WORKING MEETINGS SUMMIT2006

Junior 8, or J8, a club of eight teenager teams from leading industrialized nations, will be launched on July 8 in St. Petersburg. Their meetings will take place in Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo), near Russia’s second-largest city. The official opening is scheduled for July 10.

J8 is a project that involves teenagers in the summit of the Group of Eight heads of state and government. For the first time in G8 history, children will have an opportunity to speak directly to leaders on issues on the agenda of the St. Petersburg summit.

“Today’s teenagers mature early and get quickly involved in public life,” Russian Sherpa Igor Shuvalov said. “J8 intends to formalize teenagers’ opinions and considerations. With a status in effect equal to that of the Group of Eight, J8 will become a prime opportunity for young people to make themselves heard by world leaders. Heads of state should listen to what the new generation says: after all, it is this new generation that will live in a world influenced by today’s decisions.”

The J8 meeting in St. Petersburg will focus on the same issues as the G8 summit:

• energy resources and the future of mankind;
• proliferation of HIV/AIDS, other infectious diseases, and drugs among young people;
• education and values;
• youth extremism and violence.

The discussion of each of these pressing global issues will take one day, during which the J8 teams will share their ideas with leading global experts, Russian ministers, sports and show business celebrities, academics, and scientists.

Each J8 team will include eight children aged 13 to 17, selected in each country in a nationwide contest. The whole J8 event will culminate in nominating, after a series of special games and contests, one member of each team on July 16 to form a joint J8 delegation, which will later meet with world leaders at the Congress Palace in St. Petersburg.

The Russian team includes teenagers from eight locations – Vladivostok (Far East), Yekaterinburg (Urals), Zelenogradsk (Kaliningrad exclave), Kazan (Volga Region), Moscow, Taganrog (south), St. Petersburg, and Tomsk (Western Siberia) – who have passed through several rounds of the specially launched TV show The Magnificent Eight, broadcast on a major Russian TV network and moderated by scores of prominent public figures.

UNICEF is also organizing a video conference between the J8 and teenagers from non-G8 countries.

Pop concerts organized by MTV

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