Yesterday was an incredible day at the Youth on the Move conference. I started off the day by taking a cold shower at 7am. Needless to say, I was very awake after that. Following that we went to a breakfast of Nutella, cookies, and yogurt. After our healthy start to the day the American Red Cross delegation presented a 5 hour long session on youth leadership. It was split into three sections and I helped to lead the third part, about taking information back to each members’ National Society. To start my part of the session, forty youth members from around the world participated in the Ultimate Challenge (rock, paper, scissors). It went incredibly well and they had a ton of fun.
After returning from our icebreaker, we had a big surprise when the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Bekele Geleta joined our session. He made some great remarks about youth leadership and then stayed around for about twenty minutes to answer questions. I had the opportunity to ask him how he was going to make sure that trainings like the World Youth Meeting will continue to receive support from the IFRC. He turned the question back on me and, luckily, I was prepared! He told me that it is up to all National Societies’ youth to press their leadership and make it known that these trainings are valuable. After that surprise, we continued with our session and ended with some great energy moving forward.
Following the session, Bekele made additional remarks to all participants about the exciting future of Red Cross and Red Crescent youth and reminded us that we are charged with pushing the limits while still keeping our adult mentors up to date.
The day ended as every day here does: with music, dancing, and socializing.
This morning again I was greeted with a very cold shower and some more Nutella. I am getting into the swing of life here and looking forward to attending the session on climate change today. More to come, but in the meantime, here are some photos for you!
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It was great meeting you guys..in this pic we can see the Lebanese, japanese and Hong Kong Red cross