Happy International Youth Day. Welcome, welcome. I am Nicole Golden. I am the director of the Youth Prosperity and Security Initiative here at CSIS, running partnership with the International Youth Foundation. And we're thrilled to welcome you all to our first big International Youth Day event here at CSIS. We're thrilled to have all of you here in the room, as well as the many of you we know are joining us online. We are very excited to be collaborating for this event with the United Nations Foundation and with the Plus Social Good Community. And we're just very excited to have that aspect of our conversation as well. So by resolution, the United Nations affirmed August 12th to be International Youth Day, the first one being in the year 2000. And it was originally, the original intent was to galvanize activity and discussion around the UN World Program of Action on Youth. But in reality, inspired by that vision, it's become so much more. And I think it's become truly a global event to really do two things. To have thoughtful, important conversations around youth issues and around young people in the landscape of global development, prosperity and security, but also to celebrate young people and the incredible role that they continue to play as leaders in society today. And what we know will be the ongoing, important role of young people in society going forward. So our conversation today and this really dynamic event we have in store is going to do both of those things. We are going to think about using the official UN theme of youth migration and development, moving development forward as a jumping off point. We know young people account for as much as 30% of international migrants. And when you think about the countless number of young people moving within their countries, often from rural settings to urban settings, the policy implications of that I think for our communities, for our countries, for the world at large is really important. So we're going to talk about that with a really dynamic policy and research panel with Mark Montgomery from the Pop Council and Manuel Orozco from the Inter-American Dialogue. And then we're very lucky we're going to have Nancy Donaldson from the International Labor Organization talk to us and share some thoughts on employment and migration issues. And then we're going to have called the DC Premier, if you will, of the winning video from ILO's Youth Migration and Employment Video Contest. And then we're going to follow up that winning video with taking those themes of the important role young people are playing in youth participation and young leadership into our practice panel that my colleague, Colin Quinn, is going to moderate. We're really going to have a dynamic conversation with two amazing young leaders, Ramona Dragomir and Manyang Rikir, to talk about some of the issues in practice and participation and young leadership and activism around these issues. And that's going to be a really dynamic program. We know that there are many benefits to youth migration, bringing innovation and cultural diversity to a number of cities, providing economic opportunity and often educational opportunity to those that move abroad and find those opportunities. But there's also challenges associated, often that aspiration gap and that which those seek on the move is not met. And often young migrants in particular find themselves vulnerable to exploitation, to human rights abuses, to social exclusion. So we really want to have a thoughtful conversation today about how can we harness that opportunity, leverage the potential in young people on the move, as well as what are some of the policy and programmatic opportunities to address and mitigate some of the challenges associated with our young, mobile, and inspired generation, the likes of which we've never seen before as many of you know half the world's population is under the age of 30. So this is a really important conversation. We're again really excited you all are here. Just for those of you that are in the room, our formal program is going to be immediately followed by a really exciting and we hope productive networking luncheon. We're in addition to our speakers and panelists who will be staying on as table hosts and hopefully carrying on some of the conversation. We'll start with our dialogues on stage. We have a number of other special guests joining us as table hosts as well. We have Rebecca Zilberman from the British Council. We have Jessica Lazar from the United Nations Foundation. We're due to have Mary Ann Yerkes, Youth Coordinator from the US Agency for International Development. My colleague Kate Carpenter from the International Youth Foundation and we have Sarah Sladen here from the Alliance for International Youth Development. So without further ado, it's really my very distinct pleasure before we move to our first panel discussion to call up a very trusted colleague and really a true youth champion, Erin Schirinian, the Vice President for Communications from the United Nations Foundation to say a few words. Erin please join us. Thank you Nicole and thank you to CSIS for your leadership and for convening us here today. It's a good rule of thumb that if you're in the same room where Nicole Golden is, you're probably in the right place. And I definitely feel like that's the case today. On behalf of the United Nations Foundation and the partners of the Plus Social Good Community, I wanted to just say a couple of words echoing what Nicole has said and calling for action. Action not only within this room among a really diverse group, an interesting group, a group of people who are dedicated to youth issues, but also a call to action to the many people, the thousands of people who are part of the Plus Social Good Community. Young people have always been part of the conversation. They've been convened at different levels, they've been listened to at different levels. But we are underway and in the middle of a major moment in world history. The consultation around the Millennium Development Goals, how far we've gone, what we need to do. The consultation around the post-2015, this dialogue that's happening around what happens after 2015 for the world's development goals. Key issues like the issues related to migration that Nicole underlined today that affect everything related to security, our economy, and the kind of world we're in, the values of the world we're in, not just the way it works or what the metrics say is underway. And we are at a point where the way that this generation, this new generation connects allows for us to have a real and a robust conversation. Not just to nod to young people, not just to say, let's make sure there's a young person at the table, but to make sure that young people everywhere are part of that dialogue. The United Nations and the Secretary General in a number of ways, both by appointing a special envoy for youth, both by what you've seen with the number of agencies from UNDP to UNFPA to the multiple UN agencies and partners who are truly engaging with young people, we know that the questions are just as important as the feedback and the answers. The question is being asked, what do youth care about? What are young people concerned about? What is keeping them up at night and what is galvanizing them forward by day? What are the things that young people want to make sure are on that global agenda? It's exciting to see initiatives like My World take place today where we're leveraging technology or we're leveraging social media to not just say we know or think we know, but to actually poll and get the pulse of young people around the world. It's exciting to see things like the Plus Social Good community come around the table so that instead of being an afterthought or a nicety around UN meetings and convenings and important collaborations, where it's actually woven into the fabric of the decisions that are being made by world leaders and policymakers today. Nicole made mention of this incredible statistic that I don't know if really people have absorbed yet, where 43% of the world is under the age of 25, 43% of the world is trying to figure out where they will go, those important migration questions we're going to talk about today, what kind of job they will have if they have one, the prospects for health. Of that 43%, there are women who want to know if they will live through childbirth. Of that 43%, there are women who want to know if they will be forced into marriage or not. Of that 43%, there are people who want to know, will I have the ability to actually influence my government's decisions or will I just be part of this game that seems to be played all the time? Will there be transparency and accountability? That 43% of the world that's under the age of 25 is talking about this, and it's called a couple of different things. I've heard that generation called the now generation, where they're worried about what's in front of them because of social media and technology. So be it. There's urgency to that now generation. I've heard that generation called the connected generation. In fact, our friends at Mashable often times refer to this generation as the connected generation because they know that they can just as easily connect with someone in Uganda or in Australia as they can with someone living in Brazil or Bangalore. They know that that connection is real and is robust. I've heard the generation called something and Nicole reminded me of it when she called this generation an inspired generation. This is the purpose generation.  Who knows that not just when they make it big, when they're successful in the marketplace, will they be dedicated to global issues? These are people, young people who are part of the global issues dialogue and who want to work with the UN, who want to work with their local governments from day one. We know, in fact, if you read statistics from Pew and from other institutes that here in the United States and many parts of the world, young people will consider giving back philanthropy, global engagement as what they do from the beginning, from their first paycheck and well before they even join the workforce from what they're doing in college, from what they're doing through their high school studies. So that purposeful generation, that generation of purpose, that now generation that wants to know information and have information quicker than ever and that connected generation that has real purposeful dialogue across the globe in real time is the generation that can tackle the tough issues. We're grateful for you for being part of that. We know that in the, by use of the hashtag youth day, am I getting that right? By hash youth day, we know that questions are coming in and so let's take the folks up on their promise here today. The people who were sit in these beautiful chairs in gorgeous Washington, D.C. here at CSIS. Let's take them up on that promise. Let's ask them questions. Let's listen to the questions and let's make sure that we're getting responses out to them. Let's utilize that now, that connectivity and that purpose to make sure that we're tackling the right questions, getting the right feedback and making sure that the world doesn't just think that it's listening to young people, that indeed it's a young dialogue. Congratulations to all of you. Thanks again to CSIS and happy International Youth Day. Great. Thank you so much, Erin. You can easily see why we have a very excited collaborative spirit here in the room today. So with that, we're going to keep this conversation going. Again, as we see some folks trickling in, there are a few seats here in the front for those coming in, no need to stand in the back. And we're going to get going with our first conversation. So I'd be delighted to welcome up with me to have a few words. Mark Montgomery from the Population Council and Manuel Orozco from the Inter-American Dialogue. Everyone mics on? Great. Well, great. So to my left, just by way of introductions, and we all have biographies in front of us, so we won't spend too much time. But Manuel Orozco from the Inter-American Dialogue and to his left, Mark Montgomery from the Population Council. And we're going to get right into it. Manuel, as we start to dive into this research and policy conversation, you have a new book that's just come out about my remittances and migration and the context of development. Can you start us off with just an overview from your research and your perspective on some of the numbers and some of the key trends, particularly in the context of young people? Sure. One way to think about youth migrants is to put it in the broader context. I think right now we are in the turning point in the global context where we are at the tail end of the international way of migration that started in the 1970s with the beginning of a new wave in between that and the intersection of that are youth migrants that come from completely or almost completely different backgrounds. The generation that we have been working with is basically one that is characterized by labor intensive work. If we're talking about people between 15, 16 to 25, about, I think UNICEF says 17% of them are part of the international migrant population. Within the context of remittances, this population basically is about 12% of all migrants. So there is not much of a big difference between the two. Now, these migrants for the most part tend to be much more vulnerable than the rest of the older cohorts. For example, they earn an income that is about 20% lower than the average income of immigrants, which is already pretty low. Migrants in the industrialized countries and even in some non-emerging economies are the lowest income sector in society. In the United States, for example, the average income of an immigrant is about $26,000 a year, and immigrants under 25 earn 20% less than that. They also have paradoxically lower levels of education. People with tertiary education in that age group is relatively lower than those who are over 25. In addition to that, in terms of their financial capability, they also have much more, they're much more vulnerable. A smaller percentage of them is able to save, to mobilize, to create and mobilize savings, and the amounts of funds saved is relatively smaller. The average immigrant, 60% of immigrants, for example, are able to save at about $4,000. This is in Europe and the United States. The people under 25 are probably $2,500. So there is actually a paper I distributed that has some statistics as a reference. So they are definitely a relatively vulnerable group, and there are certain groups that are important to pay attention. For example, those working in construction, domestic workers, among others, fall into this category of greater vulnerability. Another important issue to think about migrant youth is one we do take for granted by virtue of being young, but it's the fact that they are basically at the first stage of their life cycle. If we think of our personal lives as part of a series of cycles, we have five cycles. The first one is between 16, 15 to 25. Then there is another cycle that goes from 25, 35, more or less, then 35 to 50, 50 to 65, and then you encounter with God or anything else you want to find. But for this young cohort, there is a lesser lack of understanding of their prospects to the future, because they are more concentrated on the now. What you were talking about before, the problem is that in this day and age, the now practically doesn't exist, because we lived in this age of liquid times, of liquidity, where everything changes at such a very fast speed that it's impossible to catch up with things. As you try to catch up, the more vulnerable you are, the more difficult it is to face the changes that are coming across to you on a regular basis. This is one of the major challenges that young migrants face. They send money like anybody else, but they send also less money by virtue of their income, but also the years of being as a migrant, which is shorter than the years that the older populations do. Why do they migrate? There are basically about four or five reasons. One is they are part of the decision-making process in the household that chooses to send the youngest and strongest and more capable to work abroad. Second, because they came with their families, because the family decided to migrate and they were under five, six years of age. Third reason is that there is a substantial foreign labor demand in the industrialized economies, in the emerging economies, for certain population groups that are under 25. Domestic work is one of them, and construction workers is another one. And the fourth reason is that there is still this risk-accepting spirit among many people who want to see the world and face life. So those are the four groups, more or less. It's really helpful. And we're going to dive back into some of these issues in a little more detail in particular. The links between some of the issues young people as migrants face and how that links into kind of their overall youth development as you started talking about and then what that means for policy. But picking up on one of the points you mentioned about some of the more vulnerable groups within the youth migrants group, I'm really delighted that we have Mark with us here. Mark was a co-author of a recent report that came out called Girls on the Move, looking at adolescent girls' migration in the developing world as part of the girls' count series. And certainly within the more vulnerable groups when it comes to migration, adolescent girls are certainly one that we should spend a little more time talking about. So Mark, with that, can you tell us a little bit more about the background to the report? Why was this important for Population Council with Nike and the UN Foundation to do this deep research on? And then in particular, what were some of the key questions you looked to address? And then of course we'll get into what were some of the answers you found. Thanks, Nicole. I do want to begin by thanking the UN Foundation and the Nike Foundation for supporting our report very generously. And they were really engaged in every step of the process. We've benefited greatly from that interaction. So our report is about girls who migrate at young ages as adolescents from rural villages, other cities and towns within their own countries to city destinations. So we focused for, I think reasons that will be understandable to everyone in the room, on adolescent girls. Those girls are making choices or having choices made for them that can either open up their life prospects, positive and dynamic way, or foreclose options, possibly forever. So it's a critical moment in life. And it's surprising that one of the key choices facing girls and their families has been so little studied that it's really shocking. That is the choice about where to live. Any girl, any adolescent or boy or girl will naturally think of the future and ask, where should I live and what sort of place should I be that will allow my potential to flower. And it would be natural for girls of this age to think of cities and towns as potential destinations because after all, those are the places where resources are concentrated. You have more diverse labor markets than is true in the countryside. You have opportunities for furthering schooling and making use of those skills. You have health care available at levels that's not easy to find in the countryside. And we spoke before about important moments in history as you probably know. In the last few years the world's population as a whole has tipped from majority rural to majority urban. And in the next 10, 15, 20 years most poor countries will make that transition as well. So we're entering an era that is historically unprecedented. We've never been here before. So we wanted to ask what are the implications for girls, for their lives, for the opportunities they were able to secure and also what are the implications in terms of the risks and disadvantages and the risks of exclusion in particular. So we tried to take a very even-handed approach looking not only at the risks with internal migration and most of the literature has fixated on these risks and dangers. Most of the literature has not looked with equal intensity at the opportunities. The factors that drive migration the search for a better life. So we tried to look at both in an even-handed way and we divided the report into the stages of the travel's journey. What is known before she embarks what happens along the way in a journey from one place to another and thirdly the stage of arrival settling in and we hope a stage of prospering in city or town destinations. So what we were able to find the report is full of statistics and I know we'll want to talk a bit about how we know. But let me just give you one bit of that flavor. If I'm talking about internal migration probably you have in your mind an image of the kind of journey that that entails from a rural village to a city or town. That's a misconception. There is more internal migration from cities and towns to other cities and towns these days from rural villages to urban destinations. So in the literature in fact has not really I'm speaking the academic the program intervention the policy literature has not understood this demographic reality. So increasingly as the world as a whole as developing countries as a group are becoming more and more urban more of the migration will take place from one urban setting to another so little about the girls who undertake that kind of journey. There's I would challenge you to find three papers, three articles that ask that basic question what does it mean to go from one city or town at this young age of adolescence. We did find for each of the three stages of the journey we found promising interventions underway in poor countries. And countries such as Cambodia for example there are interventions that work with girls in the countryside in that case to try to educate them about what lies ahead. If they choose to move they should do so with knowledge of what that move is going to entail. How do you find work? Where does one go? How do you avoid exploitative situations in terms of the workplace? Where is it safe to live and how do you get from here to there? Basic information but let's face it rural girls in particular often embark without being equipped with that kind of knowledge. They also may leave without identity cards and other ways of re-establishing themselves in their new destinations. So they need to be equipped and prepared before they leave with assets whether those are in the form of identity cards or other kinds of assets that help them get established in their destinations. In the journey along the way this too is very much understudied. We think of the migration journey is one that is fraught with risk and danger and it certainly is for some girls. There are certainly the risks of sexual exploitation trafficking those are real risks but they are not risks that are part of the common migration experience. So yes those risks are real yes they need a lot of policy attention but we also should strive to see the broader picture. So in particular when girls move internally they do not typically move by themselves they move in groups with relatives with employers or intermediaries who are in principle going to see that they are established on arrival. There are points for example transit depots train stations and so forth that are points of peril for some girls but those are also points where programs can target themselves. For example in China there is a massive program known as spring rain which is focused on train stations and seeing to it that when girls arrive that they are met that they are equipped with literature that they are given a sense of what lies ahead where to go in the city who to contact and so forth. And then finally on arrival again girls have a migrant girl any migrant there is a lot to figure out in a new city destination how to find safe housing work schooling and so forth. We don't know much about that settling in process we do see in our report that girls who leave for the city hoping to further their schooling often succeed in enrolling in school and building their human capital assets. So that's one way in which migration while it can be a risky and even dangerous situation for some girls it also opens opportunities for those girls to build the assets they'll need for a lifetime. So just to quickly follow up and then I want to turn back to Manuel for some follow up thoughts one of the points that struck me on Manuel gave us an overview of some of the reasons why young people are migrating in the first place. And just taking a step back the report opens up and points out how in some cases education or employment may not be the first driver if you will of girls migration which is different than the general case we tend to see maybe with adolescent boys. The only statistic in the report is that over 40% of adolescent girl migrants in Pakistan the root of their migration is for marriage. So just if you can give us a quick again stepping back to your comments on what you found that may be differentiation between male and female youth in their drive to move in the first place and some of that may be both voluntary or involuntary but we'll have a little more color on that from you. Right. I think girls and boys move generally speaking for the same kinds of reasons in general the most general for better opportunities but specifically for work for schooling and in some cases they move in anticipation or for marriage they will say. But it turns out that the Pakistan example that you decided is a bit of an exception by far the majority the vast majority of girls who move between the ages of 15 to 19 they move while they're still unmarried. Some are doing so for example in Ethiopia to avoid the risks of early marriage that the kinds of arrangements that would be foisted upon them in the countryside. So migration for them is an escape route to avoid too early marriage. Interesting. And so turning back to you Manuel in your work Mark mentioned a few of the policy and the programmatic interventions that they've seen as being successful. What have you come across as in your work is seeing as the foundational links between migration and the needs of youth migrants and their overall youth development. And you talked about you know that this is the first of their stage of their sort of life cycle and they're entering into adulthood. What have you seen, what have you come across or just in your mind as you see as fundamental if we think about the policy approach to this? The quick answer would be security and asset building. Let me just sort of interject and clarify on something. The there is a distinction between the report that you are doing and the work I've been doing because my work is mostly on international migration and the report that you're working, you work on is mostly within countries but what is really relevant and very connected here is the nature of which the migration occurring in terms of the city, the human mobility across cities as the world has become more urbanized. This notion of rural urban migration is declining significantly. And this operates at the global level transnationally or nationally and we see it in different contexts. And I think one point of agreement we could have too is that the dangers while they exist there is a substantial rational condition that explains this migration of young people which is mostly with their families. A lot of it occurs whether it is within the country or internationally there is a substantial percentage of people who move with their relatives, with their parents. Now the exposure to those dangers may vary. And this takes you to the foundational issues that you can think of you know I think you can think of facts issues to problematize and policy solutions to certain issues. When we are looking at young migrants there are a range of issues to problematize. One of them is the victim syndrome that all young migrants are victims. Second one is that those people who migrate left someone behind as if you are abandoning your relatives and that's not the case. There are other issues to problematize that everybody is exposed to dangers that are quite life threatening. And so on. Another that I worked also with remittance recipients families of migrants the average household that receives remittances is about 5 people at least 2 in 5 are under 25 and perhaps more depending on what region of the world you are working with. Also geographic distinction is quite important because one thing is to talk about certain parts of Asia for example than to talk about Latin America or even Africa in Africa not everybody lives under these arranged marriages. And so those dynamics really matter when it comes to this issue. So what is really a common thread here is that there is a level of security or insecurity that you are exposed to by virtue of the fact that you are the younger levels and you have less social protection less of a social safety net. And if your parents migrated with you and who are coming without papers which is a significant number today there will be more exposed to these vulnerabilities. The second one is your material circumstances. What are the key issues of your material circumstances? Well you are not able to build sufficient assets. So from a policy perspective the outlook that one needs to have is how to help these young migrants to understand how to build assets over time and how to think of those assets as a function of their personal goals in the short and the long term. And those are not easy issues to deal with but at least you can lay out a baseline of policy approaches to deal with regards to safety understanding your human and labor rights for example. This is a fundamental issue whether it is urban migration, domestic migration or international migration. And the other one is how to build assets over time. And that one for a young cohort is substantially and tremendously important because if you are more vulnerable than other people and yet you are younger, your capacity to move out of that vulnerability will be more difficult if you are not giving tools to deal with them. And your life expectancy your quality of life will be much lower in the longer term. And this is a problem that we see with many migrants today who migrated at the age of 18, 19, 10 years later they are still basically working in the same job their income has increased more than 10% in 10 years and their progress of returning are relatively dim because the opportunity cost of returning is usually not too attractive to them. It's really interesting I think you know the points about financial inclusion and asset building and as part of broader economic opportunity is very reflective of the conversation that many of us are having around, thinking around young people sort of globally when we think about the youth unemployment crisis and how we can build a broader world of economic opportunity by thinking about not only how we can become generating activities but how we promote youth savings youth financial inclusion and general asset building. So it's interesting that in the context of youth migration that this issue in particular becomes quite relevant. Mark you mentioned the idea of how do we know what we know and that's something that struck me both in the report and Manuel and some of your work which is to say I think from what I've seen in the youth migration space like many of the areas of youth well-being and youth development we have data gaps. We don't have a lot of age disaggregated data. We don't necessarily have as much evidence around what works from a policy and programmatic perspective so would like to take this opportunity to get your thoughts on how we know what we know what in your mind are some of the key research and policy research questions that we need to answer such that we can really drive evidence-based policymaking and better address the needs and leverage the opportunities in youth migrants. So Manuel I'm going to start with you and ask you to give your thoughts on that and then we'll get going. Well I mean if you ask a researcher how much time do I have? That's great. How much time do I have? What I can tell you is the following is that data operates as a function of the assumptions that you make about life on issues. When it comes to youth the focus has been on the dangers and the future and their position. When it comes to migrant youth there has been very little work done and whenever there is a study most of the studies are done on the assumption that young migrants are in danger and the studies focus on that and oftentimes there is a bias. It's an important area of work but one of the problems that I find is that the analysis and the policy practice with regards to the intersection between migration and development is very very limited and partly because there is very little data and partly it's because the assumptions that exist informing the intersection between migration and development are almost new because most of your assumption is that migration is perhaps not good and so your research your analysis is not informed by those dynamics plus in the context of nation states and migration policies you don't want to show evidence substantive evidence all the time that there is a positive relationship to migration and development that cuts across different levels and that the more transnationalized society is and this is really important with the young cohorts is that transnational young people are actually drivers of major global change at different levels one of them is identity diasporic identity which is an issue that is not even addressed and yet is taking a significant relevance today and governments don't want to talk about it you always swing look at the debate in congress right now the dream act is not even a dream right now it's a nightmare so when it comes to data there is still a lot of work I think the point of departure is not to do more research at this point but to have a baseline and a consensus on what are the key assumptions we need to think about we need to problematize and then move to the next step which type of stakeholders to insert because often times you have a monopoly of data for example UNICEF sometimes they are the data people when it comes to youth and that may have implications when it comes to testing for example in education I really very much agree with what you are just saying what we know depends on the framework we bring to the problem and I think you are absolutely right that where migration is concerned whether it's internal or international the frame has been risk and danger and that's part of the story but that's by no means the full picture there are the state of knowledge about adolescent migration whether for girls or for boys it's the kind of knowledge that comes back a second adolescence is a period of life where there are many events and decisions what we know about adolescence in particular adolescent migrants comes from as it were snapshots of different girls at different stages of adolescence whereas what we need to know is what happens to an individual girl as she makes her passage through adolescence and so one fundamental data gap is the lack of that kind of information studies that actually follow girls whether they migrate or choose not to migrate but follow them through adolescence to understand what risks what actual risks befall them how resilient they are who's resilient and who is not we simply lack that fundamental information and it is a commentary I think on the literature that as Manuel mentioned UNICEF the data provider the go-to organization much of what we know about child and adolescent well-being many of you in the room will know that the UNICEF sponsors a very important program of surveys known as the multiple indicator cluster surveys much of what we know about adolescent life it comes to us by virtue of those surveys there have been four now five rounds of surveys the number of questions ask about migration over the whole zero so we cannot with these very valuable sources of information know who is a migrant internal or international and who's not so that tells you something about how migration has been seen in the literature and it has not been given the priority that I think it's essential to give it well on that note that's actually a nice ending point believe it or not our conversation has come to an end and I think what we've hopefully start to do here is just tip the iceberg with some of the questions some of the dialogue we hope it will keep happening using the youth day hashtag and that our colleagues and organizations like you will continue this conversation and hopefully we've just as I said scratch the surface but brought some of these issues to light so thank you Mark and Manuel for joining us and sharing some of your thoughts and I know some of your work is available outside and we'll look forward to more of it in the future thank you both very very much happy international youth day again thanks to Manuel and Mark and starting to share some of those thoughts and I think that also really sets up our next conversation on moving into some of the practice and what some in particular some young leaders and some young activists are doing to drive and make change within their communities and with their peers but before we get to that panel I'm very delighted to introduce and for all of us here from Nancy Donaldson the director of the international labor organizations Washington office who's going to share some thoughts with us on the ILO's research and policies around youth and particularly youth employment when it comes to young migrants and then we're going to have the DC premiere if you will of the winning video which from their youth employment video contest that Nancy's going to tell us more about so without further ado Nancy please join us so glad you're here thank you good morning everybody thank you for inviting me Nicole and for the UN foundation support and for this day I'm really hoping that and I saw a list of who's here that so many of you are here because you're working on these issues you're not only interested but you're working or you're thinking about going through these issues that's really important because it's such an interesting bundle of challenges and it's absolutely critical critical for different reasons in different places as you probably know the ILO fundamentally and our director our succeeding directors have said for a long time that the best way out of poverty is a job and in many places as a livelihood and so and for youth that's incredibly important because they're at the beginning of their lifetime of work we hope we want we want to promote and we know and the colleagues were saying this a little bit that if they if they get off track if they get disconnected from work if they don't learn the skills of being employed of any kind of work young people can so quickly get off track and never really quite get engaged about being an employed person or and a person with a livelihood an entrepreneur someone who is a family provider it happens far too quickly and then instead of maybe thinking what to do when you're retiring you have 50 years of productive life that may be off track so for this this is a very serious issue for governments for the UN system for multilateral organizations and I'm going to talk to you a tiny bit about that just to not let you know how we're mobilizing but this is like no kidding and so it's very wonderful to hear people like Mark talk about what you're doing in your world with individuals and groups and communities because this is not something that governments are going to solve that the UN or the ILO are going to be able to take on it's really a collaboration it's really a collective thing that the private sector the unions the different community based and family based initiatives have to be a part of and so thank you you started out with that and I know we'll get back to that so let me say that I have some good news I don't know if Manuel had to leave but in fact we're working on a report that is about to come out which is focused on the question of migration and youth it's not going to be super long but we have been learning some interesting things and since our international labor conference we did a outreach to about 45 or 50 countries and engagements last year and came to our international conference and adopted a declaration about youth employment and that it was an urgent top priority for governments to deal with in the many different ways that it shows up and let me just say in the UN system probably you know it's in our DG's statement today which is out a table that there is a UNGA special assembly meeting during the UNGA I assume a high level dialogue on the international migration and development that's going to take place in October so we see this coming up higher in the priorities of thinking about how do we help the youth and how do the youth help us because we're trying to get the economy back on track and better recovery and more real recovery okay and so let me just mention a couple things I was in rural Canada last week driving along far away from this issue as you can imagine and the story comes on the BBC about what to do about Egypt and it was kind of a documentary and radio documentary going through and interviewing people on the street and what were they worried about so many youths so many educated people unemployed and without disabilities and they interviewed someone from the current government who said we have a solution we're going to have a lot of our people go work in Libya on reconstruction that was the answer that worried me that worried me for a lot of reasons because the labor exploitation issues are big so there are places like here in the United States and in Spain and in Egypt and in places around the world where there are huge and the economies aren't working but there are also places where there is a great need for migrant workers there is a great need for workers of some kind and there are some places and I was thinking my colleague from Vietnam who was working on I think it's Vietnam how we got it right in this huge fisheries industry and they worry about human trafficking about young boys 15 or so being trafficked, kind of kidnapped and trafficked to be brought to work on the fishing boats because there's nobody to do the work and so they entrap them and they keep them there and they can do that pretty successfully if they're into that kind of criminal activity because they don't really have exposure to regular society so we have this thing on different ends we have very qualified people looking for jobs and migrating for better opportunity and we have situations where people are being exploited because the labor market and the workforce isn't working and that's why it's a big mix of issues and it's not the same issue everywhere I'll just mention one other story my colleague from Otis, Ethiopia told me there are 1,000 recruiting agencies in just that city exporting mostly young girls I hope they're of an age where they could be working legally to do domestic work in the Middle East and so what are we worrying about the ILO we're worrying about are they being educated some of the things you mentioned Mark about their rights are they being educated about where to connect with authorities in the receiving countries and is doing their job to make sure that this is a regulated industry there are protections for these girls who are seeping really possibly fantastic opportunities but it's sketchy as my daughter would say it's a little sketchy I want to be one of the people who signs up to Nicole's title our focus is you know reaping the benefits and minimizing the risks and so I think we're all talking about both but I do want to say from our new report some of the things that we're finding in our data which I find quite exciting and just want to say this is part of it is the benefits have we talked much about the benefits we have okay I won't over do it so you know when population growth dips and you don't have youth coming up they need youth they need workers and so we have the possibility of with good migration policies and good support and good training of helping the world balance where there aren't enough people to do the work and great aging populations and from places where people need work but that matches is critical the the studies are coming out and we're certainly seeing some of this in the US in the immigration debate that the negative effect of migration on wages and employment for national national level statistics are negligible very very low level of impact it's another it's a myth that we really need to understand and we're studying because let's let's figure it out let's know what the answer is on this let's not look be just purely threatened another thing is and this might make sense intuitively is that migration helps improve what we say labor market efficiencies helping close gaps and creating more balance within societies now one thing that you mentioned and I'll just say from our studies that are coming back right now three-fourths of migration is domestic it's not across regions so we're not talking about this mass movement of people influx going inflection to new regions the largest amount largest to 30% is in Asia 20% is in North America I think it's it was 29% in the European Union and 14% in Africa and only 3.9 in Latin America and the Caribbean so that might not be numbers that you would expect of course we all have studied at least from the institutions you all come from remittances and the incredible remittances for helping better distribution, better prosperity in a broader world and the issue of brain drain and brain gain is still very real we have incredibly well trained youth coming to places and great benefits happening and sometimes brain drain is can affect a community and okay so those are some of the good things and we need to talk more about those I also want to say what we're finding in our new study which we don't have out on the table yet because we have to finalize it but they said I could share it because this is International Youth Day and that is that for migrating educated workers it's harder to get jobs these higher paying, higher skilled jobs national and it's showing up in all kinds of places it's also true for women and the higher skilled it is those percentages are a little tougher for people migrating so the issues of discrimination are not just about exploitation they're about decent work and access to opportunity for everybody and so that needs work alright so I probably went on long enough let me talk to you about and I'd love to talk to everyone I get to about this subject I have two daughters, 17 year old and a 19 year old and it's all I think about and it's they're learning that it's not only the US where there are challenges to get jobs and internships and everything so one of the things ILO has done in addition to really work on helping develop policies for interventions for these different kinds of issues and working with our member countries and unions and businesses to create strategies together is we're also trying to engage more with the youth we've got more direct input not just from our normal partners and one of the ways we did this was this video contest and we did one last year too by the way we have that to show if we have time later on the question it doesn't work for youth but this is about labor migration and there were 40 submissions and they're actually unveiling it in New York at a different event today with the filmmaker and it so it was produced by Laura Garciendia Garciendia did you say it correctly she's 27 years old and she won first place in the contest and the title of her film which is not super long but it might be more interesting than just talking heads so I hope you'll enjoy this is reaping the benefits minimizing the risks it is and then her title is help them get there so maybe we should roll it so it's true we're immigrants but we're human we need at least to make money so we can be together I didn't see my sister we didn't see her we saw each other a few days before and that's how they came to bring it and that's how we got there and that's how we got there and that's how we got there and that was it until two o'clock in the afternoon we were hungry to do this until the evening and we ended the evening we decided to go out with 50 pesos for the four that we had it's a dish of food a bed the living room to dedicate yourself to any other activity What do children do? They train. Train? How old are they? Ten. Ten? Eleven. Eleven? Would you like to go to the United States one day? Yes. Yes? Check it. Check it. What do you want to go to the United States? To work. To work. What would you like to work from home? To work as a carpenter. And you? To work. To take care of the wood. To do housework. To do the fieldwork. The fieldwork. But they only have to go to the United States. They can do it here. The garbage. Help them get there. It's a citizen initiative. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's a group of people who take care of us. They take care of us. It's the issue of the community. Berges works as temporary facilities for all the migrants who cross to the north. They provide food, they provide assistance to any type of legal assistance of human rights. The best thing is the adventure. The best thing is the adventure. The hardest part is the hunger that is on this road. And also the hardest part is the situation of the country. The economic, political situation. I'm from Honduras, I'm from Portes. I live in Mueva. I'm 16 years old. I'm going to go to the United States. My first time. I'm really going to look for my dad. Even though he doesn't help me, I don't know his number, but I'm going to look for him. Maybe I'll find him. And I'm also going to look for work there. Best opportunities. And the school? They put batteries. What batteries? To work. The children don't work. The children study. They don't work. Many times they come traveling weeks, others come traveling months. It is to make a public complaint of the situations that violate the human rights of the migrants, to link people with other organizations or institutions that can do it. And really, the bottom of my heart I thank you for everything you do for us and for a roof that gives you where to rest. Thank you. We all identify with each other as we are, we are human beings regardless of our origin, our formation, our characteristics. What would that mean? That we would live in a better world. After this time together I don't want to go back This time together I don't want to go back Thank you. So just two points to leave you with. In May 2013 we published a global youth employment trends report. And we have a piece of paper out there with our director general's statement about an international youth employment day but we want you to know if you really want to get a baseline about what are the trends going on go to that link and check it out. And we're working on more data. Second thing I want to say is there are many international labor standards. We're a standard setting institution. There are many protections that protect youth around the world and migrant youth. If you're interested in your scholar or researcher make sure you're checking out those international labor standards and what they say about protecting youth because we have structures to act on if we make this a priority which is what we're trying to do. The last thing I want to say just about in the United States and other places, not enough places even if you have no papers you are an illegal immigrant and you are in the United States and if you work you are entitled to your pay you are entitled to basic protections in the United States and so I see a film like this and I think I'm so excited about that group that is working about telling the workers their rights because that's a really big part of it that they need to know that they can go and demand their wages and that's something that we the ILO think is so important worldwide that ultimately the worker voice is going to be at the core of changing this and teenagers I have to say from great experience usually do have voice so let's encourage them thank you very much. Thank you so much Nancy it was really important for us as part of our conversation today to have so many different stakeholders at the table from the academic community of course the ILO and the UN community and of course young people by voice and by presence as part of this conversation as well before we move to our conversation panel with some young leaders I wanted to quickly ask Anastasia DeLasio on that segue from the United Nations Foundation to just tell us a few words a little bit more about as we move into this panel community and how it really is another convener and stakeholder for many different voices so Anastasia the floor is yours, thank you Thank you so much Nicole we're so excited to partner with CSIS for an event for International Youth Day Youth is just incredibly important to the UN and to the UN Foundation in general and we really think that the plus social good platform launched is an amazing way to be able to unite young people and innovators from around the world right now you see so many different young innovators and entrepreneurs and youth organizations and change makers and it's ubiquitous but everyone works in silos so we hope that the plus social good platform can be a really great and creative way to kind of bring the conversation together and pull everyone onto the same page as you know that today's event is livestream so we're actually bringing in voices from around the world to contribute to the conversation here and the conversations that are happening all over the world and I just want to finish up by saying in September we have our annual plus social good summit it's alongside UN week and we're hoping that it'll be able to bring young voices into the dialogue that happens alongside UN week so definitely check it out the hashtag and the theme for the event this year is 2030 now so who better to bring the conversation about the future than youth we need to take to take this dialogue to the next level and you know be responsible for our future so it's important that we contribute to the dialogue into the policy that's being created around our future so without further ado I'd like to formally I guess announce the next panel a lot of great young change makers some of whom are already members of the plus social good community and have been responsible for helping to create really wonderful content and blogs and other events around issues relating to youth and to how we can use technology and innovation to better shape the future of the world so I'd love to call on the next panel Manny Yang, Ramona and Calm thank you guys so much and thanks Nicole grab a seat there alright well welcome guys welcome to the second panel I'd like to start off by thanking Nicole Golden for the opportunity to moderate this panel today and for putting me on the list I've now gained two Twitter followers as a result so I'm pretty delighted about that if nothing else good comes out of this day that's pretty positive I'm sharing stage David two really incredible people who really are at the forefront of these issues and are kind of really on top of this my own experience myself I'm CSS's resident migrant I came here from Ireland two years ago and can speak to a personal level of the experience that a migrant feels and goes through coming to a new country but I really think these people are fantastic Manny Yang is the founder and CEO of Humanity Helping Sudan project he's going to talk a little bit about that and Ramona Dragomir is the Atlas Core Fellow at International Association for Volunteer Effort so we're going to begin I want to kind of touch off what Manuel and also what Nancy was talking about surrounding the positivity that that migration has and it can be seen in that kind of light and would you be able to talk us through a little bit about your organization how you feel about it and what your thoughts are well different from different people some people see migration very bad, some people see it in a good way so when you enter to the country maybe from Africa people are going to think that you may be sick or you may have disease or a thing like that or you may be like somebody that's vulnerable and cannot help each other and cannot help anything there's nothing to offer to the continent there's nothing to offer to anybody so there's like a negative and some people see you from Africa you may know a lot of things and some stuff it's like different from place to place and that's a hard part of coming to a new place that's the way I see it and Ramona from the European perspective what can you have from that? so first of all this course that we have in Europe about migration we don't call it migration we try to call it because for the European level and in the European politics migration is something too bad it brings it brings about a negative connotation so the way that the EU has coined this term is through the use of the word mobility which means positive action which means individual mobility moving around in the European Union 28 member countries now either through individual actions or through EU funded programs part of it's Europe 2020 agenda that the EU has put out is they're trying to put together this mobile if you will workforce that has contributed to what the EU tries to promote as a knowledge economy the EU is very much focused now on mobility but mobility with a purpose with a purpose of gaining skills with a purpose of trying out new job opportunities if you will with a purpose of being a European citizen because that's what we're trying to create to develop the identity of being part of the European Union so most of the efforts that the European Union is doing now is are targeted to giving the opportunity of people and again I'm talking about EU 28 member countries I'm not talking about the EU as the European continent all together so but within this 28 member countries one of the rights, the most important rights that people are expected to have is the right to free movement so that translates into mobility that translates into the right to work, study, live anywhere in the 28 countries and this is what sort of the discourse that the EU is putting forward so try to look this as a positive perspective sort of get a flow of east moving west of north moving south moving east if you will just a follow up on that Angela Merkel recently said people, European citizens in general should be prepared to move and that it shouldn't be seen as this big issue look at the United States it wouldn't be considered weird to move from Iowa to Illinois which is sort of a normal thing to do to follow work, do you think that it's a cultural shift that needs to happen for people to see it more in a positive light sure I mean and again just try to think to flagship programs that the European Union has to sort of promote this idea of easy access from one country to another those are the Erasmus program which is focused at providing the opportunity of students so people who are enrolled in formal education to go and study one semester or two semesters abroad in any country in the European Union sometimes in English, sometimes in the local language but that's an opportunity for people to learn new and get new skills and learn new languages and then the second program which I used to work on is cross-border youth volunteer program called the European Voluntary Service which is basically an opportunity for people between between 18 to 30 to volunteer abroad in one of the EU member countries and you know it's a training program it's a learning program and again it's a service program so through these two programs and not only what the EU is doing is first of all promoting this idea of yes you can freely move you can freely you know live and work and volunteer in any other EU member countries and then having this as sort of at the back of people especially the young European generation if you will that oh I'm not Romanian or I'm not Lithuanian or I'm not of our Bulgarian but I am a European citizen and just from integration perspective we were speaking in the green room before it came out he was showing me a video that he'd post on YouTube it was some like stupid misconceptions about Africans and it's a video that Manny has posted of himself you know talking about the cliches that people think that Africans are like and these kind of ignorances that kind of flow across borders what do you think of the obstacles towards integration when this migration happens well there's a lot of things because you know when I come here I didn't know a lot of people so I only know my flight so one 167 that's my flight number so I didn't know a lot of people so when I enter here one thing I remember it's going to school it's still I tell a lot when I speak on a different thing so I was running a track and there was a girl named Kelly Cooper and she was running she was running with me and then out of nowhere she pulled out and out and then she said can I run like that do I look good I say no now she's really mad I say why I say you don't say like that I say okay I thought you were asking me like seriously I didn't know I didn't know I have to lie maybe I have to do that okay and everybody asked me do I look good I say uh huh yeah you're always comfortable that's the thing that people have a conception about Africa they will ask you to speak click and it's like thing like that they will ask you like something they saw on TV and okay what do you why is Africa a country they didn't know a language and they will ask you think like that but when you have something different they get mad and they didn't know the same thing that is applied like you have some things and somebody can have to use the same thing so it's like a lot of negative but right now people try to understand Africa differently if you go to school like 5 years ago I went to University of Richmond and African study was not very popular but today if you go you will see a lot of African study are getting more student going there because they know I think we must learn so many things out of it and people get to know that the thing is changing a little by little now and that's when you have to know that okay this is there's a lot of change coming and people want to be educated more about Africa than Africa they used to know in 1960 a man killing animals and like a lion and things like one picture they see for all of the lifetime and never change there's going to be an HIV and AIDS and things like people are located from Africa you may have HIV and AIDS I never get sick I was born in Africa and lived there for 17 years I never get sick honestly I never did I never yeah it's honest true I never get sick I get cold when I come here because it's cold that's the kind of situation you get yourself into even if there's no one organization people are going to ask you is where the organization is going to work is there going to be war where if somebody could attack them burn your office okay burn it I mean people who live there in Africa they need help when there's war there's a lot of need for help then people will just live in peace and I'm just going to scare about people okay they're going to burn my office who will build it and if you don't try to change things who will change and you know you get stuck down and everything okay where's the money going to go if the government change I'm not a government I'm a non-profit organization called Humanity Helping Sudan addressing the need for refugees and that's what I do I'm not a government I don't try to be a government so that's what this concept that you have when you're from Africa you're from part and the economy is coming to Kibera in Nairobi Kenya you will see now the city is very busy you go to Addis Ababa you go to Addis Ababa you will see the economy is moving you go to Botswana you will see also the economy is getting better I mean change take a while just people need to understand just to jump in on that do you think that you know the role I guess of a migrant new country as you're I guess you're a representative of your do you think it's the onus is on you to kind of change those perceptions or to integrate directly into society and kind of maybe perhaps even lose your lose your heritage in order to integrate I mean it's both because you know I was the some things I was refugees myself I lived there for 13 years and I was something called lost boy of Sudan which is a group of I accompanied a minor that I run to know but it didn't change the fact that I am from Sudan I did my life change it you know I won't help those but come to the fact that you know I understand there's a lot of question people won't know and that's why I first the video actually the video called silly question about Africa what you people love because it's like okay I didn't get mad I didn't get too mad and I didn't get too hungry and I just say okay this is what people ask you in a lot of questions that people will be asking me people like it and access and people posted on their website was something to create that people can understand Africa differently you know not everybody who come from Africa always just have no money and before and broke and no not everybody who was born in Africa is sick and there's not nothing to do in the world people are smart and and we'll build the station in South the guy from South Africa is actually building a satellite in and son of I just come I go there like a month ago he's building the station that they're like going up the sky what about the I didn't know yeah he's building it this is from Africa he was born there and I mean people not the problem of this is hunger like food you know if you're about a culture or sources water those are the thing that I spend my time with because food is the only thing that people need to build and Africa problem is two things it just power the thing you need to do this energy energy you need more energy and that's very very basic thing you need you need a farming so people can farm more and then they can produce their own food I mean it is good but it is something that people give you temporary and then just a little bit on what my colleague said this idea of when you go and you sort of travel and you try to study somewhere else and you come from a different culture it is sort of your duty as a they call it citizen diplomat so to go and share and talk to people about your culture and about where you're coming from and what are the some issues that people are facing where where you're coming from because don't make the assumption that everybody's knowledgeable and everybody has access to the same resources that they know about if I'm coming from Transylvania or if he's coming from Africa which is you know a country right I mean we all know that so I think this is sort of taken upon us as people who choose to live in another country that we should share you know stuff about our issues about our places where we're coming from and try to break down one of those you know stereotypes of everybody's hungry or starving in Africa unfortunately we're kind of running a lot of one more question a bunch of other questions unfortunately time's away from us and I can see the food at the back and I can see everyone else looking back at me as young people as young leaders and you kind of touched upon it there and you're saying as you know as a migrant what what your kind of duty is what would you say you know young people can do so naturally today what what what can people do to kind of be more positive about this and I guess it be leaders and get engaged what would you recommend I think introducing to job market I think if you introduce them to job market not only they will they will create a job for themselves a lot of people right now want to create a job that would add other people you know I've met a lot of them everywhere in the conference when I go to like a lot of people I'm doing this I'm doing this and I get excited I'm like wow everybody have a job we want to do this stuff nobody going to work for anybody anymore but that's good because everybody will inventing something and and you know even I went to Ireland myself and I with a group of people where you so I went to Ireland and I see a group of young people making it's like a Facebook but not a Facebook it's like a book a book well they call it year book here in America but they make it to form where they become a business and I was like wow that's good and that's what you need because you know building especially the building capacity job marketing like not only like you go there and opens like factory will be the best now but if you have a solar energy like people need because I'm big on farming and I'm big on energy I try and give like you know local farmer something they can water irrigation system thing they can do but I think Africa is a younger generation it's not younger generation by saying okay people who live there no but live holder that's some people who live holder I mean Nelson Mandela is a famous person but live 94 year there's a lot more people you can find like that but what they say is what they're saying is like a lot of younger people tend to live there in Africa I mean that's political term of saying the economy is 7 out of 10 if I don't get a mistake yeah so you introduce them to that job market your own kind of job introduce them how the world is coming into now and that's what the young people need a leadership you know scale to do things building capacity and things like that and I think I was reading the call actually I follow her on Twitter she heard my chain like trust me she heard the big my chain anybody over here would ever need she come to the state department USAID and I was like wow she work in Seattle she had a big machine and she work with Clinton if you go on her Twitter you will see that she was a picture with Hillary Clinton and you guys are very young too look you are young and young over there and very young so just build everything you can I would have to say three things first try to identify what are your passions or pursue your passions and this is three things is what we in the host organization where I I am engaged here in the US we try to do in relation to youth volunteering so identify your passions is it I don't know agriculture is it health is it community service whatever and then try to sort of build your skills related to that passion do you need to do do you need more education do you need more networking do you can you find those opportunities in your home country do you have to go outside of your you know territory to find those and then once you have those skills try to sort of multiply the impact of what you've done or learned or built so far talk to other people engage network and I guess this is something that everybody knows but try you know if you have sort of a plan so stated goals how to get there and then some sort of you know measurable deliverables if you will then I think it works and it's something clear that you want to do and where you want to go well thank you guys thank you so much for providing your insights and I think that concludes our panel I think we can go and have our lunch thanks guys thank you Callum Minyang and Ramona I always one of my favorite quotes which I say almost any day but I feel is especially appropriate today is from actually an 18th century French philosopher moralist named Joseph Joubert and he said ask the young they know everything and we clearly not to not to undermine if you will or cut short mark and Manuel or myself but we surely save the best for last on this international youth day so as we end our formal speaking program again I just wanted to say thanks to the United Nations Foundation and to Plus Social Good Community for partnering with us I have to give a huge thanks to my colleague Katie Perry who is probably somewhere behind the scenes for really being the just orchestral director there she is behind this event so a huge public thanks to Katie because she's amazing thanks to everyone who's been joining us online we know the conversation will continue online and the dialogue hopefully that we just started today will be enduring I also just wanted to quickly point out before we go offline in honor of today if you're wanting to continue to engage on these issues today as international youth day the United Nations is also launching this year's annual World Youth Report which is on youth migration so that's probably available on the UN website now I actually haven't checked to see it but that should be a good resource I think going forward to stimulate and continue the dialogue on these issues so with that I'm going to close the formal speaking program and just make a quick logistical announcement as we go into the lunch and it looks delicious and that so to facilitate our networking conversation as I said luckily all of our speakers have agreed to stay on and so we can continue some of the questions and dialogue at the tables as well as we have a few other special guests facilitators so I'm just going to quickly call out there's a number on the table so as we all go up to get food think about this when you're coming back to the tables or just find me this is very informal networking here but we're going to have Kate Carpenter where's Kate hopefully she made it although maybe she didn't make it so what we're going to do is we have Nancy Donaldson over here at Table 1 which is the right corner so you all know Nancy we're going to have Ramona is going to be at Table 2 we are going to have Jessica Lazar from the United Nations Foundation is going to be at Table 3 we are going to have Colm Quinn just moderate the panel from CSIS at Table 4 Mark Montgomery from Population Council at Table 5 Manuela Roscoe who's been moving around but I know he's still here from the Inter-American Dialogue is going to be at Table 6 unfortunately our colleague from USAID had to leave us but Manyang is going to be at Table 7 Sarah Sladen from the Alliance for International Youth Development is going to be at Table 8 Rebecca Zilberman from the British Council Global Society Lead is going to be at Table 9 and a number of my colleagues including myself will be flittering in and out of Table 10 so with that let's all get some lunch I'm so glad you're all here with us and let's enjoy some time for networking thank you


some overpriced diesel fuel that's for sure but why you guys don't even know but we are on the way to Martin Michigan we are going drag racing we got frostbite behind the hauler and we got project storm over here driving all the way from Georgia we are going up to martin michigan us 131 raceway and we're going to be doing the nmca drag racing event with the torque storm first annual bash that they're doing 13 hour trip from Georgia and we are halfway there right now it's going to be a long haul that's for sure hopefully we go set some good times and beat our personal best I have a good feeling that we're going to do that for sure so stay tuned we're going to hit the road y'all have a good one