austraLasia 768
ASIA-PACIFIC YOUTH TAKE LEADING ROLE IN GENEVA 'INFORMATION' SUMMIT
GENEVA: 11th December, '03 - World leaders from 176 nations, many of them the nation's president or vice-president, are expected tomorrow to declare a UN-backed recognition of youth as 'developers, contributors, entrepreneurs and decision-makers' in the world of information and communications technology. This will be by far the strongest langauge ever employed concerning youth in a UN declaration. It has not come to this point by accident. Young people themselves have been strongly involved in the leadup to the World Summit on the Information Society which concludes its first phase in Geneva tomorrow and will re-open for the second phase in Tunis in November 2005. Nick Moraitis, a young Australian, has been coordinating young people's efforts at the WSIS. Nick works for TakingITGlobal, an enterprise developed by the YCDO (Youth Creating Digital Opportunities) coalition. He sees the achievement of the proposed statement on youth (youth meaning those between 14-28 years in this context) as going far beyond a token 'helping youth' to being a strong paragraph on the centrality and possibility inherent in young people's contribution to the development of the information society.
Youth from India, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia-Malaysia-Borneo have been prominent in preparatory activities for the summit, many of these activities having an influence far beyond the notion of simple 'preparation. In India, for example there is 'Propoor', registered in Kolkotta and Singapore as far back as 1998. It involves youth taking sustainable development initiatives which respond to the needs of under-represented and marginalised sectors of society throughout South Asia.
The Salesians are represented amongst 677 non-government organisations at the summit through the Salesian Sisters.
GENEVA: 11th December, '03 - World leaders from 176 nations, many of them the nation's president or vice-president, are expected tomorrow to declare a UN-backed recognition of youth as 'developers, contributors, entrepreneurs and decision-makers' in the world of information and communications technology. This will be by far the strongest langauge ever employed concerning youth in a UN declaration. It has not come to this point by accident. Young people themselves have been strongly involved in the leadup to the World Summit on the Information Society which concludes its first phase in Geneva tomorrow and will re-open for the second phase in Tunis in November 2005. Nick Moraitis, a young Australian, has been coordinating young people's efforts at the WSIS. Nick works for TakingITGlobal, an enterprise developed by the YCDO (Youth Creating Digital Opportunities) coalition. He sees the achievement of the proposed statement on youth (youth meaning those between 14-28 years in this context) as going far beyond a token 'helping youth' to being a strong paragraph on the centrality and possibility inherent in young people's contribution to the development of the information society.
Youth from India, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia-Malaysia-Borneo have been prominent in preparatory activities for the summit, many of these activities having an influence far beyond the notion of simple 'preparation. In India, for example there is 'Propoor', registered in Kolkotta and Singapore as far back as 1998. It involves youth taking sustainable development initiatives which respond to the needs of under-represented and marginalised sectors of society throughout South Asia.
The Salesians are represented amongst 677 non-government organisations at the summit through the Salesian Sisters.
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