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“Our world is governed by lots of self-serving and corrupt politicians,” believes Alexia Ramon from Mexico for one. That is why the 16-year old wants to change something and is starting with the very big problems first. She and 99 other members will now take them on in the international Youth Parliament.

In order to encourage young people like Alexia to become politically active, over a year ago the Goethe-Institut initiated the project Youth in Action. It asked approximately 4,000 PASCH students to debate climate change, the consequences of globalization and political hot spots in discussion sessions and their own committees.

Now, the highlight of the action is coming up soon: the Youth Parliament in Montevideo. One hundred young people from Europe, Latin America and Africa will convene at the Palacio Legislativo, the parliament of Montevideo, from 5 until 11 July for the international parliamentary simulation. Most of the German and Spanish participants already have experience in the area through school projects such as the Model European Parliament and have formed their own clearly defined political opinions.

Click on the photo or the name to get to know the participants:




The main focus of the Youth Parliament is on the eight global Millennium Development Goals that the United Nations wants to implement by the year 2015. As when they were resolved, however, their realization, in particular “halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and extreme poverty” or “achieving universal primary education,” is still written in the stars.

Although some progress has been made in recent years in development work, it has been accompanied by new problems. For example, the living conditions of the working poor in the slums of East Asia has improved, yet at the same time, China’s economic upswing is causing a rapid increase in pollution: the percentage of worldwide CO2 emissions in East Asia rose over the past ten years from 2.9 to 6.7 percent.

Any intermediate successes became tenuous and the slight upward trend until 2007 took a drastic turn for the worse with the world economic crisis. The increasing worldwide unemployment rates generated new working poor in many places and the number of people suffering from hunger experienced a drastic rise. According to prognoses for this year, the number of people living in conditions of extreme poverty worldwide will probably be 55 to 90 million higher than expected before the world economic crisis.

Therefore, during the Youth Parliament a joint resolution is targeted to be submitted to the heads of government at the next meeting of the UN at the end of July. Alexander Kruckenfeller, head of the language department of the Goethe-Institut Uruguay and coordinator of the project, is certain that the Youth Parliament is not only important for implementing the Millennium Goals: “The Youth Parliament is important because it networks young people at an international level through education. Around the world, young people think in five languages and the Goethe-Institut Uruguay is providing the platform for this.”

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