With the upcoming opening of a new session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, a coalition of more than a million young people from around the world are preparing to ask their leaders to take a stand on global health issues.  As a United Nations intern who represents and reaches out to youth, I see this as an important chance to let young voices be heard.

Youth For Health and Global Youth Action on Tobacco are two youth organizations committed towards making lasting changes to promote safer health policies for young people. The groups will will speak before the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon with a charter on youth, health, the environment, and development.

The groups claim the present health policies have a negative effect on youth.  The impact of problems such as global warming or the HIV/AIDS pandemic will most greatly affect young people in the future.   The charter devised by young people includes the following reforms for governments:

·        Strict enforcement of food and agricultural policies which will make healthy food (fruits, vegetables) available to all at affordable prices and regulate unhealthy foods (such as those high in fat and sugar content).

·        Effectively disseminating health awareness through mass media.

·        Peer-to-peer teaching to prevent HIV/AIDS among youth.

The youth involved feel that the Millennium Development Goals are essential to solving serious global problems. But at midpoint to the 2015 deadline, the overall success of these Goals is still to be seen. Speaking from a youth perspective, I believe this demonstration is extremely necessary in our fast-changing world.  We as youth should provide a safe world for ourselves, and future generations.