THE YOUTH DELEGATES TALK TO THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS

"The youth are the machinery of change and development everywhere."
--Socrates Olympio, 18 year old Youth Delegate from Ghana

They are young, intelligent and enthusiastic and they have come together to change the world.  What makes these youths amazing is the fact that they have taken time out of their young lives. They have left friends and relatives behind in their ultimate quest for a more humane, safer, and economically strengthened world.

"The Youth Summit gave us the opportunity to share ideas with people from all over the world.  To look for common solutions to our problems, and to say, 'Hey we're here, we can make a difference,'" Hafid Cuesta, an 18 year old delegate from the Dominican Republic, said.

Cuesta, as well as the rest of the 33 delegates representing the youth of the world, united in a group effort to right what their predecessors have made wrong. 

Olympio uses this analogy: A little boy comes home after playing.  Before he sits down to eat he decides to wash his hands. It was a good idea at the time, but he accidentally forgot to turn off the water.  Although there are many other people living in this house, no one steps up to turn off the water and clean up the mess.  They all have excuses. The time for excuses has passed. 

"There is a mess in this world and it needs to be mopped up," Olympio, who works for several community organizations in Ghana, said.  "Where is this mess. It is in education. It is in human rights. It is in literature. It is in the environment. It is in our economics."

These young leaders are conducting meetings comparable to their parental counterparts at the State of the World Forum. At the Youth Summit, delegates had a chance to develop leadership qualities, learn about critical global issues, consider values and priorities for the 21st century, construct youth action plans, and make there voices heard in the world community.

Education of the youth is a one of the primary concerns for these delegates, it is the machine that will drive the ideas which will change the status quo.  Cuesta pointed out how warped the ideological mind set of his parents are sometimes. For instance, he said, the way success is measured is all wrong. it's not about money

"Success is in how many ways you can help your society," he said. "How many things can you do to make our world a better place to live in. They don't teach that."

There is a lot that is not being taught which is being addressed by the youth delegates. They recognize that they have the power to change the world's ideologies.  

"The only hope the world has is standing before you," said Alice Lonsdale-Cooper, a 17 year old delegate from New Zealand.  "The only thing that can overcome the prejudice and discrimination that is so evident in this world today, is the open mindedness of a child."

It's not the youths' objective to run for politics, but to protect their future.  "All we want to do is wake up our fathers, our mothers, and tell them, 'You're destroying our world,'" Olympio said. "We don't want to take your jobs, your responsibilities, because it is your time and you have to do it. All we ask is that you do it well."

--Craig Schmalz
25 year old Student, San Francisco State