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NATIONAL
ACTIVITIES
During
the course of 2004, SIDS undertook in-country
preparatory activities and selected their youth
representatives for the YVIL event in Mauritius.
Coordination
and selection was done by in-country organizations
such as youth councils, government ministries
responsible for youth, NGOs, and sometimes UNESCO
National Commissions were also involved.
It was ultimately
the UNESCO National Commissions that were responsible
for conveying the names of the representatives
to UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France.
Criteria
were established for the selection of youth
to participate in the YVIL event and it was decided
that participants should:
- be sufficiently mature to travel alone
and be no older than 23 years
- be actively
involved in ongoing and/or proposed youth
projects and activities
- have good communicative and motivational
skills
Where particular
SIDS sent more than one youth representative to
the YVIL event, they were asked to take into account
gender balance and, wherever possible,
to include youth from outer islands.
In some islands
specific committees were established for YVIL.
For example,
in Fiji, a committee was put together comprising
the UNESCO National Commission, the Ministries
of Education, Culture, and Finance, the University
of the South Pacific, and Live and Learn, an environmental
NGO, in order to involve youth in preparations
for YVIL and to select two representatives.
In the Caribbean,
St Lucia adopted a similar approach with
a committee comprising the Ministry of Development,
the UNESCO National Commission, the Caribbean
Youth Environment Network and the St Lucia Red
Cross. However, not all countries adopted this
combined approach, and sometimes just one organization
took the coordinating role.
An attempt
was made throughout the process to try and involve
as many partners as possible in the preparatory
activities to avoid the perception of YVIL as
an activity operated and supported solely by UNESCO.
Preparatory
activities varied from island to island and the
following is just a selection of some of the activities.
In St
Kitts and Nevis an essay competition was launched
by the Small Islands Voice National Coordinating
Committee, who also undertook the YVIL coordination.
The title of the essay competition was 'Evaluate
the environmental challenges and implications
for the sustainable future of Small Island Developing
States (SIDS)'.
The winning
essays by Fadil
Imo and Kennedy
Pemberton were posted on the Small Islands
Voice Youth Internet Forum. Winning participants
were announced in August 2004, and they, together
with other participants, took part in a televised
award ceremony and a verbal presentation of the
winning essays, including a question and answer
segment.
This was
an attempt by St Kitts and Nevis to ensure that
the YVIL activities were in the public domain.
As the two selected participants prepared for
the Mauritius event, they were helped by a national
youth committee that had been specifically created
for YVIL.
A poetry
competition was organized by the Small Islands
Voice Coordinating Committee in St Vincent
and the Grenadines. The winning entries were
announced and read at a town hall meeting, thereby
involving a wide cross section of island youth
and their communities. This activity was combined
with national youth consultations and youth awareness
seminars.
In Seychelles,
three youth consultations, organized by the Youth
Department, were held, one in August, one in September
and one in October 2004, each focusing on one
of the three YVIL themes.
This allowed
the Seychelles representatives to the YVIL event
in Mauritius a chance to gather a wide cross section
of views from youth in their country.
In another
part of the AIMS region, Sao Tome and Principe,
a youth consultation and radio talk-back programme
was organized with the help of UNICEF.
In Cook
Islands in the Pacific, another approach was
adopted by the Taporoporoanga Ipukarea Society,
an NGO and Small Islands Voice Coordinator, together
with the Youth Department.
In an effort
to make the selection process as wide and open
as possible, a short item on YVIL was broadcast
on television and following this an advertisement
was placed in the local newspaper, Cook Islands
News. Based on the responses, participants were
selected, after which a series of consultations
were held so that the selected youth representatives
could represent the wider youth community.
The above
represents a number of examples of preparatory
activities at the national level. However, not
all islands conducted such extensive preparations.
From the
beginning of 2004, islands were told that they
had to seek travel support for their youth
participants to Mauritius themselves.
UNESCO guaranteed
to provide accommodation, meals and local support
in Mauritius for two youth delegates per island.
However, funding travel costs proved to be a major
problem. Individual requests to regional organizations
for funding, by countries such as Cook Islands,
met with no success. And in the end very few countries
were able to cover the international travel for
their youth delegates.
In the Pacific,
regional partners, namely the Secretariat for
the Pacific Community and UNICEF, provided some
support for international travel. And the Indian
Ocean Commission, with funds from the European
Union, were able to assist some Indian Ocean
countries with international travel.
However,
in the Caribbean, potential funding sources
did not materialize due to funds being diverted
for post-hurricane reconstruction after the extremely
active 2004 hurricane season in the Caribbean.
As a result, UNESCO had to support, to a large
extent, the international travel of the Caribbean
youth participants.
Preparatory Activities:
- Regional Meetings
- National Activities
- Art Contest
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