Junior & Senior School summit spotlights voting, elections

SENCON 2024, the Junior and Senior School’s (J&SS’s) first student-organised conference, with the theme “Empowering the Voters of Tomorrow”, took place at the School’s Latsia campus on February 24, 2024.

In light of the upcoming euro parliamentary and municipal elections, SENCON was a one-day, debate-focused conference, centred around voting and elections, aiming to raise awareness and spark discussions.  Active citizen participation among younger generations is a highly critical and important issue, and misinformation and lack of awareness in electoral processes has been contributing in increasing abstention percentages locally and internationally. Thus, the aim of the conference was to raise awareness about the voting process, highlighting the importance of participating in democratic processes.

Conference attendants included J&SS students, as well as participants from the American Academy Nicosia, the Franco-Cypriot school, Lyceum Dasoupolis, Lyceum Ethnomartyra Kyprianou, Lyceum Paliometoxou, Med High Private English School Larnaca, Pascal English School Larnaca, The English School, The Falcon School, The GC School, The Grammar School, and Xenion High School.

The day-long conference saw speeches and presentations delivered in plenary and groups, as well as group work. The conference was addressed by MP Savia Orphanidou, on behalf of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr Niyazi Kızılyürek, Member of the European Parliament, Nektarios Nicolaides, Representative of the European Parliament Office in Cyprus, Andri Christofides, Europa Direct, Executive Manager Home4Cooperation, and Chrysostomos Kridiotis on behalf of the sponsors, Logicom.

The SENCON Secretariat comprised Emily Kyriakides, Andriana Dombo, Stephanos Artemis and Fatima Sanjakdar, under the supervision of their teacher, Nicholas Shiaxiate.