Rio+20 Youth Blast

Youth Blast – Conference of Youth for Rio+20 was the official preparatory event for all children and youth who attended the Rio+20 Conference.

The Youth Blast was organized by the UN Major Group for Children and Youth in partnership with the Government of Brazil and it held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 7-12 June 2012 in . The event was divided into two sections: Brazilian Days (7-8 June) aimed at supporting and strengthening the host country youth movement, and International Days (10-12) June) aimed at bringing together Brazilian and International Youth to prepare for Rio+20.

The overall aim of the Youth Blast was to empower young people to effectively participate and influence the Rio+20 and its processes. It created a unique platform for the 2000+ young participants that were able to share experiences and discuss solutions in addition to identifying common priorities for the upcoming days.

Over the week, in addition to 7 plenaries, 5 panel discussions, participants had the opportunity to engage in over 100 parallel sessions organised on various topics and languages to cater for everyone’s interests.

I was the part of the small MGCY task-force that coordinated all the operational matters of the event, and was in charge of fundraising, logistics and overall coordination and troubleshooting throughout the event.