My days here at the UN are long and packed. I usually leave the house in the morning at 9am and don’t get back home before 11pm. So, as I already assumed, it’s not as easy to keep up with writing about the events going on here… But I’ll try to write a short summary at least with the highlights of the last two days:

Yesterday, I attended the Launch of the World Youth Report 2005, parts of the 3rd Committee meeting session and a wonderful evening event, which was organized by the UN Youth Program. They had invited a theater group from a local school in Newark, NJ, which performed a theater play on the topic of addiction and drug abuse. It was really cool! The actors were amazing and we had lots of fun after the event when Jen, Leif and I taught the kids Swedish and German! The picture shows the three of us with some of the kids – I really enjoyed the evening a lot!!

Today, Jen and I first had a meeting with the Millennium Campaign, to wrap up our partnership – which obviously, had nothing to do with WPAY. After that I had lunch with a very good friend from Germany – we had run into each other by complete chance yesterday, both not knowing that we are currently at the UN (she is doing an internship here). It was really great to see her and catch up! During lunch time I attended a side-event of the Swedish Youth Council, where Jan Eliasson, the new President of the 60th General Assembly, as well as the Swedish Youth Minister were speaking. In the afternoon I went to the roundtable discussion on “Making commitments matter”, where Romi, our regional youth editor, was speaking!! The evening saw another great event with the screening of the MTV documentary “The diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa” and dinner with the guys from the European Youth Forum as well as a few others.

One of the key messages that I took out of the different discussions and events was about youth in the media: I believe in different side-events there was the talk about how young people are presented in the media and that it is mostly in a negative way. This is surely not something new to me, but it is still worth thinking about it again. As it was said during the launch of the World Youth Report 2005, the negative picture of young people in the media is actually discouraging youth about their role in society. Also, during the Swedish side-event today it was said that if people see that they are part of the society and that they have actually something to contribute and they have self-esteem, then they might be much more entrepreneurial. Thus, if you make the connection, more positive news about youth in mainstream media and more recognition of the capabilities of young people could contribute to strategies of tackling youth unemployment.

Finally, a quote that inspired me today: Jan Eliasson (who I already much liked during the DPI/NGO conference) said today: You need to have two things if you want to achieve something in life – roots and wings. Roots to remember where you come from and what makes you different from other people (your culture, your history, your family and friends), and wings to fly away and do things that others haven’t done before.

I was also very positively surprised by the Angolan chair-person of the civil society cluster during the roundtable discussion this afternoon. He seemed to be an immense supporter of youth participation, but he also made a really funny comment when he said that youth seem to be taking-over the institution (he meant the UN) with this roundtable! Why was that funny? Well, I thought it was, because it showed me how old and bureaucratic the UN is, if people think that this tiny bit of interaction that the roundtable allowed (in opposite to the usual meetings with solely prepared speeches), was already showing that young people are taking over the institution! If this is really the case, then there is much more need of youth taking over as soon as possible, as I had already thought before!