It's not every day that you receive an email selecting you to represent YMCA at the UN

Blog written by Charlie Smith, Youth Ambassador from YMCA Norfolk, who represented YMCA England & Wales as part of World YMCA's delegation at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, in New York, on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 January.

It is not every day that you receive an email, stating that you have been selected to represent not only your local and national YMCA, but the World YMCA at the United Nations. Yup, the UNITED NATIONS. This is not small stuff but the big time. My immediate reaction was to pinch myself just to make sure that I was in fact awake and this was really happening.

After a long day of travelling, we were there! Checked in our little pod which would be home for the next few nights. Walking through the streets of New York to one of the many YMCA buildings they have providing affordable use of gyms, was just incredible. I am a short being but I felt so tiny walking in between buildings that had floor after floor! YMCA's Westside Building was equally as incredible. For a city with such modern construct to have this little gem of history was amazing.

Tuesday morning, the UN visit has arrived. And it was as incredible as I had imagined. The weather was questionable with snow and high winds, but that made for a wonderful backdrop to the views around the grounds of the UN. I had the great privilege to sit amongst the delegates from across the world, one of the best seats in the house. This just added to the experience.

It was great to hear in the opening section of the United Nations ECOSOC Youth Forum how the youth voice had a great role to play and that young people are the ‘innovators’, that we should allow all young people to ‘make noise’ at all times by removing those gatekeepers that they often come across.

Round table speakers gave me a great insight into what was achieved from so many across the world in various ways from fighting radical elements from the United Arab Emirates to educating young people in agricultural colleges providing them with a computer each in Cameroon.

To be perfectly honest, my knowledge of the ECOSOC Youth Forum was limited but this whole experience has opened my eyes to the vast knowledge and experience that could be utilised from various countries and that we should in fact share information rather than boast about ‘what we are doing’. It was an opportunity to raise concerns about different areas of work but to also provide advice on how to engage with young people who may be hardest to reach. 

This was evident in the breakout session I attended on the first day. I was able to meet and chat with various individuals about using science, technology and innovation to build engagement, to develop skills in this area but also most importantly build resilience and to help those that may have faced tragedy of some sort. As part of the group speaking mainly about resilience we spoke about the importance of having concrete foundations in place to then assist young people further with their development and how science and technology could assist with this. Conversations were based on improving ICT skills with young people and wider access to internet especially when a crisis had occurred.

We then had to report back our discussion to the rest of the breakout group. Without even thinking about it I placed my hand in the air to volunteer myself as tribute (Hunger Games reference for you there). So I had just said that I would speak in front of many on the main points we had made for future work- yeah I do not know why either. But I did it! I got up and spoke about our three main points to consider:

1. Building Science, Technology and Innovation infrastructure and improving literacy through local needs assessments as each country is different and requires different areas of technology.
2. Training of trainers to encourage community based interventions to identify specific skills and interests such as volunteer innovation hubs
3. Building data from all avenues in both public and private partnerships but from also those in the community to leverage big data. Also to ensure that the need of this data and the results are communicated those it would have a large effect on.

So I did it. I spoke at the United Nations, representing World YMCA! To say my mum was proud is an understatement.

Wednesday, Day two. This was as good as the first. Learning so much more than I could ever do by reading through information. I was able to get a real feel for what delegates wanted to express from their countries and organisations.

The breakout session around what is happening in Europe, North America and other states was as equally as interesting as the breakout session the day previously. We spoke about the European Youth Forum and shared vast knowledge of various government policies and how to engage young people further in the importance of their government and policies.

Having YMCA at the United Nations for the ECOSOC Youth Forum was really valuable. Many of the comments on how to engage young people and how to build and develop their resilience was something we were already aware of across the different YMCAs in attendance, or we were already working on this. We were then able to share across the delegates our own insight to this and often some of our suggestions had not even been thought of prior to the youth forum. We were able to give a youth voice at a global youth event which was invaluable.

This whole experience has opened my eyes to a larger picture and the importance of ALL YMCAs in the development of our young people as rightly said by one of the delegates ‘young people bring solutions rather than complaints’.