It's been nearly a year since the 3rd World Youth Congress at Stirling University in Scotland - an amazing occasion. It was also the first thing I wrote about in this blog!

During the event I did lots of media work including film, writing and photography. Here's a short video I made with a friend:



It really helps me remember all those great times!

The final day of a weird and wonderful wonderful week. What can I say? To be perfectly honest, it was a bit anti-climactic after the hectic previous days. I didn't even spend very long at the UN - had to pack everything up in the hotel and check out first.

Once that was all done I went to one of the final side events with Keeley, which was surprisingly well-attended considering the timing. It was hosted by the European Youth Forum and TakingITGlobal, an interesting combination, and went pretty well. Presentations about both organisations were followed by a short discussion in which people reflected on the week. A Secretariat employee from the Youth Programme summed everything up.

It really has been unbelievable. I never thought it would be so busy, but that was part of the experience. I've hardly had any time to myself at all. People did warn me, but it's impossible to predict anyway because you never really know until it happens.

All the people I've met are absolutely fantastic. I still struggle to comprehend that within the UN there are 191 countries and representatives from each. Hearing global perspectives from other youth delegates was one of the best things about the week.

I've learnt a great deal about how the institution functions and it's a lot more complicated than I ever thought. For example, when I'd read resolutions or other documents before I never realised how much negotiation and deliberation it takes to get things agreed. You just see it on the page and it's impossible to tell, but people have worked for hours and hours to make it happen.

The youth resolution was looking decent last time I saw. Most others I've discussed it with have said positive things and that's a good sign. Unfortunately I didn't manage to organise things for the paragraph I wanted on youth-led development, it just went too fast and a few major circumstances were beyond my control. But there's still some strong text in there on that subject, so I'm not too worried really.

I think the youth delegates achieved good things as a group. Managing to get photo opportunities with Kofi Annan and Jan Eliasson shows we were on the radar and people knew what we were doing. Statements made by youth reps were all of a very high standard as well; although I didn't see them all I'm reliably informed everyone was great!

It's sad that many of us have left now. Keeley and Kristofer went tonight but I'm sticking around for another week to try and get the film organised. I didn't manage to sort out my NGO pass today so will have to do so on Monday. There's always something interesting happening at the UN so it will be good to stay and witness some of the 'normal' non-youth business.

October 6 was always going to be a big day. The General Assembly Plenary took place and there was a massive list of speakers! It was good to see many youth reps take the podium. Structurally speaking, the meeting consisted of two three-hour sections with two hours' break in between.

During this break we had another good photo opportunity - with Jan Eliasson, President of the GA. He was a very friendly, energetic man and spoke with many of the us after the pictures were taken.

Since there are three youth delegates from the UK, we decided to split the time between us. I had the first hour of both parts and saw some good speeches. Unfortunately I also missed quite a few, but I had to go downtown on the subway to collect a video camera for filming next week.

Although many youth delegates have now gone home, a few will still be here and I want to try and do some interviews about their experiences this week. It's a shame I couldn't get the equipment before but there's just been no time!

Apart from these things, nothing much really happened. The Plenary took up a lot of time, but this wasn't as busy as the previous days. Some youth delegates were on their way out and it was sad to say goodbye. In the evening there was another gathering with people from NGOs and that was good fun.

Wednesday was another early starter. A couple of youth delegates had been rushing around all the previous day trying to arrange a meeting with Kofi Annan and the result was a hope that he might show up at a side event at nine. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and we were in the Vienna Café with little to do and quite disappointed.

However, the Secretary General did give us a very brief photo opportunity a bit later. We assembled in the delegates' lounge a good half hour before he actually showed up and we were standing around for a while after being ‘arranged’ for the photographer. Mr Annan came and went very quickly, but it was all we could really expect since he was apparently scheduled to depart for Switzerland later that day. And there's still hope that we could have a proper meeting when he gets back, although many youth delegates will have since left NYC.

I sat in the Third Committee for about an hour after this, before leaving to make my final preparations for another side event I’d been invited to speak at. Entitled ‘Youth-led Development: Linking the MDGs to the WPAY’, this event was organised by the Global Youth Action Network, Peace Child International and a few other NGOs. My role was to deliver a speech on youth employment and then sit on a panel to answer questions from the floor. This is a tricky job because quick thinking is required in response to people’s points and I haven’t got that much experience of this kind of situation.

It went well, with quite a few people showing up; we were happy because there was another side event taking place at the same time being organised by the Swedish Mission on the subject of its national youth policies. That event also had a special guest: Jan Eliasson, President of the General Assembly – so to be ‘competing’ against this and still have a full room was a good achievement.

Side events ended at 2.45 and next up was the interactive round-table session on ‘Making Commitments Matter’. Everyone was allowed to speak and the meeting was designed to produce recommendations for action and implementation of the WPAY. What I enjoyed most was the fact that NGO representatives had the chance to voice their opinions; a great number were present, all with different ideas and experiences. They’re not allowed to talk in formal meetings so this was a real opportunity.

The three-hour session was split up equally between the three WPAY clusters, with a different chair for each part. Participation was the dominant topic and took up most of the discussion, overlapping into other sections of what was supposed to be a structured discussion. That can be the disadvantage of open sessions: people often stray away from the prescribed subject. Another problem was the tendency of people to speak for longer than the four minutes they were supposed to have.

Keeley and I presented the recommendations from our side event the day before and I was pleased to be able to share those with everybody. The next step is for the three of us to produce a formal outcome document which can hopefully be sent around to all the relevant UN departments.

In the evening there was yet another side event. Two people from MTV came in to talk about and screen a film they’d produced, featuring world poverty expert Dr. Jeffrey Sachs and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie on the road in Kenya. They travelled around villages, farms and a hospital with no running water where one doctor looked after 300 people every day. I could really feel emotions stirring in the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium and the show has been very popular on MTV already. Using popular media is a great way to reach young people, raise awareness about global dilemmas and hopefully get them involved in making a difference.

After the film there was a rousing discussion and the producers answered questions from the audience. Following this, a few of the youth delegates went to a bar and discussed the day’s happenings. It was one of the busiest yet for me, but also very productive and enjoyable at the same time.

This day began with a 'working breakfast' meeting at the Swiss Mission, on the subject of mental health. It was well attended, with many national youth reps coming along to discuss the situation on this issue in their countries and think about ways to improve things. Although this isn't exactly my specialist subject, I was able to contribute what I knew and it was very interesting to learn about the situation in other countries. And free food never goes down badly!

After that there was preparation work to be done with Kristofer and Keeley for our side event, scheduled to take place at 1.15. We had a runthrough of what we were all going to say just to make sure everything would go smoothly in the actual event. We rehearsed it all in the room where it would happen and felt ready once that was done.

I ran into one of the staff members of the UN Youth Programme and he invited me and lots of other youth delegates to a press conference on the launch of the 2005 World Youth Report. But this wasn't the only topic: the UN press officer went through all the day's news and we then had presentations about the report. It was dissappointing to see that most of the journalists' questions were related to other matters, not the youth report, but it was good that young people had a strong presence anyway.

Media at the UN seems to be very entrenched and centralised. Reporters have offices in the main building and there is a large area with all the latest press releases available in different languages. There's also a dedicated radio station which operates on site - several youth reps have been interviewed and hopefully this will be valuable publicity.

The official launch of the report took place shortly afterwards in one of the big meeting rooms and consisted of a series of presentations on the youth issues which haunt mankind today, given by leading experts who had contributed to the report.

Next it was time for the real side event, entitled "Youth Participation and Citizenship: Governments Must Do More!". It went incredibly well, with over 70 people squeezing in to conference room number five. They had a series of speeches and presentations, first from two guest speakers and then the three of us. We presented the outcome of the consultation conducted with young people in the UK and used these findings to stimulate discussion in the working groups that followed. Attendees were split into three separate sections, each dealing with one cluster of the WPAY, and discussed the issues; the points raised were then converted into recommendations for action.

We were all incredibly happy with the event and how everything went. In the evening we had appropriate celebrations, at a reception for youth delegates taking place at the luxurious residence of Michael O'Neill, the UK's ECOSOC Counsellor. This was also well attended, with many youth reps and national Third Committee members enjoying a pleasant evening of wine and canapes. The UK's Mission staff and the three of us youth reps stayed later and it was great to be able to ask Michael about different aspects of his job.

We went back to the hotel quite late but I had a speech to work on for the next day so was awake for a while more. On the whole this was another great and productive day, especially the side event - we really couldn't have wished for it to go any better.