COY event

6th December
COY 5- Conference of Youth- a great way to pass a couple of days
The past two days have been very busy and an amazing learning experience. As a delegation we have been attending COY 5 (the Conference of Youth) which has involved attending workshops, being a part of open space discussions and a range of other experiences. The workshops have allowed us to spend time with other youth from around the world sharing information and discussing important topics. Between us we have attended a wide range of workshops form how to best utilise a day at COP 15, learning about public narrative and discussing forest and land change issues to Speedy learning the flash mob actions and being involved in some great street performing. These workshops have covered everything from group facilitation (which where lead by members of our WAGGGS team) to discussing policy issues to media and creative actions. I think through these workshops we have each gained a lot of use full skills and met some cool people.
Yesterday afternoon was taken up with group discussions on a range of topics. Ally and Speedy went to the Actions working group where they were involved in hearing about all the different actions that will be happening throughout COP 15. I attended one of the policy working groups which for most people would have boarded them to death but I should my twisted nature by enjoying listening to a heap of policy detail and issues regarding them as well as highly detailed bits of forestation issues.
Our first day out in the conference world was capped off with us all enjoying a great evening of international food/culture. Each member of the delegation come along with an item (mostly food) to share this was a great opportunity for us to share in each other’s background and get to know each other a bit better. Despite being very full at the end of the experience it was very memorable and was a great brake from the very full on sessions and a good chance to relax (possible of the last time as a big group till the end of the conference).



Today we had more workshop in the morning and this afternoon as a part of COY we had a regional brake away group (a meeting) in which all the people for the different Australian and NZ groups came together. It was very interesting to have a group of passionate people all together with many views. But we all strongly agreed that no matter what we each need to be putting pressure on our governments to set real ambushes targets for both emissions cuts and funding for adaption, are all looking for ways to share this united message both now and post Copenhagen.
There has been some challenging moments in at COY times where you wonder where it is going. And some amazing moments one such moment was when Speedy and I won a guy fully around to our view and he agreed that we need to be here to represent the youth of this generation not just one person and very delegate should remember this. It was a great feeling and we were able to share a lot with a roomful of people which left us on a major high.
After COY this afternoon we were finally able to get our UNFCCC id’s which will allow us into the Bella Centre and the heart of the action of the next two weeks. In making it into the centre we showed that Guiding is recognised everywhere special consideration being given to us by a kind security guard to keep our party together which was a huge bust to us all in the middle of a lot of long ques.
So while I’ve been writing this Speedy and Ally are cooking dinner (they are on cook patrol tonight, see some things are the same everywhere when you’re a Guide) and I should probably draw to a close to find my patrol to organise our duties and eat some dinner. So thought for the day... what will you do to show the government that you want to see a Fair, Ambitious and Binding agreement signed on December 18th???
Petina

Quote of the Day
Saturday – About Speedy “Some people have problems” from our Brazilian Guide
after having just seen Speedy walk across the yard in 2 degree weather in a t-shirt!!!

P.S. Abby has just arrived so expect to hear from her over the next few days