Signing off at the United Nations General Assembly

Ok so this will be my last entry before I leave my post at the Australian Mission to the United Nations General Assembly.

A massive thankyou to everyone that has made this happen (which has involved a lot of people). To all the people here at the mission, home, reach and my frinds I love you all.

Till next time

Elise xxxxxxxxx

United Nations World Youth Leadership Summit

Hi everyone,
Well this is my second last day before I finish my post at the Australian Mission. I feel a sad but I know that all good things come to an end. It also means that I will be arriving on a Costa Rican beach in a few days!!

I wanted to write a bit about the United Nations World Youth Leadership Summit I attended last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday here in New York. I was very lucky to be the Australian delegate attending. The coolest thing by far was that there was representation from every country in the world except for Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Sudan and Taiwan (the Chinese government kicked up a fuss because there were two delegates who cam to New York from Taiwan and because of politics the Chinese made the UN take the Taiwan delegates home - China blocks Taiwan as an independent country and therefore it can't be a member state of the UN). Anyway, I met so very cool people at the Summit - awesome young people who are doing extraordinary things in their countries. I met people from so many places and they told me about their projects they are doing. I met this girl from the Ivory Coast who has contracted HIV and when she was young and she has decided to go around to villages in her country raising awareness of HIV. I met this guy from East Timor who is working in local communities trying to bring peace. I chatted with guys from Mexico who are working hard to make sure young people don't discriminate against people. I also met a girl from Western Sahara who grew up in a refugee camp in Algeria (because Morocco kicked all the people out of Western Sahara to make it part of Morocco) and some how this girl has made it to the US and is studying medicine. Very cool.

From this Summit, everyone who attended have been named Goodwill Ambassadors by the UN. So now I am the Goodwill Ambassador for the millennium Development Goals for Australia. Sounds cool but my goodness have we got some work to do!!

I must also mention that one of the nights we had a concert to fight against Malaria. It was held in the General Assembly Hall - I have never seen it used as a party space - maybe this was because if hasn't been used as one before! It was so much fun dancing on the delegate benches and behind the Speaker's Podium!!!

Anyway I have got a plan which I hope will link people up in developing countries with people from developed countries and vica versa. It will be a way in which ordinary people can help out others through a very simple yet moving process. I will keep you posted....


Anyhow, thanks to everyone for all your lovely messages.

Lots of Love
Elise

My Time is coming to the end...

Two days ago I woke up and realised that this amazing time I have been having here in New York and at the UN is coming to the end! One more week left.... Things haven't slowed down though, I have been doing heaps and in the week coming have got heaps to do.

Last week Robert Hill (our gun Ambassador) got a meeting together for me to meet up with the Malian Ambassador to tell him about the partnership young people in Australia have created with the community in Kalabankoro in Mali. Through the Reach Foundation, myself and a whole group of young people have raised enough funds to support Kalabankoro community to build a primary school and now a secondary school for their young people. Many of the 180 students that go to the school live in extreme poverty, are orphaned and don't normally get to go to school. The Mali Ambassador was very cool, he was very happy about what Australian young people are doing with the Malian people. We spoke about other ways in which we might be able to develop the relationship further.....

Last week I also traveled down to Washington DC to have meetings with the World Bank and Development Gateway Foundation. I discussed with them several ways in getting all us young people involved in helping with development and making the world better. We are working on something that in the coming months I will tell you all about!

Discussions in the Third Committed have been quite interesting because we are talking about human rights and Special Reporters to the Secretary General have been giving some very specific and graphic reports to the committee about human rights violations. Today, Australia gave a statement on Human Rights and called for Burma, Sudan, Zimbarbwe, North Korea to get it together - Burma interrupted our statement because they call themselves Mynmar but Australia doesn't recognise this because this is the regime who is causing the human rights violations. I was proud of what Australia presented today- it was a bit edgy.

My friend Stacey has just arrived also, and we had a big night to celebrate her arrival on Wednesday night. It was funny because I haven't seen many hot men here in New York and the minute Stacey arrives our hot neighbor (un benown to me) appears to help her with her bags! So as a result the drought of hot men has finished!

This afternoon I am off to Niagara Falls - you got to do these things while you can!

Sunday is the start of the first ever Global Youth Leadership Summit here in New York. Apparently there will be young people from every country attending. I am the Australian attending. I think we get to meet Ronaldino as well as speak a lot about young people and our role in making the world better. I will let you know how it goes and what comes up for discussion.

Anyway keep your emails coming, hope your all well back at home.

Much Love
Elise

Elise at a North Korea Press Conference

Hi, this photo is of a press confernce US Ambassador John Bolten held after Security Council talks on North Korea - it got firey!!

What I am actually doing here!

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all well. I wanted to write a bit about what I am actually doing here. I don't think I have really said much about it yet.

Pretty much my role is a delegate to the Australian Mission to the UNGA. I assist this very nice lady called Lara on the third committee which focuses on human rights issues. I sit in the plenary of the 3rd committee listening to countries give their statements on how well they are doing in not violating human rights anymore - funny thing is that human rights violations happen every day all around the world. Sorry if you get my sarcasm here - I just get a little frustrated in listening to it all when words are spoken but not enough action is taken. People are still dying.

Anyway, the other thing I do is go to informal. These are meetings where all the countries come together on a particular issue to discuss the wording of a resolution to be passed by all the countries. Once a resolution is passed all the countries are meant to act on it however the beauty of international law is that it is soft and so even though countries may agree on something, they can break their agreement and don't get in trouble for it.

Even though I am frustrated by how slow processes in the UN take to actually get action, I must admit it is quite an awesome thing to see all the countries are here. There are some countries that don't get along with others or most other countries but they still turn up. For example, even though all this stuff is going on with Nth Korea, with the international security frowning on them for exploiting the bomb, they still come - maybe not to really agree, but they are still here. There are plenty of other examples of governments of countries that don't get much support from the international community yet still turn up such as Sudan and Burma.

What I am getting at is that even though the UN can be critiqued, it is still the only thing closest to a global government, the best thing we have to bringing all countries together to work together and for this reason, its very important.

By the way, I got to sit in the General Assembly when Ban-Ki Moon was accepted as the next Secretary General. I will be sad to see Kofi go though.

Anyway, I must go to an informal meeting and then to Ice Skating!!!

Thankyou to all those that have sent messages - really lovely!

Love Elise

Meeting Kofi Annan

Delievering the Statement to the United Nations

Hi everyone,

So yesterday I gave my statement to the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly. I think it went well (well everyone gave good feedback so unless they're not telling me something....!) I felt a bit emotional giving it, so many people have helped out with the making of the statement. People had such guts sharing with me their stories which made me write the statement it ended up being. I felt privileged being able to give it of behalf.

Some of the other youth reps from other countries such as Jamaica, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and Norway also gave thier statements around the same time. We were all mixed in with statements from other countries which seem to be delivered with not much passion and enthusiasm. But everytime a youth rep spoke you could tell because it was given with so much passion, strenghth and drive. I think people listened because of this.

Thankyou to everyone who wished me well and supported me and the statement. I look forward to sharing the footage of it with you soon.

So now, I will focus on my duties as a delegate to the 3rd committee - human rights. This week we start meetings in regards to getting international support and agreence against, torture, crime and drugs. This week will continue in the coming weeks where we will be working on other human rights issues. Keep you posted.

Lots of love.

Elise