communication and the basics of mediation can make the tasks of the Mediation Commission more visible. How we can do that in the current situation is giving online training and improving our online presence.
In your program you also focus on the development of the Safe Person Project. What are the next steps to be done in the future of this project?
Yes, I do, because the Safe Person Committee has just started, so there is still a lot we can do. I focus mainly on the sustainable integration of the project within AEGEE now it is not a funded project anymore and I focus on the question: when does the responsibility of the Safe Person stop and when does the responsibility of the Mediation Commission start? I think the answering of this question is a complicated answer and I expect this to take up the term. The next for me would be to have this discussion in the SPC and to see what steps can be taken further to make this clear for all future members.
For finishing this interview, Marlijn, what will you do in the future in case you are not elected?
That is a good question, as I am finishing my studies the coming year, I don’t think I will run for something else, but focus on my own projects within AEGEE. As we all know, you can do as much AEGEE as you like, so I will find something to put my time and energy in.