Meet Six of the More Than 300 Young Delegates

Six of the more than 300 delegates to the UN Special Session on Children paid a pre-session visit to Scholastic, Inc.'s world headquarters in New York City. Each one is a delegate to the UN Special Session on Children from their country. They also played an active role in founding the Youth Advisory Council, which kicked off its School Global Peace Campaign in April. The group participated in an interview with Scholastic News Radio. Below are biographies of each of the attendees and quotes taken from a transcript of the interviews. (Quotes are in italic.)

Akello Betty Openy, 17, Gulu District, Uganda, Africa

	Akello Betty Openy

Akello Betty served as an adolescent researcher on the Gulu research team for the Women's Commission on Refugee Women and Children study. She is a cofounder of Gulu Youth for Action youth group, which works to involve young people in issues of concern to them, such as adolescent health and education advocacy, especially for girls. The Youth for Action group also mobilizes youth to work on peace/conflict resolution.

My name is Akello Betty Openy and I come from Uganda. I got involved [with helping the Youth Advisory Council] when my NGO (nongovernmental organization) asked me to. That was the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. It has offices here in New York and I was personally contacted by one of the officials in the UN.

It was in 2001, in the months of May to July, that a few youth were involved in research in Northern Uganda, which was facilitated by Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. We were about 54 who were trained and we carried out the research on the youth in Northern Uganda.

In that research we were able to come up with these main problems: the security, education, health, and the situation of girls. After compiling all of this, the Women's Commission published it in a book that was entitled Against All Odds: Surviving Adolescence. So I happen to be here last September, before September 11. I was chosen by my fellow peers to come represent them on these issues. I think this is when the office got the idea that I should be nominated to come to the advisory council.

Krista Riley, 17, Toronto, Canada

	Ayo Omojola (left) and Krista Riley

Krista is a senior at the Toronto French School. She is a member of The Students Commission network and the Youth for Peace Network established by Canadian youth after the Winnipeg Conference on War-Affected Children in September 2000. She is also a member of War Child Canada's Youth Advisory Board, head of the War Child group at her school, and co-coordinator of an antisweatshop campaign. She volunteers almost every week at War Child and runs workshops in schools based upon a conference on international justice that War Child organized in March. She is a delegate to the UN Special Session on Children, will attend the Forum, and is helping found the Youth Advisory Council.

I'm Krista. I'm from Toronto. I've been working a lot with War Child Canada, which is a nongovernmental organization in Canada. It works internationally to help children affected by war around the world, and has several projects in other countries. It also has a really strong domestic youth project called Generation Peace, which is trying to get Canadian youth involved. They also have a Youth Advisory Board that I'm part of. So it's an organization that works really hard to raise awareness among kids in Canada about what is going on in other countries and what we can do to help and to make a difference.

We do things like sending T-shirts, holding fund-raisers, and sending money. We're also working on creating a project that will be primarily through the Internet to connect kids in War Child Canada's international project with some of the Canadian kids so that we can talk directly to them about the kind of things they want or the kind of things they want us to talk to their peers about here.

I've also been involved in other ways with war-affected children. A year and a half ago there was a conference held in Winnipeg, Canada, on war-affected children, where we discussed creating the Youth Advisory Council. So I'm here because I was at that conference in Winnipeg and I've been working really hard since on similar issues, just getting youth involved and talking to young people in Canada and around the world. I'm just trying to get more people involved with these issues.

Ayo Omojola, 16, Nigeria, Africa

	Delegates to the UN Special Session on Children visit New York Times Upfront editor Pete Young at Scholastic Inc.

Ayo currently attends high school in New York City. Her favorite subjects are History and English. She is an active member of Global Kids, and she will be one of the two representatives of Global Kids that will participate in the UN Special Session on Children.

My name is Ayo and I work for my own. It's my after-school program, Global Kids. It's mostly centered on educating urban youths because there's a lot of city kids who don't know what goes on around the world.

Instead of just telling them what goes on around the world, we let them experience it themselves, like walk a mile in their shoes. We have workshops where they act out scenarios of what's going on around the world, where they themselves understand it without the Global Kids leaders explaining to them. And they process it themselves, they ask the questions; it's like a discussion without an adult. It's more for youth by youth.

We create the workshops and we tell our peers what's going on around the world, and they get to participate. They put in their own opinion. We have an annual conference every year. There are people from all over New York City; they come from different high schools and it's really, really cool.

Alexandra Meierhofer, 20, Zurich, Switzerland

	Sophia (left) and Alexandra Mierhofer

Alexa is an A level student in Zurich. She is a founding member and one of the coordinators of the Youth Forum of the Meeting Place and Resource Center for Black Women in Zurich. This project was launched in 2001. It serves as a forum for black youth living in Switzerland. The main objective of this forum is to advocate on issues of concern to black youth such as racism, violence and conflict, identity problems, fears, and isolation. Some of the members of the Youth Forum include young people from war-affected countries, such as Somalia, Kosovo, and Angola. Alexa has always been interested in issues concerning girls and women. Using her art, she profiles issues around subjects concerning black youth. One of the highlights of her work is an exhibition of her art, which has been on display since last year. Alexandra has a card collection of images of racism, violence, and identity.

Her sister Sophia accompanied her on her visit to New York City, but is not a delegate to the UN Special Session. She says she will help her sister with her duties and also observe.

My name is Alexa. I am from Switzerland. My mom is Kenyan, my dad is Swiss. Our project, the Youth Forum in Zurich, is only about a year old. It's a project that tries to offer youth affected by war to meet each other, to exchange experiences, to exchange fears, problems. Mainly youth coming from black heritage in Africa. We are starting to invite youth also from Yugoslavia, from the east part of Europe.

I was asked to create an emblem for the UN, to do drawings, like logos, and that was a time when we were building up the project, the Youth Forum. All of it came together and this is the first time we are here. I was here in October and there was supposed to be a youth session, but it was canceled because of September 11, so we've come here this year now for the first time.

Sophia Meierhofer, 18, Zurich, Switzerland

My name's Sofia and with my sister Alexa we coordinated this Youth Forum in Zurich. It took place in a center for African-heritage women. It's the only center of that kind in Switzerland. It's a resource center for women of black heritage. The center has now built a Youth Forum and like my sister already said, the first session we had took place in September last year. It was actually for youth of African heritage to come together to exchange experiences, to get to know each other, and also especially for children of war-affected countries. We also tried to promote young artists.

I came here, actually, as an observer. Also for our session. I was the coordinator of the protocol. I translated the protocol. But I've come here to observe and let my older sister do the standing in front.

Penda Diallo, 17, Guinea, Africa

	Penda Diallo (Photos by Steven Ehrenberg)

Penda works with the organization For Our Children's Sake to promote issues of concern to war-affected children in her country and in the Mano River area. She participated in the first two UN PrepComs (preparatory committees) for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. She also participated in the UN Conference on Small Arms in July 2001. She is a member of IANSA, an organization that works to reduce illegal trade in guns.

First of all, when I was in Guinea I was working with another NGO that works in children's health issues and women's conditions to improve the life of women and children in my country. And then I've been a delegate at the UN. I've been in the United States for almost eight months. I've been working for the NGO For Our Children's Sake. So I've been involved with this since I was in Guinea, because children have many issues. They don't have all the medication appropriate for them, and the life of women over there is not really easy. So, I really want to do something to help them. That's how I became involved in all of this.