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| "Many governments are far behind" - An Interview with Erik T. Wedershoven Part II |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
So it really made a lot of political parties conscious about involving more young people in their structures, in their work and involving more young people in policy making and in their political parties.
Because in one way or the other young people were triggered to vote in elections, and it’s a good way for raising awareness on various issues but it’s also a very good way to get more youth politically conscious.
That’s great. I think it’s fascinating to see, talking about how young people are fed up with the political system and they don’t want to vote, to see that when we are talking about issues that really concern young people, then there actually is the interest there.
And it wasn’t even an official election; it was really just something that was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch National Youth Council. But imagine if you would really make a real structure for this in various different countries how many votes you could have. Like for example in France where the average age of politicians is very high, I would see this as a great example for politicians to involve more young people. – It’s interesting, if it concerns them, if the candidates are from their age, if they can relate to these candidates, it works.
Well, I want to come back now to what you briefly mentioned already at the beginning and that is youth delegates from developing countries. First of all, why do you think there are so few youth delegates from developing countries and my second question would be, how can we, young people from developed countries, help bring more youth form Africa, Asia and Latin America to the UN in New York.
There are two interesting parts to this: First, in developing countries there are not many structures like in Europe for example, where we have youth councils since the 60ies or the 70ies and that’s of course a problem for youth getting involved in developing countries.
But on the other hand you can see that a lot of developing countries are very young, more than half of the population is under 25, a lot of governments base their policies on youth. For example Senegal has very strong youth policies, they have been very youth orientated for the last 15 years. But it’s interesting to see why they don’t have a youth delegate? Because the structure is more difficult, a lot of countries are afraid, because you have this young person, who is not a member of a political party, who is not speaking on behalf of the government, but on the other hand what this young person says is considered as national policies. For a lot of countries this is scary.
A lot of countries don’t even know that they have this active youth. That’s why the public elections in The Netherlands were very important to show how many capable youth there were in The Netherlands that wanted to become youth delegates.
So I think the structure story is difficult and of course money is a main issue, too. But then… The best responses I get as a youth delegate are not from the Western European countries but are from countries from the South. They are the most interested in the things I do, they are the most interested in youth policies, because they realize that more than half of their population is young and it’s really interesting for countries to influence this group of people and to get this group of people behind them. It is dangerous not to influence youth, not to have youth participating, because youth can be very positive leaders, youth can be the most interesting, they can be very enthusiastic, very motivated, wanting to change things, can be positive contributors for a better society, can work in great projects, but they can also bring a lot of problems.
So when you are at the UN, is that one way you are trying to get more youth delegates from the South to attend by talking to their governments and showing them this is what I’m doing and this is how it could help you?
Yes. For example in March I was at a big conference and I spoke to the Ambassador of Senegal, the Minister of Internal Affairs of South Africa and the Secretary of State of Uganda. I just talked to those people about sending youth delegates and I tried to convince them. It’s something I tried to do at the Millennium Summit, too.
And of course, from a lot of countries I know that there are already strong lobbies and that there are very good structures and very good youth organizations that could select a youth delegate. So I try to tell their governments that. For example I told the Minister of Internal Affairs of South Africa that there is a very good kind of youth council and he was very interested and told his assistant to make arrangements for him with the board of that youth council there. That really helps their lobby.
I also get a lot of e-mails from youth from the south that have ideas about electing a youth delegate and really want to do that. They can very well lobby for themselves, but I try to support and strengthen their lobbies.
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Franziska Seel
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holas max albert remon torres | Oct 6th, 2005
cool how can i do the same ???????????
advice/internship/volunteering elizabeth kibalama | Feb 14th, 2006
hallo Seel
I just read ur report. Its nice to hear a youth working so hard. Now i need your expert advice. I have a degree in development economics but lack experience. I wish to work in development/international cooperation to give me a chance to grow in the field i love dearly. I have sent many CV and open applications to no avail to Uk, Netherlands and even some in Africa. Could you help by advicing? elizabeth (netherlands)
MEDDAHI meddahi | Jun 6th, 2008
Re: جائزة العلامة عبد الحميد بن باديس رحمه الله.....مــــــــــداحي العــــــــــيد (التقييم: 0)
بواسطة زائر في 2-6-1429 هـ
الشاعر العصامي مداحي العـيد هذه القصيدة الوجدانية من البحر الوافر
05/06/2008 .. المتنبي الصغير
شعرت بوحـــدةٍ ثقلت جروح
لقـد تــركــت أنــيــستها تروح
قد امتلأت بكــربـــتها صُنوف
من الحـزن قـد اجتمعت تبــوح
إذا خلا الفــــــؤاد من الغرام
العفيف فهـلْ سيقتحم الطََّموح
وقلبه خـــاليٌّ من كل شوقٍ
كما الأزهــــــار عـــطـرها يفوح
وما؟ الدنـــيا بغـــير حبيبةٍ قد
تشــع بحــــــــبها الـذي يسيح
وما الحــــــياة؟ دون محبّةٍ قد
سمت بصــــفـائها فــلها جموح
ترى ذا العشـق مُضطربا فبعد
لكانـــتـه الــتي لـحـــنت يصيح
بفُصحــــــــته التي ملأت قلوبا
بوهــــــج محـــبّةٍ كــادت تنوح
إذا ما فـرّت الغــــــــــزلان منا
فحــبـنا الــــذي لـــمح كسيح
إذا انقشع الظلام سمعت ديك
المبـــادرة الــــذي نادى يصيح
إذا بضيائـه يـــبـــــــدو صباح
أشعــــــــــــته لقد فلتت تلوح
إذا بالكائـــنـات جمـــــيعها قد
بدا انشـــراحـها نزحت فسيح
لقد مكثت تُـــؤانسني زمانا
فبـــعد دُنـــــــــوّها بعُدتْ تريح
نأت بمحــــــبّةٍ قــد عذّبتني
أنا الآن بكــــــربــــــــــتها أبوح
نأتْ بأنيـــــــــنها تــلك الفتاة
وقلـــبها بــذكـــــــــرهم يصيح
لقد عشقت جوارحها التي لم
تكن قاصــــــدةً عـــشقا يُطيح
عناء محــــــــــبةٍ ثقُلتْ عليها
فصار غــــرامُها أبـــــــدا ينوح
تقول بحسرةٍ وفـــــــؤادها قد
تراكمتْ مواجــــــــــــعه جروح
ودمع عيـــونها يجــــري كنهر
الفرات لقد تدفــــقت السطوح
أيا زوجـــــــــــي قد أبدلتنا يا
فــتى أبـــــدا بـشــــعـرٍ مبروح
فقلتُ لها دعي أمــري فإني
فتى يمشي وفي قلبي جُروح
لأنثرَ عِبـْـق أزهــــارِ الشمال
التي أسعــــدت القلـبَ صحيح
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