We did it - Youth Justice in Action!

So we did it!

We wrote and delivered two oral interventions in the main Council, one as part of a debate on the Secretary General’s report into Juvenile Justice and another in the debate on the human rights of women. We hosted a parallel event, chaired by the Austrian Government, where we told of our experiences and offered solutions to upholding young people rights on juvenile justice. We met our own national representatives and ambassadors and met with the offices of three UN Special Rapporteurs, on Education, on Torture and on Extra-judicial killings. WE presented our research to how much our countries were abiding by Resolution 10/2

We told the UN and our governments that youth justice systems have to be fair and they must follow Resolution 10/2.

The campaign comtinues in each of our countries.........

Read our blog to find out more or keep visiting the Youth Justice in Action website and join our facebook page

Side event

Pictures from our side event where Ibata, David, Luis and Dan-i-el all spoke. It was hosted and chaired by H.E. Ambassador Christian Strohal, Permanent Representative of Austria in Geneva, and the other speakers were; Séverine Jacomy Vité, Specialist - Child Protection, UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS and Anna Volz, Interim Secretariat Coordinator, Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice

The room was full and we really got our opinions across.

Our big day!

Well today's the day,
We are runnig a side event in partnership with the Austrian Goverment and the DCI(Defence for Children International) on Juvenile Justice. Dan-i-el, Luis, Ibata and David will be telling their own stories. All are excited and a little nervous but they will be amazing.Good Luck Guy's.

Barker live at the UN!!!

Here is Barker - doing our 2nd speech to the whole UN council!

And why not puts Jade again!!

Meeting with the office of the Special Rapporteur...

This morning Ibata and David met with representatives from the office of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

This is what happened in their own words… we started by introducing ourselves and had coffee :) There was a lady there (Delores) representing the Special Rapporteur and a man from the committee of Human Rights.

We talked about our hopes for our youth justice campaign. We explained exactly the torture that we, ourselves, had faced in our countries and told them about the different types of torture that we had encountered in our own prisons. They asked us about our research and our actions and how our YMCAs are working to eradicate the problem. David told how his YMCA in Sierra Leone had contacted the ministry of justice in Sierra Leone. They asked us what kinds of resource people or organisations had helped us and they gave us some contact details for more people and organisations that can help us when we return to our countries.

Delores told us about the Universal Periodic Review process to bring specific allegations of torture against our governments.

Tomorrow, Luis is meeting with the Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Killings.

Non-stop campaigning!

Its all a bit busy here, so we will post with details soon but yesterday:

• Barker did a second speech to the whole UN council
• Luis had a long meeting with the Ambassador from Guatemala and talked for a long time about the killings of young people
• Barker met with the UK delegation and talked to them about the research the YMCA has done and why the UK is not complying with the resolution - they are going to fix the group up with a meeting at the Ministry of Justice
• We've all been inviting people to our side event on thursday
• Jade, Ibata and David are busy trying to fix meetings with country representatives and regional delegates for Africa
  

Today

• Ibata and David are meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to talk about the experince of young people in prison in Togo and Sierra Leone
• We are writing and planning our speaches for our side event with the Austrian Government tomorrow

So updates soon with more details on what we have done and hopefully that video of Barker in the UN!

And keep the comments coming, its great to here from you guys!

Link to the Live Chat - Thursday 10 June - 7pm GMT

Hi everyone,

As you may know, we are holding a special live chat with the campaigners on Thursday evening. What you might not know is that we're having videochat too!

To get involved simply go to http://tiny.cc/yjiachat

The chat room is pretty simple to use. Simply give yourself a nickname (please do not use the YJIAcampaigners nickname) then enter the password - YJIA

To view our video click on our "nickname" in the bottom left and it should display the webcam in the area above. If you have a webcame you should also be able to use it to do live, face-to-face chat with us!

One thing to explain is that you can either ask us private questions by sending personal messages or you can chat in the "lobby" area where everyone will see what you are saying.

Any questions please comment on this post or ask us in the chat room.

Hope you get involved - speak to you soon!

Mike

Jade live in front of the whole Council!

super duper barker

well done barker you did brilliantly...we are all so proud of you. bet you cant wait to see the video?? ha ha

love and kisses chicken,

jayde

xXx

Word's are not enough

What Barker has just acheived has made me so proud, after over a year of working on this campaign he has been able to make our views heard in the UN. I am not only so proud of him but of all you guy;s. Thank you so much for all your efforts. Let's look forward to Thursday. Keep up the hard work it is paying off. WELL DONE!

The YJIA Team!

Youth Justice in ON THE AGENDA!

Here is the empty Council before they begin this mornings debate


They are debating two reports written about juvenile justice by the UN Secretary General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (A/HRC/14/34 and A/HRC/14/35 for the UN geeks amongst you - click the links to read them)

This debate is ONLY happening and these report written because of the Resolution that the group worked so hard last year to see passed

So a massive shout out to the guys from last year!!

-- YJIA campaigners

**UPDATE - Our friends at DCI has just made a great statement in the Council about juvenile justice with the World Organisation Against Torture. They said they had "observed a large misuse of child detention...and conditions of detention that may amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and even torture in some countries". They called on the the Council to "effectively seize the question of juvenile justice" - Lets hope they do! Thanks DCI!

Jade at the UN!

Scroll down to find the World Alliance of YMCAs and you will see Jade talking to the whole council! Amazing!!

http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/archive.asp?go=100607

Ablar con la delegada de Guatemala

bueno pareciera que en este camino en el que muchas acj del mundo enpesaro a caninar apartir del 2008 a rais del acecinato de mis conpaneros de acj amatitlan e encotrado un pequena lus hoy pude ablar con la delegada de guatemala aqui en la onu sobre una reunion para tratar el tema de ejecuciones extra judiciales quien esta decuerdo en colavorar com migo y me dara una cita en estos dias para ablar de este tema aun me falta ablar con personas de nicaragua y honduras estas reuniones son para saber como ven el tema las diferentes delegaciones y posterior mente travajar en el discurso que precentare el jueves ablare de este tema porque me parece inportane no eredar estas practicas tan inumanas a las futuras generaciones

Luis

the vision of one...

ok, so i forgot the poem lol, so here it is...

we all walked alone as we entered this place,
from all walks of life, different worlds, different race,
with only one mission, to obtain a goal,
which will bring us together and make us all whole.
criminal justice and the time people serve,
is this the life you think they deserve?
kept behind bars, with no chance of escape,
trapped in their minds, contemplating their fate,
thats in the hands of another, who just cant be arsed,
to stick to the resolution we helped to get passed,
but here we are now, to stand and make change,
we have all the pieces we have to arrange,
the vase is just broken, and we are the glue,
with the heart of a lion, theres nothing we cant do,
we'll place all the pieces and reunite all,
we'll all stand together and no one shall fall...

a few thoughts

barker here, just thought id put a couple of thoughts and then ill follow it up with a poem i have written about our time here in geneva.

firstly i want to congratulate jayde, she managed to pull out a fantastic performance out there!

next i want to let you know that i am petrified about this, having to talk in the council is definatly the hardest thing ill ever have to do, but theres no way im stopping now.

but yeah, having a great time, it very thought provoking, helps you see the better side in life, and we are all working really well together, there are some great people here and we have had a good laugh, but its not all fun and games. some of the things some of us have had to endure in our lifes, and the stories we have heard over the duration of this event, are really humbling, and they make us appreciate the lives we do have back at 'home', wherever we decide home is.

At the UN

Hi i am David from Sierra Leone and i haved joined the the Team. My colleague Jade just had an oral interventoin at the council and it was really to hear her speak. We are now trying to talk to our National represeatatives

one speech down and one more to go...ecstatic

Oh my God, I'm just out of the council and I've done my speech on women's human rights and I'm so ecstatic right now. It went quite good considering how nervous I was, but a nice smoke soon calmed me down ahhhh! all the pressure is now on poor Chris as he still has to do his yet...I can not believe I just spoke in the same room as the President....scary but great...

And i just want to say a big THANK YOU to all my colleagues who helped with putting the speech together. Guys you are wonderful ;)

We will post the video on the blog soon :)

See ye, Jade.

Assistance de mes collegues aux nations unies et ma rencontre avec le representant du Togo

Mes collegues chris barker et jade murphy vont faire une intervention oral de 2 minutes aujourd'hui... Pas faciles hein!!! Moi je dois rencontrera represantante du Togo pour me presenter et l'inviter au side event qui aura lieu le jeudi .?!.?! Je pense que je suis amoureux de ce projet hummmmmm........

Ibata
Location:Geneve 07 avril 2010

"My colleagues Chris Barker ad Jade Murphy are going to make an oral intervention of two minutes today...Not easy! Myself, I have to meet the Togo representative to present myself and invite him to the side event that will take place on thursday....I think that I am in love with this project...." (Matts bad translation)

Working hard

- Youth Justice in Action young campaigners

en memoria de las juventudes vilentadas

bueno yo soy un joven de la ciudad de guatemala me encuentro en estos momentos en la asamblea de derechos humanos en la onu realmente lo que me trae a este lugar es tanta injusticia en centroamerica viendo en este evento la oportunidad de denunciar tantos actos de violencia e inpunidad que estan cercenando nuestros paises dejando como saldo una lista interminable de jovenes asesinados en formas muy similiares a las utilizadas en las guerras de america central por la manera en que el estado ignora todas las muertes da la pauta o pareciera que todas la muertes responden a una especie de plan en el cual el unico objetivo es exterminar a las juventudes de america exterminio del cual ya forman parte 3 de mis mejores amigos es por eso que ya hay que hacer algo con esta situacion y no dejar que esta lista crezca dia con dia como lo ha hecho en los ultimos tiempos.

Luis
I am a young fellow from Guatemala City who is attending the Human Rights Council meeting at the United Nations in Geneva, seeing in this meeting the opportunity to denounce so many acts of violence and impunity which are damaging our countries, producing an endless list of killings of young people by means very similar to those used during the civil wars in Central America. The governments' silence vis-a-vis these killings seem to reflect an intentional plan aimed at decimating Latin American youth. Three of my friends were victims of these actions. We have to do something to grapple with this situation and to prevent that the list of extra judicial killings keeps growing as in these past few years.

Luis

Everyone is here!

- Youth Justice in Action young campaigners

In the council

So today we went to the council for the first time. Here is Jade and Ibata in the main hall.

Sadly there is 2 of us missing. The storms in Guatemala have delayed Luis and following a few false starts he is now due here on Saturday

David is also still in Freetown. The BMI flight staff wouldn't let him fly as they thought he was an 'immigration risk' despite having the right visas and letters!! Discrimination in action!! So it's made us even more fired up to get out voices heard! He will be with us on satruday too...so next week well have a full team!

A few more days training and then well be unleashed on the Human Rights Council!




-- Post From My iPhone

In training

Barker and Jade explaining how the human rights council works.





Celine in deep discussions.





Barker,Jade&Ibata demonstrating their experiances.

Location:La Cenacle

First vist to the UN

Great day, after a briefing this morning we all went down to the UN and got our passes "All sorted now". Our training continues tomorrow with DCI.


- Youth Justice in Action young campaigners

Barker,Jade,Ibata

Good luck guy's x


- Youth Justice in Action young campaigners

Location:Geneva

Here we go again

Well, we are off again.

In March 2009, five young people with experience of youth justice systems went to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to lobby decision makers. They were able to influence an important UN Resolution on youth justice which made urgent recommendations to all governments around the world. You can read all about their story in this blog below or watch this great video



In 2010 another group of young people are returning to the UN to report back on how well their governments are doing on meeting this resolution. They have campaigned on the resolution in their own countries and have produced research. This research will help them to persuade government representatives that more needs to be done to make youth justice a reality for young people everywhere.

Follow our story here!