Presidential Commission on Youth and Intergenerational Patnerships

After an awesome lunch at McDonalds with Efren, I trekked back into DC. I had a meeting with a friend who works with Synergy Ministries to debrief on the time I spent with Himadri at CSS India. I was hoping to make my way down to the Lincoln Memorial before heading to the Global Youth Action Network fundraiser, but time was not working with me. I did make it to the Capitol, took some pics, and then headed to help set-up for the fundraiser event.

So I got connected to the Global Youth Action Network (www.youthlink.org) back when I was in college. The organization is HQ'ed in NYC, but I actually met the co-founders at an international education conference I attended in China the summer of my freshman year. Great organization. Anyhow, the co-founder Jonah drafted a Presidential Commission on Youth and Intergenerational Partnerships and submitted it to President Obama on January 8 of this year, and presented at tonight's fundraiser. I was helping out at the GYAN fundraiser tonight - it was great to see old friends and meet a bunch of new ones, young and old, all passionate about helping those around us in our communities and around the world. Here's a snippet of the proposed commission...

President Elect Obama,

In 1960, during his presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy asked Eleanor Roosevelt for her political support. She agreed, but not without his promise to create a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. The commission was created the next year and had an historic impact on the lives of women, nationally and globally.

In 2007, as you prepared for your own White House run, you asked young people for their political support. You got it, but in exchange for what? Many young people supported you because they believed in your message of hope and promise for social and political transformation.

I'm sure you will agree that when young people are empowered with new technology and a new political vision they can revolutionize politics. They did so in 2008 by helping you raise more money and mobilize more people than any campaign in history. We believe that young people, when given the opportunity, can improve the social fabric of this country and transform what it means to be a citizen of the United States and of the world.

We want to create the space for this opportunity and believe that bringing the agenda of youth to the world stage will make that possible...

go to www.pcoy.org to read more.

Then I jumped on the metro to head back to Efren's place and met some "friends" on the platform who insisted on me taking a picture of them. Friendly couple... the lady had a bit too much to drink. Anyways, after I upload the pics, I'll share that with you. Quite funny. Looking forward to the craziness in just a few hours... inauguration day.