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There are many international youth gatherings around the world. What sets the World Youth Congress Series apart is that its Delegates are ALL young leaders who have DONE something. An international team, working from the PCI Headquarters near Cambridge in the UK, read the thousands of applications that come in from almost every country and territory of the world – and they make their judgements: on the applicant’s achievements; on their motivation; on their concern for the particular Congress theme ( – in this case youth job and green enterprise creation.)

In order to achieve a variety of young people, we select, not just as many different nationalities as possible, but young leaders from as many different fields as possible: business, the arts, education, the media, the health services, the law, farmers, scientists, faith leaders – all young people who have a passion for life, and for creating a better future for themselves, their children and grand-children.

Young leaders of political groups, unions, youth councils and youth networks have a harder time persuading the selectors of their suitability to come: many such youth see the Congress as an opportunity to exercise their silver tongues and gild their CVs. That is not the point of the World Youth Congress: a Congress is a gathering place where young people can come and tell stories of their achievements: how they created an NGO; how they built a windmill; how they started a successful company, ran a campaign, made changes in their school or college etc.

Every Delegate to every Congress applies in one of 6 x Category. These are –

  • Young Entrepreneurs – young people who have started and are running a business;
  • Young Media Professionals – youth working in TV, Print, radio, photography or online media. The Youth Media group run the Congress Newspaper, Blog & Youtube channel
  • Young Educators: young teachers / youth workers who teach global issues, and introduce entrepreneurship and green economy issues to their students;
  • Young Artists: to feature in the Boulev’Art – but also young artists who feature global challenges in their work;
  • Young leaders – youth in elected office who have driven international agendas, run campaigns, delivered policy changes etc.
  • Young Observers – youth who have not yet done very much but passionately want to come and learn how to do more

All youth delegates leave with a Personal Action Plan (PAP) of things that they commit to their peers that they will do when they get home.

The Congress managers maintain a website where each PAP is tracked to celebrate the ones that are achieved, and to learn from those that fail. And – of course – the Congress Facebook page keeps the family of delegates to each Congress together for many months and years after each Congress is over.