Junior 8 Summit 2008: Japan

Have the opportunity to discuss global issues affecting youth and advocate for urgent solutions and actions by G8 leaders!

© Japan Committee for UNICEF/2007

Dr. Agnes Chan appeals to Japanese children to get involved in the global youth summit in 2008.

Junior 8 Summit 2008 will be held parallel to the G8 summit of world leaders in Tokyo and will take place in Chitose, on the island of Hokkaido from 2 to 9 July 2008.

The J8 Summit is the youth parallel event to the G8 Summit, which since 2005 gives children and young people the opportunity to articulate and present their opinions and views, concerns and recommendations on these and other important issues and problems affecting them and require future action from G8 leaders.

Following the successful approach taken at previous summits, J8 Summit 2008 will be attended by 39 children – a group of 4 from each G8 country and 7 from developing nations.
Over the course of several days the young people will take part in workshops, round table discussions and exercises to help them think through each of the issues on the agenda. Children and young people will present their stories, their findings, their observations, their hopes and prepare their recommendations to the G8 leaders.

"...if we really want to make a difference we all need to come together and make things actually work..."

At the end of their discussions, the J8 delegates will write a joint communiqué outlining what they think should be done about the global issues on the G8 agenda. This communiqué will then be presented to the G8 leaders before they begin their own discussions.

Competition

Groups of young people can enter the J8 Competition by putting forward their ideas on the topics discussed by the G8 this year. Entries are judged by an expert panel in each country and one group of four students is chosen to represent their country at the J8 Summit.

Please click here to learn more about the competition. (external link)

Previous J8 Summits

They have taken place in Edinburgh in 2005, in St Petersburg in 2006 and in Germany in 2007. At the German Summit last June the J8 delegates had an audience with all of the G8 leaders and they gave serious thought to the kind of world they wish to inherit, by presenting their views and put forward their solutions to the major challenges facing our world!

Take a look at what happened in previous J8 Summits:

Germany 2007

St Petersburg 2006

Scotland 2005