Update from Singapore

Hi Everyone. Sorry for the major delay in posting - we didn't have internet access for the last week until we got to Geneva and even then we didn't have much time as our schedule was jam-packed. It was awesome though. The highlight for me had to be the first walk through the Swiss Alps (photos to come once I get home - I promise!) and the visit to the ICRC Museum. Truly inspiring! I'd love to go back and visit it again and spend a bit more time looking around, as there was just so much information to absorb. We also had visits to the ICRC where we broke into smaller groups to discuss ICRC youth-related issues - my workshop being based around principles and values and how we live these daily. Interesting stuff, and definitely something we should be conciously doing more of in NZ. I have lots of fantastic ideas to bring back and put into practice. I can see I'm going to be very busy once I get home! Speaking of getting home, we're in Singapore now. After a 5 hour car trip from Geneva to Milan (leaving at 6am!!) we boarded the plane for Singapore (an 11.5 hour flight!) and we have been in Singapore airport for 10 hours already. Just another 2 to go and we'll be on our way back to NZ. I've learnt so much in the last two weeks and meet so many amazing people, but although it was really sad to leave, I am happy to be heading home, I'm very attached to NZ and can't wait to put all the ideas I have gathered over the last two weeks into practice.

Geneva

Well here i am, typing on a foreign keyboard that doesnt have spell check and some keys are in weird wonky places, in the apple store in the older section on Geneva (funny ay! the store has like 10 computers on display that anyone can use to access the net!). We have been to the ICRC and managed to ask the president some questions regarding youth involvement and access to the ICRC, to which we got some imteresting answers, with his comments hinting that a youth delegate role has potential! This afternoon we are off to the Federation to have a look around and meet a few important people before heading off for the official closing ceremony. We went on a tour yesterday and i have to admit that NZ is seriously missing out in the history department. houses and cathedrals that are more than twice the age of civilisation in NZ.. i mean seriously i was in speechless (the photos dont do the cathedral justice at all).
Unfortunatly i cant upload pictures here (brie and i have hundreds) so ill have to try and get some up when i get back to nz. The NZ flag i scavanged while in Italy has nearly been covered in comments from around the world so will have to make sure that it gets displayed somewhere when we get back. We leave at 6am tomorrow for Milan and in total will have 50 hours of travel before us, hopefully singapore will have the ability to upload photos.
Till then, turn up the heat in NZ as im use to hot dry weather so remove the snow and make it more welcoming please!

Aaron

We havent forgotten you!!

Hey everyone.
Just a small note to you all. We are now in Geneva Switzerland after 2 very stressful days traveling through the swiss alps. the scenery was fantastic and the food not so bad either. We havent forgotten you all, but have had very limited access to computers with internet connections. we are both currently housed in seperate host families in Geneva for the next few days with the hope of getting to an internet cafe tomorrow or the next to give a proper update and report. Till then ill leave you hanging (man i hate typing on a keyboard in an other laguage!! takes twice as much concentration as it should, and i cant spell check!....). P.S. might be wish to bring a blackberry next time to do mobile updates.

Aaron

Concerts, Italian family dinner, and maybe a little work!

Hey hey everyone in little cold New Zealand! We are enjoying 30 degree temps with hot dry weather (not actually sure if i can call it enjoying, as we are barely tolerating it!), while sitting in open tents conducting workshops in a wide range of topics. We finally have a day off to spend time checking emails, facebook, and updating bloggs, for the first time in a while. There are thousands of people in the camp with hundreds more arriving in bus loads daily (from france, germany, spain etc), but i'll leave that story for later otherwise the blogg will take hours to read. There are also 3-4 Italians behind he asking when i'll be done on the internet, little do they know that i have extended access because i'm an online amassador (mwwaahahaha <- evil laugh).

So anyway i'll breifly tell you about yesterday, which i have to say was the best so far.The final workshop in the series of three for the Solferino section of the trip consisted of looking at Psychosocial Support, and how this tool could be used in rehabiitating children after a traumatic event. Games were the primary tool used to break down barriers, increase trust, abd allow for an opening of dialogue regarding feelings and coping mechanisms that they (children affected) are using. It was fantastic to see contributions for Australia, Armenia and Pakistan with regards to the variations in games that they use with refugees and other victums of traumatic events. The workshop was undertaken through group work to brainstorm ideas, before the whole class went outside to partake in a game that further built on the ideas brainstormed in groups. Finally after the game was complete, we conducted debriefs which looked at the goals and applications of the games (whether they were inclusive or exclusive, an what they hoped to achieve for the child). The workshop also presented the idea of Psychosocial Emergency Response Units (ERU), they are not unlike the Water and Sanitation ERU (WATSAN) or the IT and Telcecoms unit, however the PS ERU aims to address the psychological aspects that are linked with a traumatic event (a cheap unit to set up and something NZ should look into!). The workshop provided a great range of ideas and games which i'll bring back to NZ, with a huge thankyou to the organisors (The Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support).

Once workshops were finished, the whole camp had the ability to attend a concert in Castiglione delle Stiviere. This itself was a fantastic event, made even better by the fact that myself and representatives from Vanuatu and Tonga met up with Marco who lived down the road and was attending the Youth on the Move conference. The chance meeting led to the three of us going to his house to meet his Mama and Papa before sitting down outside and eating freshly cooked pasta and pesto along with pork, topped off with fruits and red wine. The dinner allowed us to get out of the camp environment (and food!) and into the smaller Intalian community which is something none of us had experienced. Marcos father provided us with red wine and bags of fruit from the trees on their property to take back to camp which was very generous. In a sign of appreciation we conducted an impromptuded performance on their lawn of the nation dances of the pacfic. I have to say i'm not a dancer and the whole performance consisted of loud music, laughter and trying to get Marcos Mama up and dancing with us. There is a video somewhere but hopefully it will never surface! After sitting down to Dinner (the first quiet dinner without chanting, music and thousands of people since we arrived) we headed into town to watch the concert in Castiglione. I have to quickly point out that New Zealand has much to learn when it comes to displaying the Red Cross symbol! Here you cant walk 5 metres without seeing a Red Cross flag on a house, or lines across the streets with mini flags linked together. It is an amasing site to see when walking down the narrow streets. The concert was completly in Italian so i didnt have a clue what they were singing about, but her when in rome right? so we danced away with random people while waving the New Zealand flag as high as it would go (P.S. it is true that the majority of people only know NZ for the All Blacks, i've been ased to do the haka a number of times but after the first time i havent felt the need to embarress myself hahaha). The level of enthusiasim for Red Cross s unequaled around the world, i'm sure you can not put on a concert in other locations and have locals dressed up in Red Cross gear chanting to the music and clapping once the large screen scroles through the 7 principles, it was a truely amazing experience. There is a video of the movie they showed at the concert on the Our World - Your Move facebook site which is worth a look at.

Anyway to head off and do somthing productive with my day.

Aaron

What does the Red Cross Red Crescent mean to you?

Each day of the Youth Meeting, the Our World. Your Move. team are asking youth a new question. Today's question is 'What does the Red Cross Red Crescent mean to you?'

For me, the Red Cross means hope. It means possibility, compassion and opportunity. Red Cross is the possibility to create a better community, a better society and a better world. This movement gives us the chance to help others, and to improve the lives of the vulnerable. For many people in the world violence, poverty, sickness, war or hardship are a daily reality. The Red Cross Red Crescent works to alleviate suffering and in doing so, makes the world a better place for all, not just those directly affected.

To me, the Red Cross Red Crescent also means compassion and empathy. It means reaching out to people, it means volunteering to help those in need. It is the understanding that there is no greater way to help people than to help them to help themselves. It is knowing that despite all our differences we are one, we are humanity. And it is this understanding that gives us the strength of self to be compassionate and appreciate our diversity.

Red Cross Red Crescent is also an opportunity. I learnt as a child, growing up watching my brother dying, that the smallest act of kindness can have a profound affect. Growing up surrounded by sickness and seeing other children struggling to live on a daily basis, I realised the value of life at a young age, and the importance of helping others. Red Cross gives me the opportunity to do this, to make a difference to people's lives and in doing so make the world that little bit better.

For me Red Cross means the world, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Thoughts on the trip so far

(Youth on the Move Campsite)

Hi All! I've been uploading lots of content related stuff to the blog so far based on what we have been doing in workshops, but I thought it was time I told you about the rest of the trip. We're halfway through day three of workshops now, today I am at one about gender-based violence and discrimination. So far it has been super interesting, but I'll write more about it tomorrow.

It still seems pretty crazy that I am actually here in Italy, in Solferino on the same battle field where the movement was inspired 150 years ago. It is great meeting everyone, Aaron and I have been talking heaps with the other Pacific reps, there are people here from Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. It's great sharing ideas and we are planning to reactivate the Pacific Youth Network so that we can stay in touch once we get home.

(Pacific Youth Reps at dinner)

I finally had a spare moment (at 7am) yesterday to wander into Solferino town. It was absolutely gorgeous, like something out of a picture book with it's cobblestone streets, and Nonnas with their head scarves riding bicycles - there were even two nuns!! I even braved the language barrier to buy some postcards and brioche. I have expanded my vocabularly now to include bonjourno 'hello', graci 'thank you', brego 'you're welcome' and that's about it. When they speak slowly I can kind of understand the Italian - it's a little bit like Spanish, the only problem is that they never speak slowly, so I really can't understand much.

(Pictures from Solferino Town)

Last night we had a culture share and compare where we had stands about our cultures and what we do in our national society. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of the cultural night as I had a media interview with a radio station back in NZ which unfortunately didn't end up happening, and I was so tired last night that staying up past 11pm seemed way to hard.

(Me at the cultural night with our display stand)

Anyway, that's about it from me. I'll be back with more thoughts later.

Non-discrimination and Respect for Diversity

Hi Everyone! Well it's the morning of day three of workshops now as I write this. Yesterday I attended the workshop on non-discrimination and respect for diversity. This was a really interesting workshop. It was facilitated using the new Youth as Agents of Behavioural Change (YABC) programme developed by the Principles and Values team at the IFRC office in Geneva.

This programme was developed along with Youth members from 40 national societies, and is an interactive, non-cognitive way of teaching the principles and values of Red Cross Red Crescent. Using different games and discussion group exercises, we explored key issues relating to diversity, and how we can make the most of this. Lots of countries face issues around discrimination, and although we are doing pretty well in NZ, we still have more discrimination than we should. This workshop really helped me to think of new ways of apporaching this issue, particularly in working with youth.

In the exercises we dealt with issues around refugees, people with disabilities as well as other types of diversity. I think these are such important types of diversity to consider. In NZRC diversity is a big challenge for us, and not always something we do very well, we really need to think about how we can change this and increase the impact we have.

The YABC method of conveying information and changing attitudes is really effective - it feels like you are just playing games, but by integrating this with discussion about the feelings and thoughts that come out of the games, youth are able to see the consequences of actions and learn about the way we can convey respect through the things we do, and how we live our lives. This programme has some wonderful tools in it that I think would be very valuable for New Zealand Red Cross; ones that I am fully planning on utilising once I get back to NZ.

To conclude the workshop, we had the chance to put our ideas and what we had learnt from the day into art. Below are some of the key messages from the day:

The importance of volunteering

Wow! Yesterday was amazing. We spent the day in workshops, meeting amazing people, sharing ideas, and learning new skills. I attended the Volunteering and Branch Development workshop along with 40 others. The workshop focused on the factors that influence young people's desire to volunteer and how we can effectively engage young people as volunteers. This was a hugely relevant workshop for me to attend.

We are making great progress in New Zealand Red Cross with youth involvement in governance and with our new youth programmes, but still don't have very many young volunteers, especailly not compared with some of the African countries I've been talking to. In Zimbabwe around 80% of their volunteers are youth. It's amazing the diversity present in Red Cross Red Crescent internationally - I just had no idea!

After hearing about Federation guidelines on volunteering in the morning, we moved into small groups to discuss the key external factors that we think will influence volunteering in the coming years. We decided to focus on one in particular, changing demographics. This is a big one for New Zealand - we are a culturally diverse society already, and will only become more so, as immigration increases and the composition of our society changes. We already have significant Maori, Pasifika and Asian populations in New Zealand and I think key to the growth of Red Cross in New Zealand in the coming years will be the engagement of these diverse groups. We need to reach out and interact with all of society.

Not only do we need to represent cultural diversity in Red Cross in NZ, we need to make sure that we are representative of different age groups in society too. This is a challenge that we are working on with regards to youth - and this workshop has given me plenty of ideas to help improve this.

Later in the afternoon, we but our ideas about volunteering into practice as we played the Branch Development Game. In this game you form small groups and are tasked with creating a branch and developing it from scratch. We have to think carefully and plan how you are going to build up the branch, what programmes you want to focus on and the resources you need in order to do this. This game was definitely an eye opener for me. There is so much planning and thought that needs to go into building upa group from nothing, and you have to be prepared for anything - you never know when disaster is going to strike!

All in all a fantastic day yesterday! I learnt heaps and met some awesome people. I had some great conversations with people from all over the world and it reinforced for me just how much we all have in common!

(Photos from top: James, Canadian Red Cross; Youth volunteers from Dominca Red Cross and Mauritius Red Cross; Our group playing the branch development game; Brie and Aaron with Shafiullah from Afghanistan Red Crescent)

We're here!!

Hi all! We're in Solferino now - 43 hours after we left NZ, not that I'm counting or anything... We arrived at Melpensa Airport in Milan at 6.30am yesterday. From there we went to the Milan Red Cross office to wait for more youth delegates to arrive before boarding a bus and spending two hours driving to Solferino. Language was a bit of a challenge in Milan as very few people spoke English, but after spending a couple of hours waiting and making a few phone calls we got it all sorted. The bits I saw of the drive to Solferino were amazing, but it was incredibly hot on the bus and I was feeling rather tired having been awake for about 40 hours at this stage, so I didn't see much of the trip. (Brie Jessen and Aaron Turner upon arrival in Milan, Italy)

Once we arrived and checked in, we were able to sign up for workshops (1 per day). There are three days worth of workshops and twelve different workshops each day, it was definitely a challenge to narrow it down to one workshop, but I managed. My choices are:

Wednesday: Vounteering and Branch Development
Thursday: Non-discrimination and Respect for Diversity
Friday: Intercultural Dialogue

More to come on those later though. After workshop sign up we had the opening ceremony. It was amazing seeing everyone dressed up in there national society uniforms with their flags and signs. A truly awe inspiring sight!!

(Brie Jessen and Aaron Turner, New Zealand Red Cross youth delegates)

(Brie Jessen, New Zealand Red Cross, National Youth Representative to the National Board)

(Australian Red Cross and New Zealand Red Cross youth delegates)

(Cambodian Red Cross Youth Delegation)

(American Red Cross Delegation)