ANTHONY TAYLOR
UNITED STATES

I have met people here from all over the world - Australia, Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, Finland, Indonesia, and more. This experience is turning out to be everything I knew it would be.  My fellow participants are brilliant, compassionate and generally down-to-earth.

We have compared our cultures and discussed the problems each of us face in our communities - from drug abuse and teen pregnancy, to greed and the effects of colonization.  As a result of these discussions, I understand the physical problems in our world better and how deeply rooted they are in people's minds.

Now I believe that two types of countries exist - those without roots and those who have, through modernization and westernization, became separated from their roots. Countries such as the United States killed their roots when they destroyed the Native Americans. On the other hand, a girl from the Phillipines told me that westernization in her country increased techonology, but eliminated much of her culture.

The global problem seems to be a struggle to either attain or maintain both national and individual indentities. What does this mean for our generation? It means that the problems which I witness my peers struggling with are not only created by, but perpetrated by, this lack of identity. Our generation lacks identity and often self-worth. This is why we have to help solve these problems; for now they pose a threat not only to the adults, but also to us, the generation which is becoming responsible for those problems which cannot be solved.