down to business / World Youth Conference 2010 in Mexico

sometimes, when people ask me what i do in life, i say i'm a youth worker.
there's some truth in every lie.

for 5 years now i have been involved in the YMCA and i would like to give credit to the movement and its people to be my second family. in this time i have grown and so have my thoughts, skills and Y-responsibilities. this summer, i was lucky to be selected as a Latvian representative of youth-led NGOs to the World Youth Conference 2010 in Mexico.

knowing that the conference is of a global level and organized in cooperation with the UN system i was (and still am) excited to be part of it and be one of the voices that would create a statement to be submitted to and presented in the next UN General Assembly in New York. what i did not know was that my participation in this would be as involving and direct. i must add that the whole event was deeply affected by the quality of organization that, firstly, left out almost half of the participants that were selected but could not come to the conference due to travel or visa arrangements and, secondly, let self-initiative and reaction to the changing circumstances be an important driving force of the process. as to my role, i became the facilitator for one of the 12 thematic groups preparing recommendations to the governments. having applied for the position earlier, i got selected as one of 10 global NGO forum's representatives that presented the statement to the governments forum and became observers in the latter, able to participate in most of the scheduled activities.

that i can tell you, the overall experience was rather thrilling. i'm not naive when it comes to business and not a big fan of "blahblahblah" either. yet, when i do something i try to do it the best i can and i can produce quite thoughtful stuff, after all. but seeing the "behind the scenes" was all worth it. to get a more experience-based feeling of how things happen. small things, big things. local-to-national-to-international-to-global things and the other way round. so i've now seen bits of all those levels. and i find it truly interesting.. provoking speculative assumptions in my head and a fresh willingness to do and learn.

for even more reading, here's my article on the WYC 2010 for YMCA Europe
you can download the official Statement of the NGO Global Meeting here