We're here!

Wednesday 21 August

The end of our first day - after more than a year of hard work from so many people and a 12 hour flight - the plan put in motion in a field on the 9 August last year has finally become reality.

To our delight, the first thing we saw was a sea of smiling faces welcoming us to South Africa. Throughout the day everyone we met went out of their way to make us feel at home in their country of so many contrasts: the difference between the area around the airport and some of the townships we have seen today is striking.

We started to feel like we were really in South Africa as we drove past an ostrich farm, a troop of baboons and circling vultures. But we couldn't fail to notice how even the poorest areas are riddled with Coca Cola and Nestlé branding.

The International Youth Summit is being hosted by the Universityof the North West in the middle of Pilanesberg National Park. The Youth Summit is part of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the main aim of the next three days is to produce a declaration on behalf of the young people of the world to be presented at the main summit. Discussions on this start tomorrow but today we had the chance to see a number of national initiaives aimed at getting local people involved in sustainabiliy in their own neighbourhoods.

At dusk set in we boarded the Love Train - part of an initiative trying to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS and provided sexual education to communities. We knew before we arrived that HIV was a huge problem in this part of the world but it really hit home seeing large in-your-face bill boards conveying a powerful message: "Sex is sex ... just give me the money" - Suzanne, 17. "Suzanne was da bomb - shame her sugar daddy gave her HIV" - Patrick, 17.

The Love Train travels around from town to town on a monthly rotation and is one of a number of trains which in 'MEST-UP' style provide advice and support to local people on subjects such as HIV, the law and healthy living.

The day finished with a trip to the ostrich farm which rather conveniently contained a bar for a chance to relax and meet other delegates to the summit.

Matt had one of his most random shaves ever earlier in a dark barn without a mirror in the North West of South Africa.

The Delegation

Visit this page again tomorrow for more news of the International Youth Summit and a further update on Matt's ablutions...

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for more news about the Woodcraft Folk's Sust'n'nAble project

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to visit the official United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development website