This year’s Commonwealth Youth Forum in Magam Ruhunupura was history in the making. Sri Lanka was host to the forum’s first ever General Assembly and in addition the Commonwealth’s first ever Youth Council was elected and appointed, making it the official voice for the largest recognised youth body in the world. Four Sri Lankan representatives were appointed as members of the Youth Council.Tharika Dileepani, one of the council’s newly elected members and Nooranie Muthaliph, a member of the Youth led Task Force instrumental in pulling off the much-lauded event shared their experiences with the Mirror Magazine.

The duo are still brimming with enthusiasm and pride in a job well done. This year’s theme of the Commonwealth Summit was ‘Sustainable, Equitable and Inclusive Development’; the Youth Forum adopted this under the banner ‘Inclusive Development: Stronger Together’. “We wanted to say that it was vital for young people to have a say if development is to be inclusive,” says Nooranie. “You’ll notice that almost all important summits have a separate platform for youth now.”

This year’s Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF) saw the participation of youth representatives from 53 countries, making it one of the largest in the forum’s relatively short history. The concept for CYF was developed at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1997, and the first ever youth forum was held in the same year. Subsequent forums developed on the idea, eventually turning the youth forum from somewhat of a fringe event into an important arm of the Commonwealth summit. Today the CYF has evolved into a model loosely based on the UN, with a General Assembly which separates for thematic panel discussions, passing recommendations through a Policy Working Group and eventually presenting an outcome document together with a declaration.

In Sri Lanka, this was known as the Magampura Declaration which was presented to Heads of Government at a Youth Dialogue as a commitment to be made to the youth of the Commonwealth (you can find the Magampura Commitment to Young People on www.thecommonwealth.org). In addition, a third document setting out an action plan for the Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) was also drafted, to be released soon.

A working group was appointed to present a draft constitution and then it was a matter of coordinating with the committee based in Colombo who was responsible for the mammoth task of organizing the forum. The task force consisted of five Sri Lankan representatives (Nooranie and Tharika, together with Co-chair Kusala Fernando, Aruthra Rajasingham and Sihan Dhammika Jayasinghe) and a selection of five representatives from other Commonwealth nations.

At the forum, the CYC constitution was ratified and the body’s executive members were appointed and installed. They will represent over 1.2 billion young people in the Commonwealth. The CYC will be responsible for implementing agreed priorities set out by the Commonwealth youth representatives and in addition, the newly elected youth leaders are expected to carry out recommendations in tandem with stakeholders, business leaders and governments.

Tharika is one of the committee’s nine executive members, having been elected through popular vote at the forum. The body is made up of a chairperson, three vice-chairpersons, four regional representatives and one representative for special interest groups. Tharika, an undergraduate from the University of Jayawardhanapura, is the regional representative for Asia. Under the guidance of the body’s Chairperson (Ahmed Adamu from Nigeria) her job is to be the voice of young people in Asia. Fellow Lankans Sadham Zarjahan and Mohamed Husni were appointed as Vice-Chairpersons of Partnerships and Resources and Inclusion and Engagement respectively. Wathsala Samarakoon was also elected as the CYC’s Special Interest Groups representative.