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FATHIMATH
RANIYA WAHEED
My
name is Fathimath Raniya Waheed, 17 and I am from the Republic of
Maldives.
(For those who dont know where this is....have a look at): www.visitmaldives.com
I
was elected as a delegate for all the children in an Online
forum and invited as a delegate from Maldives and
representative from Sri Lanka to the Junior Summit (www.jrsummit.net)
1998 held in Boston from November 15th
through November 21st, at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology to develop proposals for the betterment of children in
the digital age and on November
21, presented our ideas to an audience with sufficient power and
influence to make our ideas, reality.
The
event was hosted and organized by MIT's Media Lab in
Cambridge Massachusetts. The Junior Summit was online
since September 1st 1998 for some 3 months with a
community of some 1000 participants from all around the
world participating through an online discussion forum
via the Internet - breaking down barriers of distance,
economics and languages, to create a world community
of digitally enabled children. During this time,
we explored pressing issues such as child rights,
education, child labour, freedom of speech, environmental
responsibility, digital identity, and world
peace.Young people are using technology and communication
tools to exchange their ideas and concerns
about the future of our planet and how to contribute to better the
world.
The
summit's goal was to join the world's children through
technology and give "kids" a voice in the future.
We also presented the United Nations with a 20-point
program from improving kids' lives around the world.
The most remarkable thing about this conference was
the "Diversity". We had 94 "kid" representatives, aged
10-16 from over 130 countries around the world at the
Media Laboratory (Media Lab), MIT.
The
summit had a wide array of corporate sponsors, including Citibank,
LEGO Group, Swatch and Sega.
Mr
Isao Okawa, Chairman - CSK Corporation and Sega Enterprises, Ltd made
a donation of $27 million from his
personal funds to MIT. The "Okawa Center"as an ongoing
research institution to develop ideas underlying
the Junior Summit.
I
was also the first delegate from the Republic of Maldives
but 1 of 10 delegates as part of the Sri Lankan
delegation to "Future World Leaders Summit" organized
by Presidential Classroom (www.presidentialclassroom.org)
held in Washington DC USA
from 7-15th July 2000.
I
have now been given the opportunity to become the Team Manager for the
first batch of Maldivian delegation
for the March Summit next year.
I
leave in two days as a 1 of the 2 representatives for
the International Youth Parliament in Sydney from the
19th-29th October 2000.
On
a last note, I have finished my GCE O-Levels (Ordinary
Levels) in the British School in Colombo and hope
to depart for further study in states next year perhaps
in the field of Information Technology....something
like MIS (Management Information
Systems) |
