After a pretty hectic weekend trying to catch some sleep and explore New York, it was another early start. A quick briefing at the UK Mission followed by a more exciting event: the Welcome and Briefing Session for Youth Delegates (Committee Room 8, in case you were interested!).

A few of us had met earlier in the week but it was very exciting to see some new faces, to recognise that more countries were noting the importance of youth delegates - everyone was really enthusiastic and dedicated so the meeting was very positive and productive and we agreed a meeting schedule for the rest of the week. We were an active group of young people and we certainly were going to work rather hard.

At 10am we saw the Opening of the UN General Assembly 3rd Committee - nothing too formal, just recognising the important agenda for young people and other related issues.

The afternoon started with the Youth Delegates side event and we were slightly sceptical about its likely success. It was, however, a very good event although it was mostly attended by youth delegates. At the end of the discussions we celebrated the 10th birthday of the World Programme of Action for Youth by eating some cake! The youngest delegate present, at only 16, blow out the candles and made a wish - we don't know what she wished (that wouldn't make it come true!) but she assured us that it related to the WPAY!

Afterwards, it was time for the UK Youth Delegates to prepare their own side event. At the UK Mission we prepared our areas for discussion and also made presentations for the side event - leaving the office at about 6pm.

8pm arrives and we have another meeting for all the youth delegates. The main topics for discussion were recognition for Member States sending youth delegates and creating a working group for the round-table. The meeting dragged on ever so slightly due to the contentious issue of states being given an award for sending a youth delegate but eventually at about 9:30pm we concluded and most of the European delegates joined some people from the European Youth Forum for pizza!

A busy day but a fun one all the same!