In November Lloyd Russell-Moyle went to the People's Republic of China for the IFM - SEI to represent them at that Inaugural Conference for Young Political Leaders in Asia and Europe. Around 100 delegates attended from the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) countries, that's all the EU countries plus Brunei, Cambodia, PR o China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Burma (officially Myanmar), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. This conference was the first to start a dialogue between Europe and Asian youth in further work and developing an Asian-Europe Youth Forum and developing work around the Millennium Development Goals (cheek out Global Village, www.globalvillage.org.uk for MDG) and the UN World Programme of Action for Youth. The meeting was organised by the All China Youth Federation, European Youth Forum, Asia- Europe Federation and the Tianjin Youth Federation.

Eventually we produced a declaration that all organisations will be able to use to build a stronger framework for working with our European and Asian friends and to take to the ASEM leaders. However the meeting of young people was also important to express our commitment to globalising human rights and democracy and rule of law and it is an important step forward that these things are stressed by all. The event did have its problems, the way in which people fed into the final declaration was not good and the gender imbalance of the chairs was not acceptable. It did however produce a document that progressive moments can at least work with and although not strong enough will be a start to further cooperation with Asia-Europe Meeting countries.

David Robert Taylor – People and Planet (UKYP)

Yesterday was a short day intros of the conference as the afternoon was spent in the city we went to the zoo we and dinner and it was just a wonderful evening and had a great time in a little pub. WE then went on to a Latino club, was pretty good but very tiring.

During the conference I ran a workshop on global week in action on trade justice which will be part of my action plan. I am here primarily to form my action plan on an international aspect so will be able to make international links. I’ve been able to make contact with members of the some group as me and work with them. Now I have made contacts with other delegates though it’s workshop

Global week kin action is a week in April 2005 were this message of fair trade will be taken to the leaders of the world that message is
* NO to the rich and powerful imposing unjust trade agreements, indiscriminate liberalisation and privatisation on the poor.
* YES to everyone’s right to food, a livelihood, water, health and education

That’s DRT for IYP news over and out, back to people in the studio.

LLOYD RUSSELL-MOYLE - THE WOODCRAFT FOLK
Thursday 8th July.

Well we are almost half way though the sitting, hasn’t it gone fast! I am shattered, the man had to come and wake us up today and I completely missed my breakfast, DAM, on the up side I missed the warm up or the majority of it (the facilitator did try to keep making us get up and be active, us UK delegate were too tiered and Reserve!?!? To take part we sat and laughed at the back. Why can’t we just get on instead of bursting in to movement every second.). At the joint sitting it was the most inspiring speech, it was on the Topic of Local to Global and the speaker was Eileen Pittaway, she and her organization from Australia have forget and been successful in lobbying the UN. She spoke how if a woman was raped she wasn’t eligible for asylum as the UK judge who set the president said that Rape was the ‘normal course of a women’s life’. They managed to lobby and persuade the leaders first of all to see it as an issue putting it on the agenda. The world leaders agreed not only to grant refugee status to those women but rape is not a crime against humanity the highest crime possible. What a success (male rape has always been counted as physical abuse) She talked about how to get around the UN process followed by a session of questions.

A quick break for tea and in to our action groups, in both sessions today I’ve been working harder on my action plan talking to others about it and we have been working out what and how we can improve them, sharing skills and ideas it is really useful. After Afternoon tea we had an action sharing session where we went to each other action group to find out what was happening. For the last session I was helping with the sustainability one and we had a discussion about sustainability and the way to reach it and if it was possible.
It was a really good discussion with people really bring theory of politics and the environment into play to try and debate how we must go about education about sustainable development and the challenges we face.

Dinner soon followed and I went to type some of David Diaries up and start finishing off my own LSP working group work for the Local Council, I have found that I have been so bogged down with work while I have been over here. I have really enjoyed it but it has been really non-stop, I feel like I have lived in Sydney for years not weeks.

Finished typing around 11 and went to the common room when I worked on my action plan till about 1230 when the music started blearing so David, myself, and Helen went out side to join the others in some stretching and just talking. Talked about random things (the state of public transept and fair trade to name a few) in to the wee hours of the night and at about 230/3am I went to bed leaving David and company talking.

Blue Skies (well I whish it would be)
Lloyd

DAVID ROBERT TALYOR - People and Plant (& UK Youth Parlaiment)

Today was the action groups again, and skills workshops they where very interesting. I attended Advocacy and Lobbying and Networking. A&L didn’t tell me a great deal more than I know before but it did give me a structure for which I need to do advocacy in the future. The networking was very useful helped me develop my action plan as at the moment I have a focus on the UK. The more I do networking the more I think that I could link up other IYP.
In the next group I met a girl who I talked to and she came form Cambodia, Sochep from Cambodia, and she was telling me about her project around the garment factories in her country. I also meet someone worked with Oxfam Hong Kong and she now has her own organization called Women’s Agenda for change, and her action plan is about healthcare in Cambodia.
At the moment the wedges mean that there is noting left for healthcare and schools this is partly because the WTO and the IMF, in this case it is private and it is very hard for poor people to aces it. Her plan is about training people to lobby and challenge the Gov. to get better health care. This needs to be done as not only are they reluctant to spend money on heath care there is a social stigma on sexual heath issues, so her action plan focus on this issues to break down barriers around sex education to education people in this area.
Her action plan is two fold; one is about breaking down and the other is about lobbying for there own heath care.
In the evening we went to the harbor had a drink after dinner and that was good, Lloyd will probably talk about that is his update so that is it from DRT. More later.

David Robert Talyor.

Umar Kankiya - UK Youth Parliament and Newham Youth Parliament
(Diary Extracts)

Day 3
Up at 7:15am this morning, I seem to have shaken off the jetlag which is cool. As per usual the day starts with breakfast and then between 8:45 and 11 we had the first joint siting (this is where everyone from all action groups come together for a plenary session) to listen to an invited speaker.
The first speaker was a guy called James who spoke quite well although he didn’t seem to be able to stick to the point and I become lost during his speech a few times. The second speaker was a guy called Patrick who was at the first OIYP in 2000 and his action plan was to create a African Youth Parliament which is not in action with over 160 delegates form over 4o different African Countries, this fantastic achievement cheered me right up.
The final speaker, a woman called Linda Kelly gave a slightly negative speech which highlighted 7 points about who to evaluate your work. It was about what to do to make sure that your action plan works in practice. But by the end of the speech everything she had said seemed so negative, it was a bit of a downer and made me feel like I should go and pack my bags now and go home.
Following the joint sitting we went into our action groups in which we discussed the morning process and people viewing different opinions about the last session. I talked about how the negative nature of the speech and the impact it had on me. Lunch followed and then we went back into our action groups in which we did a diagram each breaking down our action plans and describing in the session how they can work
I meet this guy called Andrew from Swaziland who is trying to set up a Youth Parliament in his country, he is someone that I will hook up with and help out with though the week. We then went into our regional meetings for Europe. It was a great session with most European nations represented event the Swiss decided to turn up, It your heart out EC!!!
Dinner proceeded and then it was off to the NIDA (National Dance and Acting School) theatre in Sydney for a performance put on by Cirque cho sole, rap groups, singers from around the world, a clown and an aboriginal performance. It was fantastic night with lost of color, excitement. It was a wicked night to be had watching people form around the world put on a fantastic show for us. (The free Champaign was a bonus too!!)
Following hat we headed back to St Joseph’s and went off to bed
Until tomorrow
Peace out

Umar
6.7.2004