 With her Maasai bead headdress, Somali skirt and Kamba shawl, Yvonne Maingey radiated the style and harmony of Kenya's 40 different communities in one outfit. "I call this my 'United Nations of Kenya' outfit," she said with an infectious smile. The description was apt, since Yvonne was already an ambassador in the making.
In 2001, Yvonne was chosen from 64 young delegates attending an African regional meeting in Cairo to present a position paper to government delegates and non-governmental organizations preparing for the UN Special Session on Children in New York.
The 15-year-old was a representative of Child Life Trust, an organization which provided assistance and education to thousands of children living on the streets of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The main message of the Special Session, a high-level UN meeting of world leaders, international delegations and children's organizations, was that investment in children was the first step along the path to development for everyone.
"It's foolish to think that there is no connection between the state of the world today and the fact that hundreds of millions children are denied an education, are not immunized, and are malnourished, exploited and raised on diets of poverty and violence," said Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Tragically, the statistics backed her up: more than 10 million had children died each year before they reached the age of five, often from preventable causes; more than 10 million had been orphaned by AIDS; and 150 million children were malnourished.
Nearly 350 'Under-18 Delegates', as they were called, held their own under-18-only Children's Forum to prepare goals to present to the UN General Assembly.
Yvonne was chosen by her peers to represent them at the forum. "I was voted for by the children in Cairo, but only after a reading test and a question and answer session to see who would be the best spokesperson," she said.
She had excellent experience in speaking to larger audiences: Yvonne was the host of a popular Saturday morning children's television show in Nairobi called Club Kiboko.
Yvonne was also involved in her school's environmental club, which was cleaning up the river that passed through the schoolyard, fundraising, and organizing a school environment day. Her interest in learning about and educating others on conserving marine ecosystems and coral reefs, recycling, and reducing and re-using water and plastic bags earned her a spot representing Africa at the United Nations Environmental Programme's (UNEP) International Children's Conference on the Environment.
"In an ideal world, I would like children to be taken seriously," she said with a gleam in her eye. And with commitment such as Yvonne's, an ideal world seems within reach.
FIND OUT MORE about how the UN works to support children’s rights. Go to the links next to Yvonne.
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