My chosen sessions for the Summit

Hello again everyone,

Since my last post I have been given the opportunity to choose two sessions out of a huge variety on offer at the One Young World summit that interest me most. One is internal and the other external, and are run by people involved within the issues; whether that be through policy, charity or personal experience. I thought I would take this chance to explain to you what my choices are, and why I chose them. I hope by doing this it gives other students an opportunity to contact me with any ideas of thoughts they wish me to take forward to the sessions with me.

The first choice I made was to attend a session called 'Eliminating Domestic Violence through Education'. Within the session we will split into groups and talk about ways to install this teaching into educational settings, and what businesses and government can do to help.  I am a big advocate for using education as a way to tackle all kinds of world problems, whether that be physical or mental health, rights awareness or safety - so felt this sessions perfect for this personal belief. What really drew me in was the description of the session, stating that it was to help all young people, male and female, in their awareness of what domestic violence is and how to recognise it. I see much media awareness around women as victims of domestic violence, and I am not belittling their struggle, but young men also need a strong education on the matter. We are in need of  rising awareness of male mental health as recent figures show that male suicide rates are at their highest in the UK since 2001 (Davis C, The Guardian. 2015). If more young men are given a platform to speak about issues such as domestic violence against them, as well as other issues which are harmful to mental health and self worth, these figures may fall.

I hope to suggest this education as a platform to show how many have overcome such issues, and that there is a way forward for victims. A recent example I have seen of this is of Reshma Quereshi, a 19 year old girl from India who was a victim of an acid attack from her Brother in Law for 'defying' him. Since the attack which took place in 2014, Reshma has worked with charity Make Love not Scars (MLNS) and become the global face of the #EndAcidSale campaign which appealed directly to Indian government to stop the open sale of acid in the country. There are estimated to be over 1,000 victims of acid attacks in India each year, many of these with domestic origins. However, Reshma's latest platform is that she will be walking the New York Fashion Week runway in September which will bring global awareness to the reality of the acid attacks which are taking place everyday. An idea I have for the session is to suggest building a network of survivors who can go into schools and colleges and speak about the realities of domestic violence, and can show a real life example of overcoming and escaping their situations. I have provided a link from the New York Times 'Women in the World' section here so you can read Reshma's story and see a video of the moment she was told she would be walking the catwalk...

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/08/09/see-the-moment-acid-attack-survivor-reshma-quereshi-discovers-she-will-walk-at-ny-fashion-week/

My second sessions is called 'Connect in intimate conversations with refugees, activists, private sponsors, settlement workers and other members of the Refugee 613 coalition', this is so I can gain a better understanding of the refugee crisis from those who are most affected by it. There will be a number of speakers at the events who I will be able to interact with in conversations about all aspects of refugee life, including healthcare, education and settlements. I hope to see how different bodies feel about these issues, as there will be humanitarian workers, government officials as well as academics attending the session. Refugee 613 is a Canadian initiative based in Ottawa which allows residents to help bring refugees over to the country, or to sponsor them and even to help volunteer help. I wish to see how this charity are working with the Canadian Government and how much of a change it has brought about. It provides a fantastic platform for those who wish to help but are unaware of how they can do so to find exactly which role would suit them best.

I hope to speak to those present on how Education occurs in refugee camps, and if formal education is happening hat can be done to help strengthen it for the sake of the young people who will have no future otherwise. If any readers have any particular issues they would like to be brought up at the meeting then please let me know.

I hope this has given you readers a better feel for not only what the summit has to offer but also what issues I am most passionate about. Mohammed will shortly be doing a follow up post on which sessions he is attending, as we have both chosen differently so we can attend sessions on what interests us most.

Thank you for reading, to finsih I thought I would show you this video I found online the other day made by The Global Goals as I think it is a really fantastic piece of work that highlights key issues facing young girls worldwide, so I will leave you with this...#WhatIReallyReallyWant