breaking the ice

The General Assembly on 17 December 1999 in its resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) that 12 August be declared International Youth Day.

The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organized to support the Day as a way to promote better awareness of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond, adopted by the General Assembly in 1995 (resolution 50/81).

Thus, on the occasion of the celebration of the International Youth Day 2007 the European Youth Forum demands the UN and its member states to convene a 2nd World Youth Ministers Conference and a 5th World Youth Forum - the 4th World Youth Forum took place in Senegal 2001.

The theme of the International Youth Day this year “Be seen, be heard: Youth participation for development” touches the aims and the mission of the YFJ and its members organisations, in particular concerning the recognition of the role of Youth Organisations as spaces of participation and commitment to society change and development.

Today was my granny’s birthday. She never wants anything, she claims to have everything. Well, she still got some nice things and was hopefully happy with them. Next challenge in almost 5 month – Christmas present.
Being with my granny the whole day, also involved being with my 3 little cousins (4, 5 and 9 years old). They were terribly bored so we made up a fairy tale quiz.
How many fairies were invited to the birth celebration of sleeping beauty?
What was Cinderella’s carriage made of?
What were the 3 methods that the queen/witch tried to kill snow-white with?
But we got stuck with some fairy tales – for example because the Gimm brothers version is different to the Disney version (which they were much more familiar with), or because we all could not remember how the story goes on (puss in boots, does anyone remember why the cat got boots? And were they seven league boots or normal boots? And what did poor Rapunzel do wrong to be locked up in that tower? And what happened to the goat at the end of The Wishing-Table, The Gold-Ass, and The Cudgel in the Sack?)
Well, I gave them homework to answer all those questions to me over the weekend, but to see if they come up with the Disney or with the Grimm version I have some reading to do. I am grateful for any useful information and clues to solve the problem!

PS: googeling for disney characters pictures i have to admit, that I am shocked, that Mulan and Pocahontas never get on the family pictures, they must have the wrong tan.

My aim for today was to work on my inbox and getting down from 185 unanswered e-mails to 40. I missed my aim. I did all I could; I really remained focused, i drank a litre of coffee but only made it down to 48. I could cheat and create some extra folders, but this seems ridiculous, as it does not solve the problem.
Anyhow, much more important is that I get used to forcing myself to drive the car at least once a day – just to get used to it and keep on practising, but it still feels really wrong to sit behind the steering wheel.
But as Sir Robert Baden-Powell said: “We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.”
100 years of scouting today, one world – one promise, congratulations.