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| "Many governments are far behind" - An Interview with Erik T. Wedershoven Part II |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
I know that the process in The Netherlands is a little different. Can you explain to us how you were selected?
We had for 34 years elections within the Youth Council and then a year ago a campaign bureau decided that it would be a good thing if you would have the youth delegate being elected by Dutch youth and that the youth delegate shouldn’t be just someone who is young and working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but a real youth that doesn’t has be representing one organization, but just a young person from The Netherlands with experience in development cooperation and in reaching youth.
So they decided to have an open election: everyone could participate, everyone could become a youth delegate and everyone could vote. What we had first, was of course a commission; we had to send motivation letters, CVs - just the regular stuff. From the people who sent that in a couple of dozens of candidates were selected and invited to oral presentations to talk about their goals for a couple of minutes, go into debates and try to figure out how they would try to get Dutch youth involved and how they would try to present Dutch youth within the UN and the government delegation.
Within this commission there was always a big audience. For example, this commission could choose two people from every round and then one other person was selected by that audience to go to the next round. After a couple of rounds there were 6 candidates left. From those 6 candidates, every week 2 of these 6 candidates had to run elections and had to gather as many votes from organizations in The Netherlands.
It was a surprise, because we had a lot of votes during those first weeks. For example I won that round with 3,000 votes which is a lot for a small country as The Netherlands and thinking that’s more votes than the average Senate member gets to get elected for the Senate!
Then from these 6 candidates, 3 were selected for the finals. 1,500 young people from all over The Netherlands that worked in development cooperation and in different organizations were invited for the finals to Paradiso, which is the coolest club in Amsterdam. We had a lot of debates there with experts and the candidates for the youth delegates. And the people that were in the audience and that could listen to you the whole night could vote and their vote counted double. Other people could vote too, through the Internet, it was followed by national TV, by a lot of regional TV stations and radio stations.
It was really interesting to see how many people were following it and how many votes there were. Because in 2,5 hours we had 10,000 votes, which is outrageous for The Netherlands, which is a small country - we only have 16 million inhabitants.
From those 10,000 votes I got 70%. It was great to get that much support from youth from all over The Netherlands, not knowing you but still seeing something in you, while you have to represent them in the coming years as a youth delegate.
So it helped a lot because as I said it was the first time that the MDGs were in the news and it was the first time that that amount of young people, just normal young people, were thinking “that’s an easy way I can participate, an easy way I can make sure that someone gets there to become youth delegate, that can really represent us and talk about international cooperation and talk about the role of young people in the world, in international politics, in the work in the field”.
Are there any other advantages you see in this kind of system instead of just having a small jury or one organization select the person?
Well, I think it was very good, too, for our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and politicians in The Netherlands to see what young people can do. Imagine in these elections there were 60 very good candidates, who had a lot of experiences. It really showed various organizations and Ministries and politicians how important youth can be and it convinced a couple of other countries to send youth delegates, too. It really was in the news, it brought a couple of issues on the agenda and it got more youth involved in organizations.
I’m just thinking about other countries and usually you say young people are fed up with the political system and they just don’t want to vote – that’s the only thing we can actually do when it comes to politics. So I’m wondering, do you think this is actually something… how young people want to get involved? Do you see this as a system to get more young people interested in politics?
That’s what I meant with saying that I was elected with more votes than every other person in the Senate. Imagine what that does to a Senate member who has been in the senate for 20 years, who was elected for 4 times. It’s funny to see that young people are willing to vote and really think ‘I want to follow this election, I want to know who is representing me there, I want to know what this person wants to put on the agenda, I want to know what that person wants to do’. It was such an experience for politicians to see this. So many youth showed: We want to vote, but we don’t want to vote for people who are 50, 60 years old!
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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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