I am simply having a wonderful time this week at the International Youth Parliament here in Sydney. I've been to a lot of youth conferences over the last few years, and I think this is the best! I arrived on Sunday, and it feels like I've been here for weeks. After a quick tour of the venue, the huge St Joseph's College, I practiced my navigation skills and started giving the tours myself for groups of delegates! From that point on, it's been an intensive time of facilitation, workshops, meetings, highly engaging conversations, meeting up with old friends, and gaining new ideas.

The opening session on Monday at the Sydney town hall was well choreographed - if a bit slow to get started - and incorporated a call-to-action from the Premier of New South Wales, an relatively unmemorable speech from a distinguished and personally inspiring indigenous leader Pat Dodson, and an incredibly moving address by Stanley Simpson, IYP2000 delegate from Fiji. I came to this conference thinking I was mainly here to facilitate and develop partnerships for TIG, in a very mechanical sort of way. But Stanley's speech reminded me of why I am here really - to connect with and learn from an incredible group of people fighting for human rights and social justice against all odds, and from very diverse backgrounds. Thanks Stanley, you are a true leader.

I'm facilitating one of the two Education Action Areas, which is a group of 30 youth coming from places from Jordan to Indonesia looking at creating relevant, innovative informal education initiatives - such as training programs for young women in India, to advocacy efforts to in Papua New Guinea. It's been great working with Ethan, Liz, and Kimberly on the facilitation team, and we've been having fun coming up with games and exercises which draw connections with the issues and get people collaborating - as well as the more intensive breakout groups. Tomorrow we'll start one-on-one mentorship with the group, which should really help people concretize their ideas.

Last night we were packed onto buses and driven to the new National Institute for Dramatic Arts theatre. The trip itself was a pleasure, chatting to several more of the delegates from the UK I hadn't already met. Is it just coincidence, or is everyone from the UK really great?

The performance blew me away. Architected by famous Canadian group Cirque Du Soleil, it brought together six performance groups from around the world (Brazil, Paris, Aboriginal Australia, Chile, South Africa, Montreal) - youth from marginalized communities who used dance, song, hip-hop and circus to express themselves... powerful cultural action. Hugely professional, very inspiring, highly entertaining, it got us all into a great mood. The performers are joining us from tomorrow as IYP delegates and I can't wait to talk to them about their experience putting together the show over the last three weeks. Again, very impressive!

Today things are picking up speed. I took time out this morning to have breakfast down the road (as much as it is wonderful, I needed to get out of IYP for an hour). And then after our Action Area Group in the morning, I presented a workshop, twice, on Networking and Partnerships. It was a bit nerve racking, especially as people were slow to arrive... but we soon got a very good crowd and the feedback on my evaluation forms was excellent, which I'm so glad about. These people deserve the best.

In between the two sessions, Rohan and I chatted to Mwena, a delegate from Nigeria. He lives two hours+ travelling away from the local internet cafe, which he can't afford anyway at $2.50/hour. Right now he lives in a rural village, and runs the hospital for the region (110,000 people). In fact, he is the only doctor. Turns out that while he is here in Australia, the region basically has no health care system. With a smile, he said he can't wait to get back, "because soon the community will start crying", and "because the weather is terrible here!".

It's been great catching up with many old friends and making new ones. To sum up, wonderful.