Afternoon team building at MY SUMMIT 2010

The President of Global Vision, Terry Clifford gave an inspiring motivational speech to the youth leaders of the G8 countries, “Promise something, but deliver it”. Seven Delegates from the visiting countries traveled with 14 hosting delegates from Canada to Trillium Resort, located outside of Port Sydney. Throughout the day themes have rotated between plenary discussions and negotiations; Starting with Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Food Security, Maternal and Child Health, and ending with Climate Change. The delegates have been researching and preparing for these sessions for the last few months and are looking forward to collaborating on this occasion. Four experts have been chosen to introduce and promote interest and synergy in the debates. We look forward to sitting in on these negotiations as the summit progresses. After lunch today, the youth ambassadors all had the opportunity for some activities and interactions with the delegates who are all involved in the discussions and negotiations. While canoeing, playing beach volleyball, and lounging on the docks, we decided to conduct some interviews to post here. We spoke to four delegates in total, one from Germany, and three from Japan. It was great to get some real and honest perspectives from them. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, and are happy to be here. Eva Koch, from Germany, informed us of some of her goals for the negotiations particularly involving climate change. One of the most interesting goals she had was bringing in different perspectives outside of law, and politics, to the negotiations, as she is a science major. Japan delegates are taking a special interest in North Korea, regarding nuclear non-proliferation. With this, they want to advocate for the issues going on in North Korea, to ensure that all delegates are aware, even though it may not appear to be a direct concern to their nation. Asking the delegates what their first impression of Muskoka was, received positive feedback all around. Eva, who had not visited Canada before, talked about how beautiful the landscape is, and the Japanese delegates all voiced how vast and great the surroundings are. When asked what advice she would give to youth, Eva responded, stating that it is important for all youth to know what’s going on with their government and the world, and to incorporate their personal perspectives into such situations. She also emphasized how important it is to get actively involved. The Japanese delegates showed enthusiasm, and big smiles, saying that their advice to friends back home would be to have a barbecue!

Submitted by Youth Ambassadors Rachel Fletcher and Caitlin Macnab