As youth activists, can we say we are achieving much? I think that's a good question to start with. First let me say that much of what I am about to say may seem to be provocative or in some sense unacceptable. But, after working within the youth movement for quite sometime-someone has to say it.

The immediate answer to the question would be, No. Young people today are given an unprecedented opportunity to undertake far more than any preceding generation. The rapid advancement in technology has and will continue to be the thing that distinguishes forthcoming generations-this website is the perfect example. My ability, being based in the United States to communicate directly with someone in Laos is a luxury that was unavailable to my father or his father before him. So the fundamental question is, why aren't we achieving as much as we (and certainly I) would hope? Their are several obstacles that I see and I think it's important that I name them:

The first is that the attention given to young people is quite recent. I believe that in looking at the past twenty years, the past five to seven years has witnessed an overwhelming attention to issues that face young people; in other words "we're happening!" However, this has happened before-In 1975 until 1990 the international community viewed issues of women as a priority that was discussed in virtually every forum and on every issue: it was cross-cutting and welcomed. With this in mind, great achievements would be difficult at this time, as many people, in particular decision makers, are still being orientated to issues of youth and convincing them, as we all know may seem to be impossible at certain times.

The second obstacle is youth, yes us. Many of the problems that we face are problems due to the politics of the movement itself. The rapid growth of youth organizations is quite appealing and encouraging, yet doesn't always serve the purpose-this is also an ongoing problem with women's organizations as well-the excitement and eagerness to work and achieve something leads us to forming groups, clubs, networks, organizations which in the end, hurts us: we're stretching the resources. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the attention to our issues is fairly recent and therefore the willingness to nurture the movement is logically limited. By forming the large amount of youth organizations that we are; we tend to overwhelm donors, supporters and allies. While what we we should be forming are alliances among ourselves which will yield a stronger lobby that will be too large to hush-up!

This naturally is easily said than done. The issue that we face (and I know this faces a whole lot of us) is that we tend to disagree on a lot of issues: as individuals, organizations, networks or groups. This can be looked at as a positive aspect of an individual's growth: we are exploring our trends and thoughts all of which will better mold our personalities. I agree that this is true when observing the growth of one unit, but not a collective. The means to forming alliances can only start when we start exploring and working towards our similarities and issues that bring us together. And the first step to achieving that is to agree that each one of us is a "breath of fresh air" who, in a large or small way, will add something-something positive. How? Just look at the challenges we face. We are all under-represented in decision making processes, we are the most vulnerable to AIDS, the environmental disaster that seems to be inevitable will strike our generation before any other--is this not cause for unification?

I was looking earlier today at the agenda of the UN General Assembly for the current session and noticed that women's issues will be discussed 8 times during the upcoming year; youth issues will only be discussed twice in the context of "marginalized people" (so that's including the disabled and indigenous groups). Is that not depressing? I personally think it is. The UN sponsored Millennium Development Goals should be met by 2015-yes, when we are professionals and running the show, and even worse: failing to achieve these goals will adversley effect our lives forever. Of course more pressing discussions such as limiting armed conflict (which in the past decade alone claimed the lives of 10 million young people according to UNICEF) are not open to us. Political reform in areas such as the Arab Region is a priority and enjoys much discussion, with young people shut out of course, also bearing in mind that reform is a long process: meaning that the decisions of reform taken today is most likely, if met, the political culture we will have to endure!

On a more positive note: One must attest that the achievements undertaken by large youth networks is monumental, and that alone is a positive sign for optimism and hope. I can note that the Global Youth Coalition on AIDS recently presented a most intriguing success story on how young people can and must be integrated in discussions on AIDS during the International AIDS Conference. This is but an example of what we're doing as individual organizations, so what if we unite.

For the past six years I've worked with youth issues and I've come to reach two beliefs: The first is that for youth issues to be seriously looked into we as young people should entertain a different approach-we should start discussing our issues as a part of the larger specturm, i.e. youth issues should not be separated from any other issue and not discussed alone. Youth shouldn't be isolated into their own domains to discuss issues pertinent to them, but rather we should be a part of the "macro game". Through isolation we are becoming marginalized-and again looking at women that's what pulled women's issues down for a long time. We are youth indeed, but we are also citizens of our countries, nations and the world and like adults we have a say, and we should say it to them and with them and not to ourselves, because that's preaching to the choir! Secondly, we should start rethinking our plans and actions and begin engaging in a serious discussion on how we can realistically work towards our goals through a plan of action (and not an outline of it) that can be closely monitored and evaluated-as a unified force and not as sporadic initiatives undertaken by a group here and a group there every now and then.