The final report from The Conference of Young Alaskans has been made available. There’s some interesting information in the report but it doesn’t hold a candle to the discussion and process the delegates were engaged in. These young people were self nominated and came from all over the state to share their ideas and visions for Alaska’s future. They didn’t always agree, in fact the report shows that they didn’t fully agree on anything, but they approached the discussion with a great amount of civility and respect. They identified areas of improvement for the state and found points of contention. They made compromises and friendships while trying to solve problems and I thought the process was very open and engaging.

At this point it looks like the University will work towards hosting another conference in 2009 and I hope a youth run non-profit can emerge to ensure that will continue to create more active and empowered young minds but we’ll see what happens.
Even this process had its flaws but I guess you just can’t bake a pie without someone trying to stick their fat fingers in it. In politics, it’s when the process gets distorted that I become the most frustrated. I like to think that a good open process can eliminate the influence of greed and power but maybe not. There’s a slim chance that this group can cling to what makes it good but it will probably eventually collapse in on itself or become a tool of the man. Damn the man.

Download the report here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Juneauite, Projects & Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.