Youth Parliament
The BMM International Press Centre is housed opposite Dom Soviet, Azerbaijan's huge govermental building on the shore of the Caspian Sea. It is a venue used to hosting visitors of great stature and debate on issues of national importance, and today is no exception. Dr Ismael Serageldin, ex-Vice President of the World Bank and now Director of the Library of Alexandria, is in town, and he is here for a serious meeting: a session with the Chair and Deputies of Azerbaijan's Youth Parliament. There are about 20 Youth Deputies in the room, all aged 18 or under and all elected by their peers to serve on a Youth Parliament created in 2007 as a way for young people to contribute to policy formulation by the other parliament – the one that meets in Dom Soviet just across the road. Arranged around a conference table, waiting for the media to set up their cameras and the meeting to begin, the Youth Deputies look just like mini-MPs, except they are better dressed; and none of them smoke; and all of them are on time. The boys are attired in various states of formality, from the Chair, in a smart black jacket and old-fashioned, but nicely pressed tie, to his friend whose formality ends at the hips in a pair of blue jeans – perhaps a fashion statement, perhaps a political one. The girls are in smart trousers or skirts and blouses, in a range of colours and styles. But they are all united by a common aim: to represent the views of their peers and make sure they are heard. The meeting is one of several organised by UNICEF each year to give the Young Deputies a chance to meet, question and inform either decision makers or experts in the field of youth participation or other issues affecting young people. For today's purposes, Dr Serageldin is one of the latter, having worked on youth projects around the globe. He and the young people both have common experiences to share, and can help each other by doing do. In this spirit, Dr Serageldin opens the meeting by saying, “Half of the present and all of the future is in your hands. I want to learn from you.” “What exactly do you want to know?” shoots back 17-year-old Farida Aliyeva, a Young Deputy with a sharp black and white dress to match her sharp delivery. A few minutes later, when Dr Serageldin comments on Baku's development (“everywhere you go, there are new buildings”), Farida interrupts with, “Not only buildings but also people's minds.” And so it goes on, back and forth between the diplomat and the Youth Deputies, each respecting, but also testing, the other. Azerbaijan's Youth Parliament has 85 members, each chosen by his or her peers in school-based elections held in every district in the country. It was created after a formal agreement between the country's actual parliament and UNICEF. The current Youth Parliament has two more years to run. After that, a new chamber of deputies will be elected. Farida and her fellow parliamentarians will go on to university or whatever else they choose to do with their lives, taking with them the knowledge that they have done some good in their communities, and perhaps influenced the creation of national policies that will do good far beyond those communities. They will also have learned valuable skills to help them achieve whatever their future goals turn out to be. For Suel Husseinzadeh, the Youth Deputy with the blue jeans, this may closely resemble his past. “I think the adults are interested in our opinions, but I am not sure they will act on them,” he says. “So I hope that we will become adult deputies in the future, and then we can act on them ourselves.”
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