Yesterday unlike Day 1, Day 2 (26th July 2011) of the UN High-Level Meeting on youth, there wasn’t such a long queue to get through all the process of security check and issuing of entry pass to have access into the 4th balcony of the UN General Assembly Hall.

The Day 2 event consist of only Formal plenary meetings. The plenary was opened by the President of the General Assembly, Mr. Joseph Deiss at 10am. In his opening remarks, the Mr. Deiss acknowledged all the stakeholders who have contributed to the formation of this Draft Outcome Documents that is to be adopted by this General Assembly: 112th plenary meeting – High-level Meeting on Youth

After Mr. Deiss introduced the plenary, each country’s government delegates were given time to speak on the Draft outcome document. There were two sessions; from 10am to 1pm and from 3pm to 6pm. There were more than 100 country’s who were on the list to speak. By 6:30pm the meeting was suspended though there were many other who did not have their turn to speak.

It was quite interesting to hear all the government delegates speaking about their efforts to work with their youth’s respectively.
• There are some governments who have Youth Councils recognized formally by the government,
• while others have a youth department in the government
• while many have a good youth programs coordinated by the government.
• And even interestingly three government delegates to this meeting were youths; they were from Australia, Germany and Sweden and they get to speak representing their country.

In most of the government delegates speeches they either
• Present their effort to work with their youths
• the challenges and achievements of their efforts
• reaffirming the Draft outcome document
• and provide some recommendations for UN to consider in its effort to work with the youths.

Two recommendations from some of the speakers I can recall are:
• to set up a UN agency for youth and
• to respective government’s to include youth delegates to such meetings

You can see all the speeches from Day 1 and Day 2 on the UN Web cast site at: http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/c/youthmeeting2011.html/a>

… so that all may live free from fear.

“Love your neighbour as yourself.” “Pray for those who persecute you.”

(Luke 10:27; Matthew 5:44)

The discussion about Peace in the Community, during the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica, started with the challenge of How do we live out the hope of “Loving our neighbours as ourselves” in a world deeply marred by violence in a variety of ways?

During the day, the plenary was focused in the discussion of violence against women, violence of racism and other forms of discrimination and violence caused by the assertion of religious identities, with the aim of hold forth affirmation of the dignity and equality of all human beings, re-imagining churches as open, just and inclusive communities.

Among the panellists of the day, Dr Martin Luther King III, the son of the famous civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr, brought to the IEPC participants the reflection on the ways the world believe in peace and justice. He reaffirmed that we can’t continue to preach peace and to practice war.

Dr Martin Luther King III, who experienced the violence in his own family, still believes that there is no way of peace if we try to solve our problems in a way “eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth”. He asked the communities of faith to not only talk about peace but to promote peace, being an example of peace in the world, starting in the individual homes.

As a young participant, listening to the son of one of the biggest leaders of civil rights, I felt really encouraged when he challenged the young people to talk about peace, using the media tools we have, like Twitter or Facebook. We, young women and men, can contribute a lot to the promotion of peace and make the world a better place. We need to make this topic our commitment and share how we are promoting peace in our community.

Every day, in our different realities we are facing discrimination of people and the struggle for justice. We have so many people without access to the basic needs and what are we doing to promote justice for those people? How are we helping them to achieve peace? In other regions, we have people suffering for religious conflicts. How we are facing it and how we are trying to help our communities in these questions? Some people are suffering the discrimination for being women or part of a minority. How do we accept that?

Yes, our communities are doing something. Still, it’s not enough. However, we need to share with others what we are doing and how is possible to turn the reality, creating a better world with inclusion of all. Maybe, the start can be participating and helping projects in our churches. Maybe, sharing with others our work. You can also do something avoiding discrimination of women and minorities. You just need to participate and be part of this call. The challenge is to love your neighbour as yourself, like Christ said.

I’ll finalize with the words of Marthin Luther King III: “We have to make this world a better place. Tweet what people are doing. It’s young people who are going to lead this struggle. It’s your calling. Every generation has a calling. Maybe this generation’s calling is a peaceful world.”

Daniele Schmidt Peter from the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil – serving as steward at the IEPC