The third Model African Union Bayreuth Conference (BAYMAU18) from 18-22 May opend its doors at the University of Bayreuth and hosted around 70 delegates from all over the world. The motto of the BAYMAU18 Conference was „Empowerment. The Potential of an Empowering Africa in a globalized world“ and lead among other things to versatile discussions around the empowerment of marginalized, vulnerable social groups in Africa. The heading “Empowerment” though should be understood as something that also comes from within these different groups and not as something that is given from an outside group. In this context, we also stressed the focus on self-empowerment.
Next to the simulation of the African Union, with its sessions in four different committees,we provided a rich framework program with cultural activities and different workshops, which means speeches and lectures as well as singing and dance workshops. The main goal of the conference was, to bring people from various countries, with different social backgrounds together and enter them into dialogue. In this way, every participant was able to broaden one ‘s horizon about Africa and was trained to have fruitful discussions, which lead to solutions with a good balance between different perspectives. At the end of the conference, these solutions were recorded in a political position paper, that was send to the official African Union.
In organizing the conference we got support from the University of Bayreuth, the postgraduate program „Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) “and various other sponsors and partners like „VisaWie?“.