A top politician, a captain and the perfect delegate

[Pippa Gardner]

The day started bright and early, as we left our hostel and adventured out into the Brazilian metro system. Not to worry: We are in safe hands with the Brazilian girl guides, who translate, show the way and answer all the possible (and impossible) questions that we have.

Youth Blast

The first point on today’s schedule was the Youth Blast, which is a gathering of youth from all over the world discussing sustainable development.

It was very exciting to hear for example former Brazilian presidential candidate Marina Silva talk about how youth should get involved. She had great faith in us, even though “Adults are a little bit scared of what you youth can do”. When asked about her thoughts on the outcomes of Rio+20, Ms Silva answered: “We cannot be optimists. We cannot be pessimists. We need to be persistent”.  WAGGGS Delegates were successful in securing 2 of 3 questions to Ms Silva – hopefully a good sign of things to come!

Dancing in Rio

The Youth Blast ended on a high note. First of all was the opportunity to meet the creator of Captain Planet (a children´s cartoon character who saves the environment) and of course the captain himself. “Wow… Is he really here?”, was all Ally (Australia) could say, while she jumped a few times. Captain Planet then led everyone in the Youth Blast in dancing the Macarena. If you want an insight to the joy, just watch the video.

We also held the first WAGGGS side event, where we invited youth to participate in dialogues about youth led solutions to sustainable development. The side event was a great success with lots of participants and everyone learning about the importance of non-formal education and acting through a gender lens.

Ready for Rio +20

In the afternoon it was back to learning, as we moved closer to being the perfect delegates. We did roleplaying trying to practice what to say if we had just one minute with an important negotiator.  It was a challenging task, with Pippa (UK) posing as a fierce negotiator.  Everyone did very well at communicating the key messages of WAGGGS.  We are now prepared to be the best voices possible, representing 10 million girls worldwide when the first of the Rio+20 events starts tomorrow. 

Reposted from:http://www.wagggsworld.org/en/rioplus20/delegatesblog