Labour and Co-operative Member of
Parliament for Kemptown and Peacehaven

World Youth Conference – Day one : getting here

by Lloyd on 22.08.10
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5pm Well at last I got my tickets (only two days before I had to leave), my visa was sorted out the night before and then I boarded, what a mess. Well putting that a side I jetted off to Mexico City to start thinking about what we were going to work on.
So what is this conference – good question! – The Mexican government have decided that they want a focus on youth and push the youth agenda seeing that the World Programme for Action on Youth and also the Millennium Development Goals are both coming to the end of their time. As these things tend to happen and like busses two come along at once, another government thought that this would be a good idea too and so called for this years (August to August) to be the international year for youth: dialogue and understanding and will be hosting a conference at the end of the year.
So back to Mexico – we are all getting together to put our heads together (that is 2 young people from each country in the world) to try and come up with a deceleration to present to the governments who will arrive at the end of the week.
As with most of these conferences a lot of the work has been done before hand and this means that the areas that we are going to discuss have been agreed by a group including governments and International Youth Organisations who are taking part.
This also means that most of the Government declaration is also signed off, but the input of our work should feed in t the final recommendations on topic areas that we all agree to take action on.
The areas of interest are similar (but not the same) as those in the World Programme for action on youth, they are: Poverty and exclusion, Employment, Education, Technology and Innovation, Heath, Gender Equality, Security and Social Justice, Sustainable Development, International migration, Participation, Global partnership and cooperation, and culture.
I don’t really know what to expect, but the build up hasn’t been great, conference venue changes, last minute additions and to top it all the UK government hasn’t sent a full delegation (the chair of the select committee for Education will attend part of the legislators forum and the rest will be represented by the embassy.) As always the UK lacking behind, but part of me this time cant blame them, without knowing what was happening until such short notice it is no wonder that many European governments have declined to send full government delegations.
This should not be an excuse for lack of action for young people in the years of youth. It should be for all government’s participation or not to take full responsibility to work with and for young people.
I have been roped in to helping facilitate and so I will try keeping twitter and the blog up to date with the happenings of the time, but until then just a quick note on Atlanta.
In most airports when you arrive your baggage’s is scanned and sent on, oh no, not in Atlanta, even though I have a connecting flight I have to go and pick up my luggage, identify it and then put it back on the conveyer for sending on – only in America.
That’s all from me for now, the plane from Atlanta is about to board and I wanna get to Mexico City tonight – I think.

5am eventually arrive after a long bus trip to the hotel at 5 in the morning!

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Labour and Co-operative Member of
Parliament for Kemptown and Peacehaven

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