Young NIMD in Guatemala

Youth delegation exchanges experiences on youth empowerment

Two youth leaders from Dutch political youth organizations will contribute to a conference of the Guatemalan youth forum to share experiences on youth empowerment. Follow their experiences in their weblog.

Floris Kreiken (26), former President of Dutch political youth organization Young Democrats, and Zita Schellekens (23), former International Officer of the Young Socialists, will visit Guatemala from 5 to 12 November to exchange experiences on youth empowerment with Guatemalan youth.

Both Floris and Zita will participate in a national youth conference in Guatemala City with almost 200 young politicians. With their experience in youth campaigns, capacity building and organization, Floris and Zita hope to contribute valuable experiences to the conference of the Guatemalan youth forum. Furthermore, the delegation will travel to the Alta Verapaz region where they will meet with local youth and exchange strategies on how to infuence political decision-making as youth.

This exercise builds on a mission of three delegates from the Guatemalan youth forum in 2007, when they visited the Netherlands for a week to learn more about political youth organization and participation. The programme included a training on debating skills, and introduction of political youth participation in the Netherlands, a visit to the Parliament, a discussion with NIMD staff, a visit to the IPP on the voting indicator, and a visit to the General Assembly of Dutch political youth organization the Young Democrats. After this successful week, a number of possibilities for future cooperation have been identified, which will see follow-up in this new project.

Floris and Zita will share their experiences in their weblog.

For more information, please contact the Coordinator of Young NIMD Jeroen Mimpen via jeroenmimpen@nimd.org or + 31 6 166 562 24.