One more day of taking a longer, harder look at our regions and what is needed for the change to sustainable society and future. Tomorrow (day 4) we will visit the island - who knows what we will learn when we do. Without further ado - here is an update of our day 3 activities. My World, My SIDS: Y.E.S! Youth Empowerment Sustainability AIMS Youth meeting, Victoria, Seychelles 11-16 July 2013 Day 3- Day for mapping regional and youth issues (13th July) After completing two very successful days of introducing, connecting, sharing and starting to understand the common regional issues, here, all the youth delegates are gathered up to look deeper into the issues mostly common to the AIMS region. With much more enthusiasm and energy which have started to build up within the youth group gathered, the day was instigated by the presentation of Cape Verde following the presentation of Guinea Bissau where the main economic, social and environmental challenges were briefed and discussed. Subsequently the issues presented by the countries were identified and put on chart after a short discussion within the cluster groups formed. Session was then followed up by the task of identifying the common challenges which were noted to be common to all the island countries in relation to youths. Youth unemployment and lack of youth infrastructure were some of the many issues marked to be common among the region. Impacts of climate change, lacking proper waste management mechanisms and increasing level of youths involved in substance abuse and gang violencewere noted down as issues under social and environmental challenges.However these challenges were open for discussion and would be finalised in the drafting committee meeting which was scheduled to be held in the evening. The morning session was concluded by the informative and helpful speech given by Raj Mohabeer from IOC. During his speech he highlighted on how an action of one person or one country may lead on to affect other countries and whole of the world. Furthermore, he also talked about the essentiality of having a large group of people working with a common goal with a very concrete base, rather than an individual or one country standing up to tackle the challenges that we as small islands are facing. On that note he highlighted the point that there would be no need of going for partnership with other regions, if as a region we are not prepared and ready to proceed for the betterment. In the afternoon, more brainstorming was done in order to gather information and recommendations which were necessary to prepare the outcome document of this conference. Within that period country projects were also being shared among the group and if any, suggestions and opinions were added. In addition to that later in the afternoon each of the projects which were presented was given to cluster groups formed. These groups were formed in such a way that each had a delegate from different context and background. As the task of the groups, shared country presentations were converted into projects which could be conducted in the whole region. As the day was getting closer to an end, amazingly interesting skype conference was held between the delegates and the two very spectacular women from One islandIstitute; Kimberly King and AnneloesSmitsman. During this conversation information was exchanged on how the conference was progressing. More to that, Kimberly also gave advise and very useful information on how to build partnership with other organisations and how to maintain a collaborative partnership at the same time. Schedule for the day was brought to an end with a short debrief of the day and deciding a convenient time for the drafting committee to meet and work on producing the outcome document. Drafting committee meeting was held with delegates from all the islands including the facilitators as well. During the meeting drafting structure was finalised and fragments of it were distributed among the members in such a way that input from all the delegates from all the areas of the region could be included in the outcome document. More to that it was decided that with the presentations which would be presented on the day 4, the economic, social and environmental challenges common to all the islands would be finalised to highlight on the outcome document. The quote of the day: “I have been to Europe countries for other conferences such as this but it never felt like being home. After travelling across the Africa continent and being here as a Cape Verdean to take part in the AIMS regional meeting with other fellow islanders makes me feel like being home.”, Janice Da Graça, Cape Verde. Written by KhadheejaRishtha Ali and Aishath Sham-aa, Maldives on behalf of the SIDs Youth AIMS youth group
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 03:16:22 +0000
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