8th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations

Annalise, Hilary and Meghan attended the 8th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations in New York City on January 20 and 21st, 2011. The focus of the assembly was to look at corporate responsibility and social action in relationship to the Millennium Development Goals. There were some amazing panelists who were UN ambassadors that taught us so much about the UN and the direction they were going. A highlight of the panelists were people from Bridgethegaptv.org , and dosomething.org. Their media and strong connections around the world were inspiring and gave us many ideas about what we could do with current COE projects. The head of sustainable development at Pepsi Co spoke for an hour about the company’s projects around the world. It was really interesting to hear that such a huge corporation with an unstable reputation for social responsibility has really supported youth and other organizations to do amazing things through the Pepsi One campaign.

The Assembly had youth from all over the world, but mainly Africa and China. Many were already living in New York or other parts of the United States. The participants asked great questions of the panelists and the three of us were so impressed by the level of commitment, caring and motivation everyone exuded. At one workshop we were all very inspired by the work of one woman who uses journalism as a platform for social change. She is leading projects in Haiti and we were so excited when she talked about the importance of feeling comfort and safety with survivors of trauma. It reinforced our belief in the work we are doing with Bear Hugs for Haiti Project.

The UN conference was a venue for great learning and connecting. The ambassadors and representatives from different organizations inspired us with the work they are doing and gave us many new ideas on how to promote the connections of youth across the world.