19 th World Festival of Youth and Students
The 19th World Festival of Youth and Students was held from the 14th to 22nd October 2017 in Sochi, Russia. More than 5,000 volunteers were kind enough to welcome and help all the delegates from the various point of arrival till students got settled in, even while it rained heavily. Students of our program, Love Umesi, Ola Bamidele, Oni Isaac and Obiri Emmanuel had a chance to participate in that wonderful Festival.
'Immediately, we settled into our accommodation, our volunteers swung into action in helping us access our festival kits which a brand new phone, colorful festival outfits, a box containing notepad and other stationaries, tickets to the Sochi Amusement Park, delegates ID in-order to access the venues of the program.
After this, we were treated to mouth watery buffet, it was more than needed after a long journey to Sochi. Then, we proceeded to walk around the hotel to appreciate the beauty and I can tell you this for a fact, it was a beauty to behold!
The next day, 14th October was the opening ceremony, we were surprised to see the massive delegations that were present numbering more than 30,000 people from more than 185 countries and from different backgrounds. While some were students, others were workers. The event also featured more 7,000 security agents to ensure a hitch-free festival.
The opening ceremony held at the Bolshoi Ice Dome in Sochi Olympic Park and we were welcomed by Nicolas Papademetriou, the president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), the hosting body.
We learned about the history of the festival with its event in 1947 in Prague and how the festival has become a voice in the world to uphold justice and fight corruption and being a voice against war and conflicts while appreciating various youths in the forefront of making the world a better place.
The president of the Russian Federation added color to the opening ceremony when he made a surprise appearance and the whole crowd became ecstatic. He welcomed and advised us to enjoy the warmth and hospitality of Sochi and Russia in general. President Putin did not hide his feelings about being happy that Russia was hosting the event the 3rd time as she had previously hosted it in 1957 and 1985 respectively.
Higher School of Economics anchored most of the Economic session and had guests such as the Russia’s Minister of Economic Development and also, the Rector of National Research University – Higher School of Economics in attendance. It was an awesome experience attending the various economic session. In one of the session, we looked at Smart Economies using technologies in a smarter way to improve our daily activities. Population projection such as that for the year 2050, shows that the expected number of people in urban areas will be around 6 billion people out of the world population of about 9.7 billion showing that there would be rapid urbanization across the world as population increases. Also by the year 2050, we will need more than 60% in excess of the food we have today to be able to sustain the projected increase in population that will arise. Currently, about one billion people don’t have access to electricity and about 800milllion of this population walk a long distance (about 30mins per day) to access water.
One of the problems of urbanization is exposure to chemicals and also, time-wasting in traffic and with technology resulting in little or no time for families and healthy lifestyle.
The festival was not all academic and just like the Olympics, there four major events taking place at the same time such as sport, cultural exhibition, Science and Technology, Discussion and Empowerment skills. Examples of sports activities were football, basketball, BMX Bicycle sports, skateboarding and a whole lot of other conservative and extreme sports.
In all, it was an experience of a lifetime that cannot be forgotten in a hurry.'
by Love Umesi, Ola Bamidele, Oni Isaac and Obiri Emmanuel