We had only little time today, before catching our plane. We rushed over to a beautiful national palace, where we met the governing party and its young members, the UNE, in the national palace.
After travelling back to Guatemala City, we rushed over to the headquarters of UCN, the social-liberal political party of Guatemala.
On Monday we headed off to Coban, in the department of ‘Alta Vera Paz.' There NIMD and the Forum try to increase youth participation in politics as well.
Today was the last day of the Youth conference. Last night the people that lead the working groups, took all the conclusions of the working groups, and put them together in one big document. This will serve as a general declaration with all the most important conclusions of the conference.
Today we finally gave our big presentation at the multiparty youth conference. We had 45 minutes to present our views and experience on youth participation in the Netherlands. We decided to focus on four themes: political youth organizations as a key between youth and politics; training and empowerment; political youth organizations and the political parties and using the media to get your message across.
After a long journey we finally arrived in Guatemala, the day before yesterday. Off course, to our senses it was already 6 ´o clock in the morning, but the clock said 23.00 when we left the airport. Zita Schellekens (Young socialists) and I (Floris Kreiken - Young Democrats) will spend this week in Guatemala, to talk about youth participation in politics.
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.
Young NIMD is a blog of seven political youth organizations in The Netherlands: CdjA, JOVD, JS, Dwars, Jonge Democraten, Perspectief and SGPJ. Young NIMD is interested in exchanges with peers in other countries that help enhance the voice of youth in politics and advance democracy.
