Entry Four: Durban
Today started out different from yesterday. Instead of spending 3 hours standing in line for our NGO Forum passes, we were watching a presentation given to open the NGO Forum itself.

The president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeke, and the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Mary Robinson, spoke. Robinson, who was also at the Youth Summit last night, told the forum, and the world, that what she heard us tell her was that youth were upset because most of the panelists were adults addressing youth about youth issues, and that what youth want is the chance to talk themselves and have adults simply listen.

Later this evening, youth were supposed to gather for a meeting to create a Global Youth Network, but the meeting got out-of-hand. There were about 70 to 100 youth there. Before the meeting started, two facilitators wanted to touch base on the status of the youth declaration. There were two translators, translating into Spanish and French, so those who did not understand English would not be left out.

Most of the youth wanted to ask questions about the declaration. For example, Where can they get access to the document to read it in its current form,? What languages are the declaration already in? And where can they go to talk about issues that they wanted to talk about but didn't have a chance to talk about at the Youth Summit?

Because of this process of youth wanting to learn more about the declaration, the Youth Network Meeting couldn't get started. Throughout this time, I was really really confused. I was confused because so many questions were flying around the place. It takes time to translates the questions and the answers into Spanish, then in French. And most of the people asking questions didn't have the patience for this process and made things difficult. And the people is that the French in Spanish-speaking youth felt that they were in the dark. They needed to know what was going on. And this became an issue.

Another issue that came up was that there were people over thirty in the room trying to control this meeting. Like, they wanted to be heard and the youth weren't getting a chance to express themselves. They wanted to stand up and say what was going on in the room and they didn't want to slow down for the translators, making things worse.

The fact that one organization wanted to control the whole meeting became an issue as well. They wanted to facilitate the meeting, saying, We can't really discuss the Youth Declaration right now, and there is another meeting for that, and let's try and push on to the Global Youth Network. Personally, I think that's where they made the mistake. Before they started the Global Youth Network meeting, they wanted to touch base on the youth declaration, and since many people wanted to learn more about the declaration, that's where the confusion started.

People became upset and started walking out. Because of this, the meeting was ended and the facilitators set another meeting for tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. at the youth tent at the NGO Forum to try and create a Global Youth Network, which we never got to discuss at all tonight.

I don't know if the same thing that happened tonight will happen tomorrow morning. I hope not. It is important to talk about creating a Global Youth Network, so youth from all over the world, from different organizations, can communicate with each other about what they are doing to help people back home learn what we decided in the Youth Declaration on Racism.

This is so stressful right about now. There are so many things to talk about, so many issues, you just have to be here to get it all.

Annie's Journal Traveling Day Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 - 8 Day 9 Traveling Day

Dezroy's Journal Traveling Day Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 & 5 Day 6 Day 7 - 8 Day 9 Day 10 Traveling Day