A Different Kind of Public Diplomacy

The United States–which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month–is doing things a bit differently in the chamber today.

About two weeks ago, Ambassador Rice solicited feedback from young people around the world for the kinds of topics and issues they would like taken up by the Security Council. Young people responded in droves, sending in short video clips and posting notes to the Ambassador’s Facebook page.  In all, over 900 youth from 90 countries entered submissions.

A few of these videos will be shown in the Security Council, and members will be asked to directly address the concerns raised by youth. Here is one of the youth submissions that will be shown today. It’s from a 17 year old in Venezuela named Fabiola Mercedes Estrada.

I think we’ve met a future Secretary General, no?

You can watch today’s council meeting live, starting at 10 am EST.

UPDATE: It seems the Security Council was evacuated because of a gas leak. The event is being moved to a separate building in the UN complex. I’m not sure if there will be a live feed from the new location, though.