Youth Declaration

Yesterday, on Saturday April 12th, I was very proud to actively participate in the inaugural Youth Declaration 2008. I assume you are a very dedicated reader of this super-fantastic blog and so understand what I mean when I say Youth Declaration.
Anyhow, I got up at 6, dressed in my appropriate 'smart casual' attire and basically readied myself for the 8 and a half hours of conference ahead of me.
Conference, though, probably portrays the incorrect idea of what happened yesterday.
After milling around in the flash new Business School section of the city university for half an hour, followed by a short opening ceremony, we headed off into groups to discuss our topic.
It wasn't that formal; we sat around tables and ultimately, just talked.
It was incredible, I recognised over a half of people there from the Model Untied Nations.
There were twelve people in our group, with one facilitator, and we started our discussion with what poverty meant to us and what issues we would like to see raised that day.

One of the main issues we discussed was how poverty and lower education are linked. In fact, they create their own sub-cycle off the vicious cycle of poverty.
Let's say a parent dropped out of school because they got pregnant at a young age, they therefore haven't got any qualifications and have to live off the benefit because they don't have the time to work a minimum-wage job. The education that is supposed to be free sends many bills to the struggling single parent; fees, uniform, stationary, school trips. The student has to drop out of school because they simply cannot afford to stay in school. They then do not have any qualifications and so have to work a minimum wage or live on the benefit...

To target this problem, we proposed that 'schools should be run as non-profit organisations, not businesses'.

I know some of you may be thinking that poverty isn't a major issue in New Zealand. When we were discussing what groups we were in at the lobbying lunch at the M.U.N., someone said that exact thing to me. And that, my friends, is the problem. According to statistics, 1 in 5, that is 20%, of children going to school are going there hungry. We are supposed to be a developed country.
Another myth about poverty in New Zealand is that people living off the government are too ''lazy'' to get a job and that the explicit benefits are fostering dependency.
Did you know that over 50% of the people on the Unemployment Benefit only stay on it for 6 months?
Yes, there will always be people who take advantage of the system. But I hope you are aware that the number of benefits available for the people of New Zealand do not allow for many, if any, luxuries.
All I can ask of you is to appreciate what you have and how lucky you are, and to donate food or money to the Salvation Arm. When you can donate money or time to community projects.

I won't carry on too much longer, because I know how my class love my long entries, but at the end of the conference the document was presented to the current Governor General of New Zealand, Anand Satyanand. That's right, the Governor General. The Minister of Youth Affairs was scheduled to come, but then something to do with Labour Party cropped up.

It was such a great experience, and thinking that some of my thoughts and ideas will be kept as a record in parliament and may even be used to help make decisions in the future is just mind-blowing.

Now, how to bring about world peace?