Given my current uniform of T-shirt and jeans, some of you may be suprised to know that I used to run around international conferences in a suit and tie. Yes, it’s true.
Ten years ago, I was a part of Youth for Habitat II, a pan-Canadian project to include youth voices at the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul. We were a very diverse lot, ranging from anarchists to UN geeks like me who had been to UN conferences before and knew the arcane lingo and negotiating procedures.
This spring, I got a group email from two of the participants. They proposed a 10-year reunion get-together in Vancouver to coincide with the World Urban Forum, which decided the timing of this visit West.