Well I'm finally back in the UK and have just caught up with the final outcomes of the conference. A government declaration was signed in the end but with just four changes made. Still at least language was added on looking after the sexual and reproductive health of young people and language was kept on comprehensive sexuality education - two things which we know work!
The final text of the government declaration (called the Guanajuato Declaration after the Mexico State that the conference was held) is available on the youth 2010 website at http://youth2010.org/portal/?lang=en
The final Statement of the NGO Global Meeting - the text which was agreed by 200+ youth delegates is also available in the same place http://youth2010.org/portal/?lang=en
What next?
Well the Guanajuato Declaration will be delivered to the MDG+10 Conference at the UN in September and to the 65th UN General Assembly. However the year of youth will climax with the UN Conference on Youth next July. It will be interesting to see whether this youth statement is used as a foundation for this meeting. Whether it will or not is still in question.
A useful first step...
Whilst the World Youth Conference wasn't a shining example of how to meaningfully involve young people, it was a step in the right direction. The fact that there was a forum for young people to meet and discuss a youth statement to feed into the governement declaration is an improvement. There were also youth representatives on the goverenment delegations. The next (and somewhat obvious step) in now to listen to the voices of these young people, trust their judgement and expertise on youth issues, and meaningfully involve them by taking on board their ideas, suggestions and comments. If this had happened, instead of being a Government Declaration on Youth Issues (closely observed by youth), the Guanajuato Declaration would have been a youth declaration.
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