On Wednesday, 27 February, Affinity Intercultural Foundation had the pleasure of hosting Kareem El -Ansary, 2019 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations for the first A+ Youth Lecture of 2019. The event was facilitated by Network 10’s, Catalina Florez.

Every year, the UN Youth representative embarks on a 7-month listening tour within Australia. They run workshops and listen to the concerns put forward by Australian youth. This is then compiled and presented at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City later during in the year.

Kareem started his speech by detailing his role as the 2019 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations followed by underlining his goal, “My goal in all of this is very simple, to listen.”

He said, “In every place I visit, I will be looking to understand what issues young people care about and how they see the future. I will work to ensure that those issues will be heard by our leaders in Australia and on the global stage.”

Kareem stated that although youth are often labelled as “lazy, complacent and smashed avocado eating idealists “, over 500,000 youth in the last national census said they were doing some form of volunteer work within their community.

Kareem went on to say that the majority of the youth he had spoken to thus far were optimistic about the future.

The lecture was a sell-out event with no empty seats.

Stay tuned for more exciting A+Youth Lectures.