Twitteos de un Participaholic

Releyendo mi blog, me dí cuenta de que no posteé nada al término del "1er Encuentro Global de Jóvenes sobre Democracia y Participación Política" que tuvo lugar en Santo André, Brasil, al que asistí como panelista por TIG, invitado por la Red Global de Acción Juvenil -GYAN-, en diciembre del año pasado.

Y claro... si estaba requemado por el estrés! (leer posteos de diciembre 2005 si están desinformados).

Así que vamos a hablar sobre esa conferencia, como para llegar a mis 300 posteos y porque nobleza obliga, aunque con un poco de fiaca: directamente voy a pegar algunos párrafos de mi reporte en inglés:

From December 11 to 17, I traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil to participate in the Global Youth Conference on Democracy and Political Participation, invited by GYAN to represent TIG at this event in one of its panels: "Democracy, Media and Technology”.

The Conference was organized by GYAN, in its role of head of the Youth Movement for Democracy’s Secretariat.

***What is the Youth Movement for Democracy?
“At the Third Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in South Africa in 2004, a group of young democracy and human rights activists from around the world came together to found the Youth Movement for Democracy in order to support each other, build solidarity, and develop sustainable democracy and human rights movements by empowering a younger generation in democracy promotion activities.”

“YMD serves as a platform for young activists to address the importance of promoting democratic values, a forum for sharing information and ideas, and an action-oriented, solidarity movement.
It provides a space for young activists to build relationships with each other, to collaborate across borders, to deepen their knowledge on key issues, and to develop practical skills.

So...

* The first night in Brazil I had to spent it in the hospital due to high stress and then I was still feeling badly the rest of the days.

* Around 200 young from Brazil took part and 10 young from other countries, principally as panelists.

* From my point of view, the most interesting part of the conference were the stories and experiences of members of the Working Group of the Youth Movement for Democracy, a group of young democracy activists with experience working on issues ranging from democracy promotion in Russia, to journalistic integrity in African countries, to free elections in Burma, many of them living as refugees in other country because their activism.

The conference was divided in six panels:

*Panel I - Education for Democracy
*Panel II - Confronting Corruption as an Obstacle to Democracy
*Panel III - Direct and Representative Democracy - Models of decision-making
*Panel IV - Democracy, Media and Technology
*Panel V - Democracy, Global Decision-Making, and Youth
*Panel VI - Intergenerational Dialogue and a Youth Movement Retrospective

Also, there were workshops oriented to discuss more deeply the panels’ topics and some artistic performances developed during evenings by young artists from Brazil.


My Panel: Democracy, Media and Technology:

Damian Profeta
Marco Gómez
Felipe Fonseca
Rosangela Giembinsky

My presentation tried to show the TIG platform as an excellent resource to articulate groups and youth movements working on democracy fields, presenting each TIG tool and showcasing some examples of discussion and actions directly related to youth activism for democracy (elections in Ukraine, crisis in Haiti and Ecuador, etc, etc.) developed by TIG members in the site (blogs, groups, disc. boards, Panorama, Open Forums, etc).

Mostly of participants didn't know TIG before, and after presentation many of them gave good feedback and demonstrated interest in joining TIG in the future.

After my presentation, I used to talk with many small groups of participants encouraging them to join TIG and take advantage of our tools and resources for the benefit of their organizations and themselves.


Miscellaneous:

*Official Website: http://ymd.youthlink.org

*Event’s Page: http://events.takingitglobal.org/8217

*Event’s Discussions:
http://www.takingitglobal.org/connections/discuss/forumdisplay.html?forumid=3376

*More Event’s Pictures: http://events.takingitglobal.org/8217/photos

*YMD’s Group: http://groups.takingitglobal.org/ymdchat

*Press Coverage mentioning my participation:
http://about.takingitglobal.org/d/media/inthenews?view=108