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Global youth gather at UN Headquarters for International Youth Day talks on poverty

Global youth gather at UN Headquarters for International Youth Day talks on poverty

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Young people from the far reaches of the globe gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York today to discuss measures they can take in tackling youth poverty at an event to commemorate International Youth Day, marked each year on 12 August.

“The world’s young people, now numbering more than 1 billion, are a major human resource for development and can be key agents of innovation and positive social change. Yet the scale of youth poverty robs the world of that potential,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message on the occasion.

With almost half of the world’s population under 25 years old and surviving on less than $2 a day, the repercussions of youth poverty are immense. Problems include hunger and malnutrition, lack of access to education and basic services, unemployment, increased disease and illness, homelessness and lack of participation in decision-making, Director of the UN Division for Social Policy and Development Johan Schölvinck said at the opening of the event.

International youth studying human rights as well as volunteers from New York-area YMCAs assembled to discuss poverty issues from their perspectives.

“I came because I wanted to learn something more about how things work out in different countries. After my interaction with people from Nepal, people from Uzbekistan and all the different countries I think people are the same everywhere. The problems are the same everywhere,” Vikas Sharma from India told the UN News Service.

“I knew poverty existed in the US, but I wasn’t aware that it was so similar. In Costa Rica, for example, a big issue a part of poverty there is the lack of education – there’s a lack of schools, a lack of money to pay teachers and that’s the same thing that we’re dealing with here (in New York). Before I went abroad, I wasn’t aware of how similar our problems are,” Janai Smith told the crowd of young people about her homestay visit to Costa Rica in 2005.

Community service and education were the poverty solutions highlighted in discussions. “Our challenge is clear: we must pay more attention to education and in particular to the transition from education to employment. And the ability of youth to find full and productive employment must be a central objective of national development strategies, including poverty reduction policies,” Mr. Annan wrote.

Many youth agreed with the Secretary-General. Rakhmadjon Sobirov of Uzbekistan stressed the potential of young people to help foster a better future in their countries by improving themselves through learning. “We see the only way is through education and becoming a specialist in our own field,” he said. “Whether as a lawyer or economist, everyone has their own share to contribute.”