 Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the Kofi Annan Dialogues Live. Today, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, is launching a series of online conversations on critical global issues with young people around the world. Mr Annan believes that the views and experiences of the younger generation are widely ignored by decision makers and wants to empower young people and inspire them to lead. And I'm sure Mr Annan will elaborate more on that point himself. And so, the Kofi Annan Foundation, in partnership with the global youth organisation One Young World and the International Telecommunication Union, has organised a series of dialogues with young people on key issues central to their lives. Today's session on the topic of young people and leadership is the first in this series. We are joined today by six impressive young people from different parts of the world who will share their understanding and experiences of leadership and their vision for the role of young people within decision making. Together with Mr Annan, they will explore three specific sub-themes. First, what does it take to be a leader? Next, young people and politics. And third, what are the strategies and tools to empower young people? Towards the end of the session, I will invite participants to briefly summarise their takeaways and to indicate any collaborative actions they intend to continue with or initiate as a result of the Hangout with Mr Annan. These were reported at the One Young World Summit 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. In this Google Hangout, we are also joined by an online audience. You can log into the dialogues website with the Google Plus profile or Facebook profile and join in. We encourage you to post questions and comments and we can incorporate them into the discussion. You can also join in on Twitter by using the general hashtag Kofi Annan Live or the issue specific hashtag Kofi on Leadership. One final thing, I am nearly finished. I also invite you to participate in our online poll which will accompany the series to capture and promote your opinions and ideas on specific issues. The results of these polls will also be shared at the One Young World Summit in Johannesburg in October. Now let me ask each of our participants to briefly introduce themselves and we will go first of all to Chris. Thank you Louise and thank you Mr Annan. I'm very excited to be participating in this. My name is Christopher Sinesi and I'm representing the United States. I am a co-founder and currently leading an organisation that works with homeless and at-risk youth. Through that experience I've worked with many young people and youth on the topic of leadership and a lot of times these youth don't understand what leadership is or that they can be a leader and so I'm very excited to participate in this discussion and learn from you Mr Annan and the fellow young leaders. Can we go to Dan now in Australia? Thanks Louise, yes from the land down under. My name is Dan Ryan and it's great to be with you all especially Mr Annan. It's a great privilege. My role is the 2012 United Nations Youth Representative for Australia which gave me the unique privilege of travelling around Australia in a comprehensive listening tour showcasing young people involved in socially innovative solutions on my website and then addressing UN General Assembly in October of this year and off the back of that I've got several exciting projects in a similar space so really looking forward to contributing. Excellent thank you Dan and now Emmanuel. Thank you so much Mr Annan for this incredible opportunity to speak with you. I'm Emmanuel from France. I have the great honour to be a one-year world ambassador and in the normal life I have two activities. I'm the co-founder and the president of Women Up, an association dealing with gender diversity in the workplace and targeting its action towards Gen White people. I am also an entrepreneur. I have created the Boson Project which is a laboratory to develop human capital concretely. We experiment innovative solutions in order to create value and values for feelings by betting on people and more specifically on young people and their creative power. Thank you Emmanuel and now to Mauritius for Corona. Thank you Royce and thank you Mr Annan. It's really exciting to be hanging out with you. So I'm Karuna Rana from the island of Mauritius and I'm a political development advocate. I'd have the chance to represent young people within the United Nations Environment Program and attend negotiations such as COP 17 and real estate after which I'm now looking into ways of how can we have effective new possible decision-making processes related to the environment. Thank you. Thanks Karuna and we're over to South Africa now to meet Leslie. Thank you very much Lewis and thank you very much Mr Annan for the great opportunity. I'm Leslie Massimi from South Africa and I've been involved with One Young World for the past two years and my involvement has been generally around leadership development and to spur young people to act in terms of changing the social economic and political sphere in our countries and both worldwide and I run a foundation the Leslie Massimi Foundation. I've been working very closely with the National Youth Development Agency with our mandate which is to empower young people and to ensure that they are represented across all fields of political and economic representation. Excellent thank you Leslie and finally to Sue Helen in your Mexican are you not but you're in Singapore. Yes exactly thank you Liz thank you Mr Annan it's a pleasure to be here and with everyone else. My name is Sue Helen I'm from Mexico I'm currently in Singapore and my involvement has been mostly in indigenous communities and power and women and young people to conserve the natural resources and to manage the natural resources in a sustainable way so I'm very excited to discuss all these topics with you guys. Excellent thank you Sue Helen and Mr Annan I'll now hand over to you so you can share with us your own views on the on the Covina and dialogues live and the importance of engaging with young people in decision-making thank you. Thank you Louise for your introduction. Let me begin by welcoming our young participants my dear friends. I'm joined by six dynamic young leaders who are committed to finding solutions to some of the most enduring challenges we face. I would also like to welcome all of you who are taking part online. Your input is crucial. Please send us your questions and ideas to enrich this discussions today and throughout the dialogue series. Your active participation will help to build a collaborative exchange of ideas between young people around the world. We are launching this series with a dialogue on young people and leadership. Future episodes will feature topics that young people are most concerned with today. Employment, education, democracy, the environment, crime and corruption. This initiative stems from my belief that the energy, ambition and capability of young people are amongst society's greatest assets. You have so much to offer and yet you are often marginalized from the discussions and decisions that affect your lives and will frame your futures. The purpose of these dialogues is to promote a more inclusive dialogue with young people. By amplifying your voices and concerns and by highlighting your projects for transformative change I hope that these dialogues will encourage other leaders to transfer their knowledge and experience to the younger generation. I also hope to share some of the lessons on leadership from my own experiences and career. I was fortunate to have served as UN Secretary General soon after the Cold War during a period of significant global change. My goal for these discussions is to inspire young people to step forward and take responsibility for the future of their societies and the wider global community. It is an urgent call for you are inheriting a rapidly changing world with problems of unprecedented scale and complexity. These challenges also affect today for example many young people face serious obstacles to realizing their full potential because of poverty insecurity unemployment environmental stress and conflict. However you are also blessed with unique strength information and communication technologies make you the most aware and interconnected generation. Social media platforms are providing you with opportunities to organize mobilize advocate and create. You have the knowledge and the tools to seize new opportunities and have an impact beyond the borders of your own countries. Unfortunately you are inheriting a world from a generation of political leaders my generation who have largely failed to address the global imbalances and industrial and institutional failures that are the cause of so many of our problems today but you must never doubt your own capacity to triumph where others have failed. You have to work and think about how we can make this world a better place for all for I have always maintained that you are never too young to lead young people must take ownership and leadership of tomorrow for that to happen you have to strengthen your capacity and widen your horizons as global citizens good global citizenship begins in the community be it a village or a school where you can team up with others to resolve problems but you must also be aware that your activities could have an impact on people thousands of miles away by acting locally and thinking globally young people can lead the way towards a fairer more secure world I look forward to our discussion today and hearing how each of you will lead and take forward concrete actions to advance change in your communities I will now ask Chris to start us off with our first question what does it take to be a leader Chris go ahead thank you Mr. Nod so the first topic as you mentioned is what does it take to be a leader and through my experience as I mentioned in the introduction I've worked with a lot of young people and a lot of times people say well can I really be a leader is it defined by a certification a title education what what is it to be a leader and so with that said what Sue and I Chris was a topic that Sue and I were talking about wanted to really pose that question on what defines the leader and so specifically to you Mr. Nod but also to the young leaders who are joining us here on video and those online is what does it take to become a leader and then what are the first steps one can take to be a leader good question Sue um yeah I think that one of the things that we were talking about and that you just mentioned is that it's it's related to the perception that society or people in general has on uh what it's a leader so we might think of people that are leaders as you know related to age or positions or formal education or something specific but then there's this whole set of skills that people might already have or the young people have that have obstacles to realizing and to realize that they they can be leaders so I think that another important issue is how can we empower people who already have these set of skills to to realize their full potential we've had two interesting comments may I hear from some of the others because when you talk about who what is the leader what it takes to be a leader we sometimes tend to look at people on the national scene big political leaders or mayors in our community but we require leadership at all levels and one doesn't have to think in terms of taking on the big issues of the world to be a leader in fact when I listen to all six of you introduce yourselves you're all your leaders already so let's open up the discussion and see where we go from here yes Leslie um thank you very much Mr Anand I think uh basing on what you just said um for for us um six youth leaders and many other one young world leaders and leaders out there I think you know we're moving slowly moving away from the conventional definition of what it means to be a leader because we don't need to be appointed into position into political parties or structures for us to become leaders but you're seeing more and more young people who are standing up who are becoming voices of change in their communities who are going ahead and doing things irrespective of whether the government is there irrespective of whether they are getting support or not and I think that's what kind of leadership that we need more young people taking accountability for their everyday lives being actively involved in shaping and changing their futures we thought needing an endorsement from government or from larger media or any other societies or so that that's a very good point Leslie that you make because a leader would normally confront a situation where you feel you need to do something about it I've seen young leaders decide we're going to help kids who are not in school by giving them lessons over weekends I have seen people say we need to help our villagers get clean water we don't have it and I'm going to do something about it it is leadership when you are passing by and you see somebody being bullied and you say enough stop we can't take this anymore you know and take on so it takes all all shapes and this is what is important doesn't have to be formalized and it begins from within you and in your relationship with all this and the problems around you that you want to impact on let's continue the discussion who else wants to come in I think down wanted young leaders speak up speak up sure sure um I meant then you want to come back here yeah I was actually going to touch on on one of the points you just mentioned there and that was in my travels around Australia I met a young girl called Michaela who had identified that many students were dropping out of school prior to going into the next level with a group of other friends she set up a mentoring group and just like you mentioned ran education on the weekends I think what was impressive about Michaela's effort was she was overcoming a lot of adversity with herself with the barriers that she faced in her personal life and also she was doing something that was uncharted she had no examples of people in her community doing that before and and whether it's in a local community or it's right at the top in the united nations or similar there's something to be said for people going into uncharted borders excellent excellent I see Manuel you are shaking your head you wanted to come in yeah yeah of course I think on this question the question of role model is absolutely crucial because us young leaders we really need role model to think it is possible to change the world for me it's a key point good I say Chris you lifted your hand yes I was just kind of one to add what we were talking about I think a lot of times I work with a lot of young people and a lot of youth who've been through rough backgrounds and a lot of times they just don't think they can make a difference they think because of the situation I've been in because of my past and who I've been I can't be a leader I can't make a difference in the world and so I think that's that is a roadblock for a lot of people and and it just it's it's hard to see because a lot of times people these young people that I'm working with they don't have goals they don't have ambitions and it's it's it's tough that you know how can we get them to see that they can do anything that they can follow their passion put their mind into something and make it happen but Chris for example you'll be surprised as you go forward this group of young people who don't seem to have any ambition who do not believe they can lead you will suddenly find one or two who suddenly begin to wake up and begin to lead and begin to take initiatives I mean if I take the six of you what made you believe that you can do what you're doing without that self-confidence and the initial feeling that you can make a difference that you can dare you wouldn't be doing what you're doing and sometimes it takes someone to inspire you what an action and there are times when we are surprised ourselves that situations force us to act and we are often amazed that there are strengths within us that we didn't know that comes forward because of a situation we have faced and one or two of you may tell me how you got started how you identify within yourself that you can lead and not the so follow why you took on some of the problems here you are dealing with who wants to comment Dan and then Lesney thanks mr. Anand for me it was summarized in a speech to the general assembly by Milena the slot like youth delegate and she called for a change across the world in our expectations of what youth can achieve and if I reflect personally on on what prompted me to do the next thing or get involved in the next project it's when I share with someone what I've done or what I'm involved in and they expect that I'm capable of it and make the point that it's a stepping stone to the next thing and whilst it's it's certainly okay to be surprised within yourself about what you can achieve yeah having somebody that is in confident that you're actually going to achieve the next thing can just be have a spiraling effect and and that's something I try and pass on to other young people is that expectation we actually can achieve and and we should have that expectation upon us yeah no that's a very important point because it's a third party validation people reinforcing what you're doing and belief and what you're doing let me go to Leslie Leslie let me go to Karina first and then come back to you Karina you have the floor thank you mr. Anand for me I would like to speak about my experience as a leader and it all started by having a sense of responsibility towards my country especially my island as you know Mauritius is a small island developing state very much from the variable to the effects of climate change so sustainable development is it's not a choice it's a matter of survival so it's sorted with with me having this sense of responsibility towards my island but then it's also continued when people started seeing me as a leader and I and they trusted me and then I realized the leadership is it's not about power leadership it's about creating more leaders that's very good Karina Leslie yes I was saying in my in my experience what what generally led me to to becoming a leader and starting the foundation that I've started doing the work that I've done was because I got into a point where I did not agree with the status cause not helping the way things are happening and because as a young person who tends to inherit the decisions that are made by our leaders I had to do something as a young person but you know I would I would really like you to share with us just a little bit in terms of because as young people who are trying to make a difference we are faced with constant challenges and along the way we often give up because most of our work are not coordinated and when we don't get the necessary support that we want or maybe we don't even get it fast enough and you give up along the lines you know how to tackle such issues to ensure that our ideas don't die along the way no I think you've made some very important points here but is it there's one thing to begin to lead but you also need to think in terms of organization and structures and those people you work with it is not enough to be there alone to be able to lead you need to have a group of people who would work with you you need to know what it is that you want you need to be very focused as to the vision and the direction and your objective you have to find like-minded people like you band together work together and decide what would be the most effective way to achieve your objective we did entail right into your parliamentarians we did entail sometimes a mini demonstration going to the office to let them know you have a point we did entail getting other young people together and say let's do something about this and when we act others will follow or we will wake up you know and I don't feel that because you are young people will not listen to you or you cannot lead as I've said time and time again you are never too young to lead if the idea is good and the objective is clear you will be able to lead and you will get the support necessary but of course when you say where do we go for support you must also know what support you need to be able to articulate it and and make demands you'll be surprised the support does not necessarily have to come from the government sometimes people in your own community some of the companies in your community will be inspired by what you young people are doing and support you through donations through offering facilities to make your work successful there will be resistance there'll be others who will be opposed who will think these young people are being oppity and jumping ahead of themselves you should be able to take that and continue don't let it dissuade you you can try and explain your position but you have to carry on thank you sir any other comments on on this I think we are soon coming to the end of this segment of our discussions Luis I think I see you want to come in here I do we've got many comments coming in online from all around the world there's a couple of questions which you've among you addressed about the best qualities that are required for effective leadership there's one question from Agiroba Daniel who's asking he would like to know why it is so difficult to have intergenerational partnerships despite the fact that the role of young people in making things happen continues to be celebrated he or she feels that they want young people to talk as young people but they really don't want their voice to count there's an interesting point and there are a couple of people asking how you would describe a bad leader how do you describe a leader a bad leader a bad leader oh no I think there is some interesting points have been raised here because it is not young people must talk to each other but the older generation and the younger generation must also talk that dialogue is absolutely essential we cannot tell the young people the future is theirs they are going to inherit the future and they are going to be responsible but we don't associate them with the decisions we are taking which will impact on that future and this is why it's extremely important that the intergenerational dialogue takes place that in committees either at the local on the national level we should find ways of bringing in various generations so that when we talk of a generational change the next generation is ready to take over the difficulty we've had in our world when you look at politics and others is that the those who get there hold on and hold on for so long and sometimes don't want to move at all and do not create space that allows others and the young people to come up and this is something that we need to do something about and I can tell you almost every group I mean I keep saying let's bring in the next generation we are all aging tomorrow we'll all be gone and you don't want to create a vacuum you need to have continuity and you can only have it by bringing in the young people and relying on their energy their ideas and working with them to move there forward a bad leader is not easy it is easy to to describe I mean you see leaders who do not listen who believe they are always right who are stubborn who in some cases even when the decision is patently wrong can not only not change the direction but refuse to listen to all this you have to be open as a leader you have to learn to listen and a leader need not always be right a good leader is also a good follower you must remember that Emmanuel I saw your hand go up yeah I would like to add something about intergenerational issues we work a lot about these issues in my company and I am wondering how can we build pairs of leaders a young leader and a whole leader working together a kind of reverse monitoring what do you think about this idea the idea of young leader and an old leader working together no that working together yes that I think is ideal that is very great in today's world first of all the older person may have wisdom and ideas that the young person may have you on the issue of modern technology and communications and others have a lot to teach the older person and that is a powerful combination and you can share your experiences and build a dynamic modern company and be able to network with others where the old approaches may not be as effective as the new one so the idea of combining forces old and young I think is a wonderful idea and I encourage you to do that okay maybe would you agree to team up with us so to do the pair okay should I I think we've been at we have we should move on to the next section no if you're ready okay let's let's move to the next session they're still part of today's discussion we are going to in a way we touched on it briefly it's young people and politics young people and politics and I think you are all living in a very exciting times in terms of politics and social activism so I open up that topic and I would want to call on Karuna and Leslie to lead to make the first comments Karuna you go first thank you sir so for me when it comes to young people and politics there are two main aspects of this the first one is how do we deal with the apathy of young people towards politics and get them interested in politics because from what I understand politics is considered as something very dirty very complicated dense and even repulsive to young people and it's not a priority it's not a career option for most young people young people are more keen on getting a good job a good education a good living life a good lifestyle and politics is not a priority but these are the very young people who criticize politicians and politics and want want to live in a better world they want social reform so how I'd like to know how can young people how can we deal with the apathy of young people and and show them that the only way they can the only way that they can like the only the only way that they can get involved in politics is actually to come in the dirt and I also think it's we call politics dirty because we allow politicians to make dirty moves and the second thing I want to talk about is the governance side of it how can we have the correct framework for young people to be involved in political decision making not just be involved but be involved actively effectively for example I worked on a project on a campaign called wake up call nourish the wake up call nourish this last year where we are obscene nourishing government to include an official you've delegated the real best 20 summit this is because I've attended a lot of UN conferences and environmental negotiations where I've seen young people either are underrepresented for example from nourishes despite being the most vulnerable or if they do attend the summit we treat it as mere observers we're not given the we're not given access we have different badges we're not given access to all internal meetings we don't have as much as say in the negotiations so how can we have the correct framework for young people to participate in such conferences and from what from my experience of dealing with the nourishing government and asking them to involve young people in political decision making I found out that there were three challenges one is bureaucracy and these procedures take a very long time the second one is do we treat young people different from civil society because when we ask the government to have young people in the official delegation our minister told us that if we put one young person will have to put someone from the women's group from the NGO group and it's going to be a very large delegation and the last one is how can we convince the older generation that we are indeed mature enough to mature enough to participate in decision making we have the capacity we're not just mere noise makers but we can be very active partners so these are just two aspects that I want to talk about thank you very much Harina you've made some very good points let's now turn to Leslie Leslie thank you very much I think it goes without saying especially in the context of South Africa where we have elections coming up next year and you know the picture is almost the same everywhere we have set as young people to inherit chronic social economic and environmental challenges that our governments are failing to to deal with and as young people who have a larger stake in the destinies of our nations and so it's very important that throughout the political process we are involved actively but the reality on the ground is very different I mean you look at the wall picture where the generations are becoming more younger and more younger in South Africa for instance we have over 70 percent of people being under the age of 35 when you look at that and you look in comparison in terms of their representation in the policy making processes in government are we really mirroring the kind of society that we are seeing on the ground that you know that that does not happen in terms of political leadership and from political rhetorics where you hear our leaders saying we're going to make changes we're going to do so forth and the political reality there exists a wide gap and as a result there's political apathy amongst young people so the questions that we are bringing as young people is to say how do we become relevant not only relevant by starting one organization here and doing one project there but how do we formalize ourselves to become a force to be reckoned with that can change the political course of our nation and how can we then inspire other young people those who I mean we need to take into consideration that other young people are not at the stage where they are politically educated so they don't know their dynamics how do we bring those young people into the playground and say become politically active be able to make and hold your leaders accountable how do you do that if you do not even know what to look at to begin with so so those are some of the few issues that I would like us to discuss so that even next year going into elections from South Africa as young people who are able to have a wider and louder stance thank you very much but I think you are right that most societies today have a large bulge of younger population the younger people want to get involved in in politics but to get involved in politics you have to have structures and you have to have objectives let's assume that the issues of great concern to your generation is unemployment the environment the fight against corruption and the sense that the political leaders are not doing enough about this how do you then organize yourself to ensure that they do act on them how do you organize yourself to ensure that these issues of consent you move up the political agenda it becomes a priority also for the politicians you can only do that if you organize yourself and become a force and you have the tools through social network you can organize we saw what young people and the organization did for example in the elections in the united states like that led to the election of president obama in the first and the second elections why can't young people organize themselves in your societies put pressure on the politicians to focus on your issues and when they know you have that sort of structure and you can impact on the results of elections they will pay attention to you otherwise they are not going to come looking for you you have to make them focus attention on all the other lobby groups who lobby politicians go to leaders to get what they want this is what they do and you should or if you are a member of a political group make sure that the youth wing is active is organized is participates at the grassroots level can get other young people to participate in politics apathy is not the answer when people have the right to vote and they don't vote they are making the situation worse and we also have to remember when we look around the world people are dying to get the right to vote and yet some of us who have it don't use it and if you don't you have yourselves to blame so define your objectives organize and make this happen you have the capacity who else wants to comment on this Manuel thank you about this question of young leaders and politics i have made a little experience i would like to share with you at the beginning of the experience we had a conviction young people wanted to be more present in the fields of politics but the old politicians will simply not accept to live so we organized la relève a french sin tank dedicated to putting the youth back in the political game we organized three meetings with highly motivated young people from every sector and very different professional activities and it was a failure why because young people no longer consider politics as a way to achieve their goals for society they have ideals convictions but they don't want to talk they want to act concretely and they do act concretely we discovered many young entrepreneurs who created their companies and will have a real impact on the world on the way to do business on society so basically by doing business they go back to the very roots of politics they animate the life of the city so we conclude that at least in developed countries entrepreneurs are maybe the new politicians what do you share this point of view in manuel i think you've raised a very important issue in the sense that uh sometimes the older generation who have seats in parliament who have a political advantage want to hold on to it and they don't give it up easily they see the young as a threat which is normal it's a normal way of politics but the young should not be dissuaded or discouraged so easily you you have to persevere you have to organize you have to use your numbers and put up candidates that you can support and can make changes in the political earth and the idea of going to business and entrepreneurship that is fine you need to create jobs and it's interesting enough is small medium-sized companies that create the jobs not the big corporations so the more small and medium-sized companies we have you're right it's good for the society and the community but if the smart young people refuse to go into politics and want to focus on business who do you think is going to make the laws for you in parliament do you leave the same politicians you don't trust where to make laws for your community and even for business or you want to be there and participate in the legislation that will affect your community that will affect our businesses then that will be supportive and so you it's not either or you need to be in the political arena as well but bravo go ahead and create the companies create jobs but have an impact on the politics as well but don't you think it exists another way to do politics through business well we've well we uh it depends i mean if you look at the system in the united states who are quite a lot of uh businesses do not necessarily put the corporate leaders up for elections but they love the politicians to do what they want and and then of course the citizens complain that the politicians are allowing the businessmen to influence legislation to push them in the next in the direction they want them to do and that creates tensions and i i would tell you that will create even more tensions in france if that were to happen that they feel is a businessman business women and the rich people in the corporate world who are steering politicians in in parliament i think that quite a lot of that would happen but i really also think you need some people also in the arena in the parliament and don't give up politics altogether and vote apathy really works against your interest thank you leslie yes i'm karuna touched on on a very important issue from my side and what she mentioned was that you have in some other instances where government and leaders would would would get young people to be represented in certain structures whether be in terms of their union delegation or even in parliament but however you find that those young people are only sent for face value their contribution are not taken seriously because apparently we are said to be a very radical generation and most of our elder leaders are indifferent to the ideas that we come with so how do we ensure that within those structures that the opportunities that we are given to represent the objectives of young people on the ground how do we ensure that they are taken they are taken seriously by the leaders and we are not only represented for the sake of numbers and face value yeah i i i think here uh some of what you and karuna have said will happen does happen in the sense that in some of these institutions there is a tendency to take seniority in age rather too seriously in the sense that this is a young woman a young man what does he know pay your dues and then you can make a contribution but you also have a way of dealing with that you can identify some of these old men and women who are leaders in the group in the parliament or the committee and try to explain to them what you are trying to do and also the fact that you are you are the voice of the youth it's not you alone that you have thousands behind you who share your view you may sometimes even invite them to come and talk to your group and when they come and meet the group who are working with you and and and see them in reality they will not only be seeing young people as politicians they would also be seeing votes and they know that with that support you can put the heat on them you can put their feet to the fire and they will begin to listen to you you have to work our strategies of how to be effective how to get them to listen don't give up to say they don't take you seriously yes in a way if you go as a part of the delegation to the UN General Assembly the governmental policy may have been made even before you take off you you board the plane and they go to New York and repeat it at that level is too late to make an input but the input has to be done at home before you do listen to it and when you go back to say I heard what you said at the UN in New York but that doesn't reflect our our views we the youth this is the way we see it and I hope next year if you go you will reflect have a chain get into dialogue with them and do try to have your inputs I see Dan was to come in yes two things I just wanted to say briefly that in my role it's the UN youth delegate for Australia I had a unique privilege of connecting to politicians and it was one of the questions Leslie that often came up is your role you know tokenism but Mr. Ananas identified one thing that was rang true to me and that is that it starts a dialogue and it and it's the start of a process yeah and it means that those relationships are built and that understanding is built so when I advocate for change I've got a better awareness of the complexities so that's my point sorry go on yeah I think Dan has made a point here because all of you the young people all you want to change things which is so so transient nature and because you are young and you want to change you're also in a hurry and sometimes you tend to be impatient change is a process it's not an event and sometimes it can't take time so you have to learn to be patient and sometimes even have a relative idea as to how long it may take you to make the change and don't be frustrated and don't be put off so easily because there is a time element to effect and change and continue Dan you want go ahead yeah Mr. Ananas the second point I is back to your discussion with Emanuel prior and it's about business and politics and my question is what defines success when a young person is involved in politics in capitalism profit defines success and that is never satisfied you see people get more and more and more profit and they're never satisfied and that drives them to achieve great things what what's the equivalent in the political realm I think in the in the in the political realm the kind of changes and success you are referring to will be gradual for example in a situation of high unemployment if a young leader or young organization were to be able to organize themselves and get a message to the government that for us the most important thing is to create jobs to create opportunities or give us facilities to start our own company and we would want you as a come as a government to come up with legislation and approaches that will support our needs if you get that sort of legislation or even get a serious debate in parliament on the issue where there had been none you are it is successful if you can organize yourself in a situation where last elections the number of young people voting was very low and with the mobil advocacy mobilization grassroots movement you get the young votes to go up by five percent or ten percent that is success if you're able to get young leaders elected to keep the boys up that is success even if it's not the young leaders but leaders who are sensitive to the concerns of the young to the concerns of the environment and and the issues that you are uh you feel strongly about that is success and and and so there are many ways of measuring success it doesn't even sometimes necessarily mean that the leader the youth leader himself or herself has to be elected to parliament you know and and you can do some interest i've seen young people doing all sorts of things look at the change educational reform in chile for example led by the movement led by a young woman camila and the students and it brought about national educational changes thank you and so it's it's easier to measure success in the corporate world because it's optimization of profit if you made hundred dollars last year and you make two hundreds hundred percent in in this easy but in politics and social issues it's much more difficult louise yes i just thought you might like to hear some of the comments that are coming in through social media we have a carissa in texas who says that she agrees with caruna um and that we very much need to work on getting more young people involved in politics to have a voice for for their future and she thinks we allow politics to be called dirty because we allow politicians to make dirty moves um uh barca in the maritius um she says that civil service even more than politics is not seen is not youth friendly and that the imperative is to find ways to overcome bureaucracy and establish leadership within political structures and that's coming from a girl that is a civil servant um uh and tim kuk jofa says that in africa this and this is touching on some of the points that you've got you've just discussed he says that in africa where leadership is associated with age and so-called wisdom that comes with it young people are advised to stay away from politics and even those who tried feel like outsiders and seldom make any significant impact so that's reflecting some of the points that leslie was making and we've got hasan nada who's talking um from egypt and he says that the problem they have there in organizing youth groups is that statistically speaking it is a huge group of almost 87 million people and so that they find that youth groups are very scattered and we'd like to learn more about how to collaborate and organize such a vast number because the current result is that hundreds and thousands of youth groups scattered around and are disorganized they end up debating with each other instead of addressing the thing that they wanted to address in the first place um and and a final point that i'll bring in from from simon who's floating from the netherlands that has just um completed a research study in sierra leone he says that in many african countries the question is not about organizing young people are hungry jobless and uneducated we need more than lobbying the people that lobby are the underprivileged few the the my research it's sorry the privileged few i do apologize the people that lobby are the privileged few he says his research in sierra leone last year showed that while young people are not oblivious to the issues that affect them they want food education and jobs first no those are useful uh comments and of course food jobs and education are basic and one would want them but if you are not getting them from your government if you are not getting them from those in authority who cannot organize themselves and lead to make sure these services are provided do you sit on your hands or do you decide to do something about it and i think uh one point we should not forget when we talk of young people taking action young people organizing themselves young people cannot organize themselves and stand alone as you've noticed other groups work with each other they link up with each other the youth group will have to identify the political forces at play and which ones they can link up with to get their objectives achieved so i'm not suggesting you work alone but when it comes to organization and networking you are better at it than the older older generation you have the tools i mean when i hear people talk about the arab spring the arab awakening i say internet revolution the internet was a tool who they used to organize uh themselves and you can use that to organize yourself pull together your group and link up with other forces on the political scene to achieve your objectives and when you are that well organized and they know you can make a difference on election day my friends i can assure you you have more influence than you can handle and think think about that caruna is there something else you want to say you you started this off with some very useful comments haven't heard what others have said anything else you want to add yes thank you mister and i just want to thank leslie for bringing up my point again i just want to uh from my own experience of dealing with ministers um it's very important um to have respect respect is particularly important in the african society and the maritian society and you need to find the right balance between respect and being asserted if you're not respectful to um to each other not just politicians but to each other you will be considered as a noise maker and as a young person we don't want to be considered as a noise maker and not be heard but rather as someone who can bring in constructive criticism and solutions um very quickly a second thing which i wanted to ask you mister annan is if we have the time uh what is your experience of politics back then in your time and now how is it different do you think um young people uh be young you're more inclusive back then than now you mean the difference in politics between young people at my time and young people now you mean is that the question yes how do you find yes what what's how do you find it different when we talk about politics and young people back in your time and now yeah i think in fact uh in some ways young people today have more opportunities than they did in my time uh first of all uh someone referred to age and importance of age in africa when i was growing up that was even more important that uh the young were to be seen not heard and uh it was also the the struggle for independence and often the young were in the streets part of the demonstrations but not necessarily part of the political decision making that has changed over time we didn't have the tools that you have today but in your in today's world you are you are you have the tools you are better educated you have lots of information and lots of knowledge which cannot only be limited to you can also share it with your own parents with your in your own homes and in fact the education you can offer across the board to your peers in discussions at home and sharing what you pick up from your own research can play a very important role what i would advise is really refused to be frustrated refused to be provoked because you feel you're not being listened to or being taken seriously you have to understand that the older generation will have to take you seriously it's a question of time and be persistent be persistent if you get frustrated and walk away you're undermining your own course one doesn't have to be rude one doesn't have to be aggressive but can make the points firmly and consistently and organize to put pressure on the politicians and the leaders manual did you did i see your hand up no no okay good should we move now to the final segment let's let's move now to the final segment and here i'm going to ask uh uh dan and immanuel to lead us what are the strategy strategies and tools to empower young people strategies and tools to empower young people dan you go first and then immanuel yeah sure um i reflect on a speech that i heard you give um mr anamwe said tolerance intercultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where people are becoming more and more closely interconnected and i'm interested about um i'm ammanuel speak more about some of the positive impacts of this interconnection but i'm interested on your wise reflections on some of the negative impacts of this interconnection many young people spoke to me as i traveled around australia about the impact of cyberbullying and one young girl um sarah in manigese south australia she said is this increased incant connectivity through social media overall a good thing um so yeah i guess there there has been some negatives that have come with this um and especially with in regard to barriers to young people are achieving some of those are put up by um different special interest groups and religion um and i'm just wondering what your perspective is on this okay let's hear from manuel and then our reactor manuel yeah mr anam i have a global question about employment of young people divided in two parts and i know the the first part of my question is a little bit idealistic uh we are in a context of worldwide crisis both economical and political and do you not believe that this crisis is a huge opportunity to give a more important role to young people since uh our system your system is not working very well i'm thinking about global governance about syria about our tentative to regulate the financial system why don't we gamble on youngness just to try not only in politics but everywhere this is the first part of my question and the second one is what do you think about all these alternatives powers created by our generation the first global generation through internet and new technologies i'm thinking about anonymous the occupy movement the indignados etc uh do you not believe that it's a new way of expression communication action and then employment a kind of counter power created by young people with their own tools to express themselves a new way to impact the world thank you very much yeah no i i think today we live in a in a truly interconnected world and what is sad is at the same time we are seeing loss of tensions within society we are witnessing it is a time when people from all over the world from all cultures all races are mixed together live living next to each other in our cities and it is at the same time where we have the tensions and sometimes uh tensions about immigration tensions about religion tensions about others and barriers put in the way of young people and women and these barriers will have to be removed because any society that doesn't use all the talents of its society is going to be at a disadvantage particularly if you don't develop and exploit the talents and the energy of the youth uh it's extremely uh important and of course you are right to say that today the world is so interconnected you have when i look at civil society you have robust civil society movements that cut across the world whether they are in australia in mexico or in south africa they are able to network and come together to have an impact uh we we are seeing economic financial and social problems all over the world and unfortunately because of this i have the sense that the trust the trust between people and leaders is broken and that has to be really re-established because if that trust is not there and it's not re-established it's extremely difficult to put through the changes that are required it's extremely difficult to put through the changes because the people do not believe whatever the leaders tell them and it becomes a catch-22 situation and so the young have a lot to do to play and apart from coordinating and cooperating with each other you also have to feed into the political leadership of your country and and push for the right changes that you you want to see and often you can bring to bear some of the lessons you've learned from your own contacts around the world let's let's open it up to the others chris um i kind of won the bill off of a dance topic um and the negativity of social media um he mentioned cyberbullying and there's another term called slacktivism that i've been hearing a lot of and basically it's people you know liking things on facebook or feeling like they're making a difference with activism but it's really sometimes just clicking or things like that um there's a campaign by unicef recently called likes don't save lives and i saw this commercial with two young boys um and they were saying how you know we have 180,000 likes maybe in two months we'll get 200,000 likes and that will help us um i agree that you know campaigns and awareness is positive and can absolutely bring awareness to issues like we were talking about earlier in politics but i would love to see what people think about the term slacktivism and and that we're not maybe taking it to the next level as far as social action and taking it to the next step besides awareness so you're making a difference between positive activism and the kind of activism activism which is self-serving but doesn't really add much to society and i think we see a lot of that too yeah does anyone else want to uh comment sue do you want to say anything dan and then sue sue are you still with us we haven't heard from you okay okay let dan go and then sue thanks mr anan and my i recognize what you said chris perna and i agree with that i actually addressed some of those thoughts in my speech to the general assembly and i'll i'll send you a link through to that um in talking about social media um one of the things i also mentioned in that speech was all the benefits that we've heard highlighted by mr anan and by manuel are not necessarily available to all and there are two that i'm thinking of um the divide in terms of age um and we have to be aware of the digital divide um in that those that who do not have experience with technology um they need to be still benefiting um so there needs to be some kind of process there whereby they're educated um the older ones amongst us that is but perhaps more pertinent to the work i'm doing is those in least developed countries um i'm partnering with an organization which is connect the blue continent and we're looking at the small pacific islands where there's not the incentive for a telco to go in there's not the incentive for a telco to invest in infrastructure for internet and therefore we're getting this digital divide and i'm really interested to see some strong solutions whether it's a sustainable development goals in post 2015 or other ideas that can address that thank you excellent excellent uh uh su yeah um well i want to uh take on chris points about uh how the the new this new term that he was talking about i think i i don't see any downside on expanding the level of awareness and and the fact that people will be just liking things that only means that they're just becoming the information is being shared and related to that uh i was reading this article the other day that was talking about about this phenomenon it was saying that partly one of the reasons is because the information that we get is so broad and so large we we tend to get a lot of information from things that we don't see in our daily lives and that when we see this information we tend to be more indifferent however the point they were trying to make is that uh when you're going to smaller scale and when you're going to like people trying to achieve a goal with uh either crowdfunding or through facebooking or things like that there has actually been many cases of success that people have seen that this particular problem is very close to them and through this expansion of awareness it's easier to contribute or to you know make a difference on it good no thank you very much who wants to talk about activism how do we ensure that the kind of activism we engage in as young people is constructive it's not self-serving it's not negative and that uh we are trying to impact on our society so you want to see your hand up oh no okay good nobody louis you have you've heard from the wider world and i've heard a little from the wider world yes they are and they're tending to agree with um with what's been said um some people are talking about the the usefulness of social media obviously um and um and a couple of other posters talking about the difficulties of connecting those movements together to make them more effective um but that's specifically about um tools rather than strategies yeah yeah but i think uh i don't know whether it was dan one of you made an important point that these tools are not available to everybody yeah which which is a fact uh but then even those who do not have the tools the kind of tools we we we take for granted can organize themselves uh to um uh protect their interest i have seen situations where villagers have sometimes working up and challenge the leaders to do what is required for them to uh lead and and and it's one of the i think the last time i've sort of in previous conversations i've indicated that where leaders fail to lead the people can make them follow the people can lead and when i say the people can lead i mean that because um uh if if there's enough noise enough pressure enough organization the leaders will follow the people but if the people are apathetic they don't vote they don't care you're leaving the field to the politicians to do whatever they want and there are wonderful examples of the people making the politicians follow we saw it in india on the question of the corruption when azari did the um um hunger strike and thousands went to the street and the government reacted in in that case they were for we've seen some of it to some extent in north africa we've seen it in your own cities then i see your hand this up yeah i risk commenting too much no no that's fine one of the things that i learned from a one young world counselor um oscar morales who was the founder of a million voices against phark is that social media can be really powerful in tearing down a bad thing um the cause becomes the champion people get behind that and they can tear down a bad thing yeah my question is does it have potential for establishing a good thing can it be useful for the development of character that character um virtues um aspirations within young people to improve well-being and to flourish and and really develop something more than just the maintenance of human rights what are your thoughts on this okay leslie you come in if you want to comment on the now come in leslie you have the floor yes thank you thank you mister just dating on dance point i think in in my personally and in my experience what i found is that um because of the ease and all of our interconnectivity and how accessible the internet and social media is you found that our efforts are often replicated um for instance in south africa you'll find that we're starting a youth advocacy group and then one is also starting it all all over and as such instead of strengthening the effort that oftentimes discards our efforts and you have all these dissected groups doing similar thing but not coordinating and you know that that presents a a difficulty from from having a unified voice as young people and maybe you would you you could touch on on on that just a little bit and i was having a conversation with a friend about the power of um social media and what we found is that that's not where it should end just on social media how do you make the transition from starting the conversation on the social networks and then moving to formalizing it so that it works on the ground it does not end off facebook or twitter no very useful comments from both of you uh first of all i think um social media and the tools we have can be used constructively and positively whether it's an issue of human rights whether it's on the fight against poverty or the fight against corruption a lot can be done yes you're right that it it can be fragmented but that is also the the the the wonderful thing about the the net is in that you can coordinate very easily let's assume that you decide to set up a campaign to fight corruption and you discover 20 other people are doing the same thing which is fine would you think of reaching out to them and say hey let's come together coordinate strategy create a real force and go to our politicians or those who should take elections make this public let them know there's real energy behind this and that the issue we are dealing with has legs and we want action i have seen this done across the world for example when we were trying to set up the international criminal court ngos from around the world linked up and supported the effort and put collective pressure on their governments to support the effort another example is the banning of land mines which killed so many people even after wars lying there waiting to maim someone we could not have got the convention without civil society and they were spread all over the world but they coordinated their efforts to have a real impact and i suggest you can do the same at your national level but it it it takes the courage to reach out to the others and say let's work together we have greater you'll be amazed as to how receptive most of them will be some will not because they want to run their own show and lead but many will be attracted by this possibility of coming together and pushing for the common good um mr. and i interject we've got about 10 minutes left um just slightly over that and um it would be um perhaps a good opportunity to ask all the participants to briefly summarize what they've what they've gained from the discussion today and whether they've got any ideas for action or initiatives that they can continue with or start as a result of the hangout um and um we'd really look forward to talking about some of those things that the one young world summer in in in october and then we can move to your concluding comments that'd be all right that would be fine and i think it's very good the emphasis should be action what actions are you going to do when you go back home this we've had very useful discussion some good ideas have come up but you're not going to leave them to me you are the leaders of the 21st century what are you going to do when you go back sum up very briefly 30 seconds each let's go ahead we start with your craze great thank you um so yeah this has been very invaluable um from from starting about when we first started talking about what is a leader you mentioned leadership can be can happen at all levels and i think that's a huge takeaway regardless of where you are you can make a difference in your school your community um and your nation the world so i think that was a big big takeaway for me and um but as far as action there's a lot of discussion on connection collaboration working together um and that's something i'm very passionate about as well um leslie made a comment about you know it doesn't end at facebook we need to take it to the next level we can raise awareness on facebook but you know we need to take it to the next level we need to turn social media into social action and um that's something that i'm working on i want to create something that's going to help people collaborate and connect um and really take it take it to the next level as far as social action goes thank you craze dan when you don't have the luxury of a bottom line and profit defining your success you emphasize to me mr and that it's really important that we set goals and seek to achieve and measure those goals and i'm going to look out for people that are achieving what i believe that a great goals be achieving and commend them on it so they get some measure and some feedback of that success um which they would have if they were making profit in the corporate world thank you dan immanuel yeah just three points very quickly first i think we can be optimistic because our generation has the power to change or to save the world and we will do it certainly with new tools a new form of employment and a new way to do politics secondly i strongly believed in the efficiency of intergenerational transmission between old and younger people as one of the means to prepare the new world and uh thirdly i would like to announce a new project i think uh everybody at one young world new women but we have a new a new project we have made a partnership with a brazilian startup to create the first digital collaborative book by and for the wide generation among the world the name the builders the concept one chapter one country one builder and the idea is to prove that we are the first global generation and to promote all this alternative system created by young people all over the world in the fields of education politics economic and so on and i will be so proud to present the result of this work in join us both for the next one young world summit very good keep up your optimism yeah optimists always die happier yeah i will do that thank you mr annan and thank thank you everyone this has been very very valuable for me indeed and what i'm taking away from this is that if we need if we are going ahead and asking the government to create the right framework for effective uh good positive good participation in decision-making we have to balance that with providing the government with providing um policymakers with the right pool of um empowered and trained young people who have the capacity to actually be effective in decision-making processes so for example if if i'm going to be asking my government to have um you know i you officially delegate to another conference i will make sure that i speak to a lot of young people meet at schools and colleges and um train them and make policy language more accessible to them and finally also when it comes to um getting young people in getting officially delegates in within negotiations we need to make sure that they're not there for face value so not just have officially delegates attend the conference but also government to involve them right at the beginning of the process which maybe starts like a year or two years back so these are my two takeaways thank you thank you karina leslie yes thank you very much for for the great opportunity once more what i take away from this session is that as young people we need to refuse to be frustrated and we need to refuse to be provoked and moving forward to strengthen our capacity like you said and widen our horizon as a young person i'm going to work with other young people in south africa we have national elections coming next year and we need our issues as young people to be put right at the top of the agenda because as young people we have a larger state so i'm going to coordinate and work with other young people to ensure this happens and in closing i'd like to just take a quote from one of our late leaders or a tambo who says that a nation that does not take care of its young people does not deserve a future and will not have a future thank you very much sir good sue thank you thank you everyone this was this has been very very enriching and for me i think there are two main takeaways one is related to one thing that was uh repeatedly talk about about organizations and having organizations and structures because i think there is a lot of people like us who are out there thinking that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we are doing things right now and that we need to change it so i think that for me one of the key takeaways is continue to build networks and continue to foster the network of people who like us think that there needs to be change and that we need to implement that change and the second part is related to the credibility of young people and the input there just for face value and i think that an important part here is like even if we are put there for the wrong reasons or not the way we would like it we should take advantage of that opportunity and make the most out of it and use it for our advantage and to you know foster whatever change we're trying to link thank you very much sue let me conclude by saying that uh today i've been very fortunate to have serious discussions with six leaders all of you are leaders already the the things you're doing in your own communities and this is how it begins 20 10 20 years from now when i see you again i'm sure you'll be doing great things and you'll be having an impact on your own community so don't overestimate underestimate your capabilities and don't hold back but as i said you should be structured the objectives must be clear as to what it is that you want to do and organize yourself with others to get it done what is also important is that we have to realize that all the tools we have we can have beyond twitter we can have facebook we can have all but they are tools they are tools that can be extremely effective if we are clear on our objectives and what it is that we want to achieve and organize ourselves with others to to get it done it is important to be active but the activism has must have a purpose must have a goal otherwise we get into situations where people dismiss us that they are just making noise the usual but when you're focused and persistent they cannot ignore you politics it's your business and you have to really remain engage if you're going to make a difference in your community we should all be proud of public servants or public service and what we do to help the community as as a whole and you are right we have a a well today with millions of young people whose future should be the concern of all the older generation have not always served you well and since you're going to inherit this world get involved get engaged early don't be put off make constructive discussions and remain engaged and make your points and contribute to the change in the world that you want to see and I would also say that as the as the first really interconnected generation it is important that you think and think boldly you may have to act locally but think internationally the world is so interconnected now that you cannot look only at the local situation and as we've discussed it has impact on others and as leaders you need to be able to communicate your goals you need to be able to explain to those who are with you what it is that you're doing and why and keep them give them constant feedback so that they stay with you and don't think you're taking them for granted the sort of accusations we make against current political leaders the old men and women who don't want to give up power so my young friends I wish you every success and we will probably meet some of you in South Africa have a good day it's been a wonderful exchange I've enjoyed it thank you thank you thank you very much thank you okay it falls to me to quickly close the session I'd just like to thank all our participants um the online audience who are terrific I'd like to remind viewers as well um if they could take a couple of minutes to answer the poll on young people on leadership we'd really like their opinions you'll find the links on facebook on twitter for both one young world and the kofi anand foundation websites um and of course I must thank mr anand and perhaps one of our final comments has come in on social media does that better than I could and it's from a young person in Kampala Uganda who um called Agaba Bilis who said it's a landmark to have young people's voices have our voices heard by one of the greatest leaders of our time mr anand thank you thank you very much