© UNICEF/2009/K.Muller

Following a day of welcomes, introductions and getting to know each other the J8 got down to the real business of starting work on their key topic areas, which will influence their final communiqué to the G8 leaders.

Each national group divided themselves among themed groups: child rights in the context of the economic crisis, climate change, poverty and development in Africa and education, which the J8 chose to focus on as their fourth topic. Quickly it became clear that these are big topics with complex solutions. The challenge of taking these issues and reducing them to firm recommendations for the world leaders quickly hit home. ‘It’s difficult to find a solution in one day’, noted Joanna  Elter from Germany.

Kefhira Pintos from the USA was also looking forward to getting further involved in her chosen subject area of education. The key focus area is yet to be determined, but she was hoping that health education would be chosen. ‘There are so many diseases, both curable and incurable and education is such an important part of preventing these’, she said. ‘If people can learn how to look after and respect their bodies, we could make a great difference.’

As well as the theme groups, the young people also divided themselves into interest groups. These groups hopefully take a little more advantage of the interests and talents of the J8 delegates. The groups focus on daily evaluation, media, new media and the all important job of writing the first draft of the communiqué.

Pauline Bossavie from the France described the fun the members of the evaluation group had. Their job is to feed back on the day’s activities in 15 minutes in a non-conventional style at the start of each day. Although very tight-lipped about what they would be doing the next day, she did say it was ‘really cool’.

The media interest group also made their important decision and appointed Refilwe Tsumane from South Africa and Pulkit Agrawal from the US to act as spokespeople forthe first J8 press conference during the official opening ceremony.

As the first full day draws to a close the ground is set for the J8 to come up with their ideas about how the G8 leaders should be helping children’s rights around the world. The rest of the week will see how these ideas develop.