Home is where I hang my Hat

At of the start of November I began a 3 month adventure living in the USA. 2.5 weeks in, I’ve visited 3 states (Maine and New Hampshire, from my base in Massachusetts)…

And now when I come to write the rest of the post we’ve got up to 3 weeks already. Life moves fast when you’re not looking. In the meantime I’ve been working at my new job, figuring out life in a new house/new town/new country, and coming to terms with how life is different when you share your house with a) a dog, and b) a baby niece-in-law.

I have to say that life has probably sped past because the going is good.

Later this week I’ll be swapping the rapidly dropping temperatures of the North Atlantic coast for sunnier conditions over the other side of the Pacific. I’m off to Bali to facilitate and participate in the Global Youth Forum – an event organised by the United Nations Population Fund as part of the 20 years review of the Programme for Action from the International Conference on Population and Development (it took place in Cairo in 1994).

You can find more info about the event at http://icpdyouth.org/ and can take part in this event too – from the comfort of your own home (no jet lag to contend with).

This review process is going to (hopefully) link together with the Millennium Development Goals review process in the lead up to their expiry in 2015. In my mind the best outcome would be a single set of goals for development that thoroughly encompass a human rights based approach and can be applied to address the inequalities in Western Europe as easily as for ensuring basic needs are met in Eastern Africa.

I’ll have more updates (I plan) in the next two weeks.

If I may interrupt you for a moment, Mr Chair…

This was the recurrent theme of the opening for the Youth Session where High Level Panel members asked what we would like to see in the Post-2015 agenda – the framework that will replace the Millennium Development Goals in 3 years’ time. Nick Hartley, Chief Executive of Restless Development (a youth led development organisation), was five times interrupted by young people – myself included – in his attempt to set out a conventional view of what youth need from development. My point of order? ‘Young People need to learn about sex…’

Oh no, Mr Chair, I think you underestimate the situation. My reply started as follows:

“Whilst we do need greater knowledge; more importantly everybody, young and old, need to recognise, understand, and have assured, their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Attitudes to sexuality, sexual orientation and reproductive health are changing and these need to be recognised in the development agenda in order to halt abuses such as early marriage and relationship violence…”

I went on to highlight the issues of sex trafficking and the role of abuse by older men (including teachers) in causing teenage pregnancy, before finishing:

“It’s not just the clinic as a building standing there, but the provision of a confidential, safe space, where visitors, regardless of gender, won’t be judged.”

Michelle Alvarez, another WAGGGS representative in the group, went on to highlight some of these safe spaces provided within Guiding and Girl Scouting. She talked about a Peer Educating project in the Philippines funded by the UNFPA and in which she had taken part. Something similar is gaining momentum in the UK, with the Ministry of Health supporting a project run by our Peer Educators to tackle risky teenage behaviours around sex, alcohol and drugs.

I felt the room was receptive to what I, and all the other young people present, had to say. And the reference of some of our issues, particularly relating to formal and non-formal education, in the plenary meeting with all civil society that followed is a sure sign that notes were taken and a lasting impression made.

On my way out of the building that evening I spoke to one of the staff members who had facilitated this panel meeting in London, and they were brimming with enthusiasm for the issues that we raised earlier in the day. They were also very optimistic that we had set a standard for youth engagement that should be carried on throughout the Post-2015 consultations and panel meetings that will culminate in a report to the Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon, in May 2013.

So please seize this opportunity for youth to shape the development agenda through applying to attend panel meetings, taking part in country consultations, and online at www.theworldwewant2015.org .

After all it is us youth who shall implement and be responsible for the outcomes of these goals.