Youth Visioning for Island Living

Relating particularly to para 74(h) of the Mauritius Strategy is Youth Visioning for Island Living, an intersectoral, inter-regional activity led jointly by the Coastal Regions and Small Islands (CSI) Platform and the Section for Youth and involving many other, non-UNESCO partners. Following the Mauritius meeting, youth in more than 40 SIDS and other island territories are implementing follow-up activities. Projects range from small-business training in Antigua and Barbuda to HIV/AIDS awareness through sports in Cap Verde, and from helping disabled youth in Mauritius to strengthening a youth organization in Fiji. Several other projects will start during the course of 2006. The Youth Visioning website has been re-organized to reflect a focus on youth-led sustainable island living projects. As an ensemble, these projects relate to many parts of the Mauritius Strategy, which includes several calls on the need to involve youth in working for the sustainable development of SIDS (e.g. paras 14, 15, 72, in addition to para 74(h)). These calls are also reflected in the Secretary-General's October 2005 report to the General Assembly. More generally within UNESCO's youth activities, young people from SIDS are taking an increasingly active role in the Youth Forums associated with successive session of the General Conference, with 21 youth from SIDS participating in the most recent forum in October 2005. The regional Caribbean project, YouthPATH, uses heritage tourism to empower young people to achieve economic advancement and self-esteem, and thereby contributes to several chapters in the Mauritius Strategy.