UNICEF Junior 8 Summit

UNICEF UK hand picked a team of young people who have represented Great Britain at the J8 summit, a mirror image of the G8 summit held by world leaders to discuss major economic and political issues affecting their own countries and the international community as a whole. The team discussed with young groups from other countries how to change our world for the better, and then wrote a declaration to world leaders to ensure they take into account young people’s views when making their decisions.

The G8 is a group of eight countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S, who meet every year to try and agree on what each country can do to help achieve international goals. The J8 young people’s conference featured teams from all G8 countries, but also a ninth group who will represent other countries.

The British delegations was chosen on Thursday 30 April, from 10 groups of 4 members from all over the UK at the UNICEF offices. The ten teams had five minutes each to tell the judges and the other shortlisted teams why they are passionate about global issues, and then took part in a group activity to show team dynamics and individual decision making skills. The winners were Harry Phinda, Birzi Saleh, Melika Myers and Sara Saleh from Croydon, who went on to represent young people from the UK  at the J8 Summit in Italy in on July 9th 2009.

This years J8 Summit focused on four areas -

• Children’s rights in the context of the global financial crisis
• Climate change
• Poverty and development in Africa
• Education

The 14 young people at the G8 meeting were part of a larger group of 54 that spent the week in Rome, with participants representing Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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