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Patrick McGrath is a GLP student who is currently in Munich attending the G20 Youth Forum. Previously, he has attended the Global Leadership Program’s Brazil Symposium and shared his experiences here on the GLP Blog. This time around he will chronicle his experiences at the forum over the coming weeks…
A pretzel a day keeps hunger at bay.
This is the rule I’ve been living by after arriving in Munich a few days before the G20 Youth Forum begins just outside Munich. It’s been a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends I met on exchange (NB – one of the many reasons you should go on exchange is to have local guides scattered in cities around the world) and to ensure I am over the jet lag and time difference to be at my best once the proceedings begin.
The response I get when I’ve told people here and at home that I am attending the G20 Youth Forum in Munich is “Great! What is that though?”
An entirely reasonable question. In short, it is a conference that brings together young leaders each year from the G20 member nations to discuss relevant international topics including law and human rights, ecology, energy and the environment and global migration issues.
The collection of students, academics, parliamentarians and members of the public will attend a series of different meetings where they will present their research or position papers and they will be discussed within in these groups as well as published in the conference proceedings. Similarly, a summary of the discussions will be tabled at the G20 conference in Brisbane later this year.
Macquarie University will be strongly represented at this conference sending a delegation of 14 students and academics to contribute to this conference. A number of Macquarie University delegates have also been selected to act as the Chairs and Secretary-Generals of their respective tables in addition to their regular duties.
I am one such student who has the dual honour of being selected to be Macquarie University’s student representative to the Social Affairs and Medicine Roundtable as well as act as the Secretary-General of this Roundtable. This means in addition to preparing and presenting my paper “Why Are We Still Hitting Our Kids? A Case For Action on The Use of Physical Discipline on Children” I also decided the order of presentations of our roundtable and will prepare a report of our roundtable’s discussions to table and present at the closing ceremony of the conference.
