https:\/\/www.un.org\/youthenvoy\/about\/<\/a><\/p>\nBios of the PGA Fellows and more information about the PGA Fellowship Programme: www.un.org\/pga\/77\/fellowship-programme\/<\/p>\n
Music by Ketsa “Start of Something Beautiful”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Episode Transcript:<\/strong><\/p>\n[Youth Envoy<\/strong>]: Half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, so having young people featured or recognised as an important partner, a positive partner, a force for change is incredibly important.<\/p>\n[Opening]:<\/strong> Drum roll. My name is Amr Danyal from the Maldives. My name is Aim\u00e9 Triana from Cuba. My name is Syuzanna Martirosyan from Armenia. My name is Mmoloki Tsheole from the Republic of Botswana. My name is Nathalie Gasaro, and I\u2019m from Rwanda. My name is Gerard Anapu from Samoa. This is a podcast\u2026 This is the podcast of the United Nations OPGA Youth Fellows.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> Welcome to another exciting episode of the PGA Youth Fellows Podcast, where the youth lead discussions on the UN\u2019s work on key issues. My name is Amr Danyal.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> My name is Syuzanna Martirosyan. Today\u2019s topic quite fittingly addresses the importance of youth empowerment and builds on how young people can become drivers for sustainable development.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> Here today is Ms. Youth Envoy Wickramanayake, the United Nations Secretary-General\u2019s Envoy on Youth. To start our conversation, could you please tell us and the listeners a bit about yourself?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> Yeah of course, and hello to everyone who is listening. My name is Youth Envoy Wickramanayake, and I am the UN Secretary General\u2019s Envoy on Youth. I am originally from Sri Lanka and that’s where I was born and bred. I was very active in youth engagement in my country and in 2017 I was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres as his Special Envoy for Youth. Since then, my role has been to bring the United Nations closer to young people and bring young people closer to the UN. Overall, leading the United Nations advocacy and high-level political engagement on matters that affect young people.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> Thank you very much. That was really interesting and impressive. Ms. Wickramanayake, we are talking to you today by phone, why is that?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> Yes, unfortunately, I was I was supposed to come and be with you with the UN studio for this podcast, but I recently had a baby, and he was feeling a little bit under the weather, so I had to come home to him and that’s why I’m connecting virtually to the telephone for this podcast.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> Many congratulations to you Ms. Youth Envoy.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> Congratulation! In your opinion, what is the significance of the youth representations at the United Nations today and how far has this significance changed over time?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> The biggest significance of youth representation at the UN today is the sheer number of the population of young people that we have in the world. We say that half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, and 90% of these populations live in developing countries you know. The big populations of young people, in developing countries, in least developed countries, present an opportunity for governments, for private sectors, for different actors to really leverage on these demographic dividends and achieve sustainable development, achieve peace and bring about transformational change.<\/p>\nBut we also know that sometimes with these youth populations are also being seen as a threat by governments, by different actors. So having young people featured or recognised as an important partner, a positive partner, a force for change, agents of change, is incredibly important to define the narrative of how governments, how civil society, how the private sector sees young people in their own countries in their own communities.<\/p>\n
[Amr]:<\/strong> Thank you so much for your interesting insights and indeed young people are both the present and the future as well. We’ve seen that young people can be very daring and bold and earlier this year we witnessed a courageous group of young law students from Vanuatu initiate a resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the obligations of states with respect to climate change. And this resolution passed with overwhelming support. It was co-sponsored by 105 member states, and this indeed is a remarkable achievement, which just goes to show the influence of young people being politically active and contributing towards sustainable development.<\/p>\nAre there other examples where young people have shown that they can, in fact, make an impact and be the change they want to see?<\/p>\n
[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> Of course, and as you said Amr, a big congratulations to the Pacific Students Forum, the group that led on the resolution to get the advisory opinion from the ICJ. And that is just one example as you mentioned. And I think we saw in the last couple of years, particularly on the issue of climate, driven by young leaders like Greta Thunberg or Vanessa McCarthy and how on the streets, on social media, at the voting booths young people were making their opinions, loud and clear, particularly on the issue of climate, and actually managed to bring much needed urgency into the issue of climate change. I think we can largely thank the youth movement to the momentum that we see today on the urgency of climate action. I think also there are many examples around the world. I mean, even if you look at young leaders like Malala Yousafzai, who risked their lives to really stress on the point of the importance of girls\u2019 education in the world.<\/p>\nI was very impressed to meet with youth organization named Yiaga in Africa who works in countries to reduce the limitations for young people to run for political office. So, for an example in Nigeria, they ran a very successful campaign called \u2018Not too young to run\u2019 to reduce the age limitation of running for political office. Similarly, in many parts of the world, in Austria, we saw young people campaign to lower the voting age to 16.<\/p>\n
And in many parts of the world, we see on many issues from education to climate to gender equality, young people are being politically active. And they’re using various tools, whether it is protesting on the streets, whether it is using social media to hold decision makers accountable or whether it is campaigning and strategizing and bringing about much needed change in their communities.<\/p>\n
Or becoming entrepreneurs and innovators to solve the issues in their community, in multiple ways, young people are sort of galvanizing action and bringing about changing their communities. So, our only hope is that I think you know we often talk about how young people should learn from elders, but I think at this point we can say let me say we hope that the world leaders learn from these young people.<\/p>\n
[Amr]<\/strong> That’s really great.<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> And implement the commitments that they have made through the SDGs or the Paris Agreement or multiple international frameworks because I don’t think we have much time to wait.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> Thank you very much. And it’s really inspiring and good to know that they are increasing numbers of such kind of initiatives and examples where young people gather together to make their voice heard and make change. It’s really good to know. And as you have already mentioned, you recently embraced motherhood and I would like to ask as a young parent and in your capacity as the Secretary General’s Youth Envoy.<\/p>\nHow do you ensure that the voices of diverse and marginalised youth groups, for example, the voices of young women and girls, youth with disabilities, are heard and are taken into consideration?<\/p>\n
[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> I often think that people think that youth is a homogeneous group, but it’s not, right? So whatever the diversity we see in society, as you mentioned, young women and girls, youth with disabilities, young refugees, young indigenous people, rural young people, urban young people, urban poor young people. Every cohort that you see is a cross section of society is also is a cross section of young people, an example we recently convened the Transforming Education Summit the Secretary General and my Office together with UNESCO, we convened the Youth Day of the Transforming Education Summit.<\/p>\nSo, when we plan an initiative like this, it is on education. So obviously young people who are active in education advocacy, education campaigning, student organizations, they were all present there. But it is very important for us to take the engagement there and see what were the voices that were missing. Were young people with disabilities there?<\/p>\n
Because young people with disabilities face unique challenges when it comes to education that perhaps other young people are not facing. Young women and girls face unique challenges when it comes to education that perhaps young men are not facing. So, you know looking at each and every platform for engagement and making sure that no one is left behind and really mainstreaming their voices into every single conversation is the first type of approach.<\/p>\n
The second approach is often when you look at these conversations and look at who is missing, it’s also the most marginalized and most vulnerable people, right?<\/p>\n
[Amr]:<\/strong> Yes, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> So, the young refugees who are missing. It’s the young women and girls who are missing. It’s the women who went through teenage pregnancies when they were young, who are missing from this conversation. It’s young refugees, young indigenous people, and young people with disabilities. And when you’re looking to why they are missing from this conversation, then you go into the root causes of their exclusion, right? Often it is not having proper access to the platform. So, do we have accessibility for people with disabilities? Do we have language accessibility for indigenous people?<\/p>\nAnd then financing because inclusion is expensive. So, if you want to actually bring the voices of the indigenous people living in Amazonia into a intergovernmental process that is happening in New York, you need to really invest in identifying that group and making sure they have the access to these places, but also for their travel, for their participation, you need financing. So often financing is missing. And especially some of these groups are seen as sensitive groups in certain countries. Do they have the capacity to self-organize among themselves as a constituency. So, if not what kind of support we give to them. That’s why we also do the second type of approach which is a tailored approach to create specific platforms for dialog with these groups. So, it took on approach of mainstreaming, but also having tailored dedicated platforms for these very specific groups of youth who are being left behind has been my approach when it comes to including diverse voices and making sure that no one is left behind.<\/p>\n
[Amr] <\/strong>Those were some fascinating points that you’ve mentioned and will also look into how we can contribute towards mainstreaming inclusiveness because inclusiveness is really the way forward. So, moving on to some more recent developments on the UN youth agenda. We’ve seen a lot of progress. Just last year we saw the decisive resolution that sought to establish the UN youth office. So, in your opinion, how will the establishment of the UN youth office affect your current post? And how do you see the office\u2019s role in further amplifying and addressing the concerns of faced by the youth of the world?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]: <\/strong>I think this is really a historic opportunity for the United Nations. Now my honest opinion – this comes a little bit late. But you know we still take it.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> We’re getting there. We’re getting there.<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]:<\/strong> We are getting there slowly but surely. For me, there are two outcomes from this. The first one is that my role and my mandate was created by SG Ban Ki-moon back in 2013. So, it’s been ten years. This mandate has been a very political mandate that is not financially supported by the UN regular budget. So, the decision that Member States took unanimously in the last General Assembly under the leadership of the PGA from the Maldives, and the co-facilitators, Egypt and Guyana, was really putting this setup in a sustainable fitting. So that even ten years from now, 20 years from now, the UN has the institutionalized structured resource of working with young people. That is also accountable to Member States, as the leaders of the organization, but also accountable to young people as well. So the first outcome is sustainability. And the second one is that, when the setup was there, it has had a very strong mandate by Member States, not only by the SG, with adequate resources. It’s kind of already puts you in a position to scale up what is already being happened. So, for me, this is really creating a home for young people in the United Nations. For the last ten years, we were living in a rented room outside and now we actually got our own small house.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> That’s really great!<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> That’s good. Eventually we got it.<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]: <\/strong>This is analogy that I use in this case. But I think it’s such a huge win for everyone working on this agenda.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]: <\/strong>Sure, it\u2019s a win.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> That makes a lot of sense. That’s really promising to see the active and meaningful engagement of the youth is becoming more institutionalized. Earlier, we spoke about the importance of political activism amongst the youths. Is there a role in which sports, music, art, and other creative and recreational fields can contribute to raising awareness of the global issues that affect our world today and tomorrow?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]: <\/strong>Yes. I think art, music sport, they all play such a huge role in young people’s lives and the way in which they express themselves. When young people ask me how they can be active, I always tell them that there is a misconception that being politically active, you need to hold the banner and go on the streets with the megaphone. And activitism and protesting and campaigning is not the only way you can create change in the world. You can use drama. You can use music. You can use art. You can use sport to create change in communities. And if you look at the Sustainable Development Goals, young leaders that we recognize this year, you will see we have a Paralympic athlete, Jamal Hill, who is a member of our cohort of young leaders. People ask me, why is he there? Because in addition to being a Paralympic medallist, he also does so much work on aquatic skills for young people because a lot of young people in poor communities, disadvantaged communities, apparently die from drowning, which I didn’t know. And his foundation looks at giving young people the life skill of swimming. So, when we think about these sort of Olympic athletes, or these big personalities, we only think of them as celebrities, but it’s very interesting to see how these young athletes, how young influencers are using their platforms to really address the pressing issues in their own communities.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> That’s really great.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> And indeed, art, music and sport are very effective means and toolkit whereby we can raise our awareness about this or that, people will perceive and understand these challenges and problems, I mean, the rest of the society easily.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> And they have these good role models to look up to as well, don’t they?<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> Yeah, sure. Thank you very much. And our final question of the day, so what is your message to aspiring young leaders who want to make a difference in the world today?<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy]: <\/strong>This is very simple, don’t wait for an invitation. We often think that to be a change maker, you need to fit into a certain profile. You need to have a social development degree or a political science degree from a good university, if you are to make a change in politics. I think there are a lot of stereotypes about what a change maker could look like. But I think a change maker can look like anything that you want it to be. It can be a parent. It can be a teacher. It can be a farmer. It can be an innovator. It can be a software engineer. It can be an artist. Whatever you can use to express yourself, whatever the form, whatever the role that you can play to even change one person’s life, I would say just do it. Don’t wait for somebody\u2019s invitation that will say come and join the organization, let\u2019s do this big project. That is not usually how the change happens, right? There is this very famous saying \u201cextraordinary things happen when ordinary people do special things\u201d.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> That is really uplifting thought.<\/p>\n[Youth Envoy<\/strong>]: I think we all need to remember that, I know it’s very clich\u00e9, but no action is small enough.\u00a0 So even with a small action, you can create a small change in your work, home, school, university, I just say, go for it.<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]:<\/strong> That’s great!<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> Thanks so much. And if I may ask, when is the right time to start for anyone?<\/p>\n[Jayathmna]:<\/strong> I think any time is the right time. Whatever the age you are now at the end of the course, that is the right time. Fantastic!<\/p>\n[Syuzanna]: <\/strong>Thank you very much for your time and for your wonderful insights about youth empowerment and youth engagement. There were really inspiring and motivating. Thank you!<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> It was truly a pleasure having you on the podcast.<\/p>\n[Jayathmna]:<\/strong> Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to join through the phone and for this opportunity.<\/p>\n[Amr]:<\/strong> No worries at all, and we wish you all the best in all your future endeavours. Thank you so much!<\/p>\n[Closing]<\/strong>\u00a0This is the podcast of the United Nations OPGA Fellows. Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of the world\u2019s population is under the age of 30. That’s one of every two people. 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PODCAST Episode #6: Conversation with UN Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake - General Assembly of the United Nations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PODCAST Episode #6: Conversation with UN Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake - General Assembly of the United Nations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Half of the world\u2019s population is under the age of 30. That’s one of every two people. 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