In August 2008, Peace Child International, a charity based near Cambridge in the UK that strives to champion worldwide youth-led development, organised and ran the 4th annual World Youth Congress in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
The Congress brought together over 500 youth delegates from all corners of the globe in one place, in order to learn about, discuss and find develop solutions to major problems that face the world today, whether these relate to human rights violations, environmental damage, climate change, global warming, war, genocide, or whatever.
PCI's slogan is one orginally uttered by Ghandi which is oft-quoted:
"BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD"
The world's youth is the world's future, and without the commitment if the youth of this planet to change things for the better, things can only decline. The WYC was designed to help youth with a vested interest in the positive development of the planet and the global community find ways and means to share their experiences and messages, and to then facilitate them in relaying their messages and intentions to the World, and gather support for positve life-changing development projects.
The WYC gained national and international press coverage. It was also documented by TakingITGlobal, who ran an on-line / virtual / e-congress for thise unable to attend.
WYC also included a set of intrepid Young Journalists, who documented the Congress from ground-zero, writing news stories and features, broadcasting State-wide live radio and creating video documentaries. This was all for both the benefit of the atending delegates and the world at large.
I attended the WYC as one of the Young Journalists, and produced the daily Congress paper. My cheif responsibility was to organise page-layout and do the design work, putting the pieces written by my colleagues to page using Adobe InDesign, and then printing copies for circulation. 4.30am was a common sight, as the YJs determinedly met every 7.00am distribution deadline!
The paper was widely praised, and was recognised by congress officials as the best congress paper to have ever been made, having built on the editions created and WYC 1, 2 & 3 (Hawaii, Morocco, and A.N.Other). The paper reported on day-to-day events, but also published thought provking feature articles inspired by and complementing these reports.
The paper was also not afraid to criticise the Congress where it deserved it, and was open to the views of the delegates at large - this paper was not a propaganda puppet, but a fully fledged publication championing press freedom, fighting against censorship and aiming to truly represent the WYC and the delegates to the full abilities of the Young Journalists involved.
The editions of the paper, named 'ReGeneration Press', included many articles that provided deep insight into parts of the world little know or little talked about, and it is acknowlegded that some of the YJs and interviewees in particular have quite literally put their lives at risk to shed light on the injustices of the World.
I hope to make all the editions published during the WYC 2008 available here, in unexpurgated form, as PDFs to read at your leisure. They should also be available on the WYC website, as long as they've decided not to censor the more critical editions. Some of the articles may be distressing. All of them will almost certainly open you eyes to issues and injustices in the World that you may not have know about previously, and express opinions and viewpoints sometimes previously unaccounted for in the media of the world.
