This weekend, 55 young people from all over the state gathered on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, each one here to represent his or her home community at the first-ever Conference of Young Alaskans. The conference commemorates the 50 th anniversary of Alaska's original Constitutional Convention.
Delegates hail from 25 communities and represent 13 different ethnicities. They are here to discuss issues and topics that both affect present-day Alaska, as well as the future of the state. The participants are debating five topics; education, natural resources, communities and families, leadership and the "Alaskan Dream." University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton says the event is good for many reasons.
"I think there's a darn good reason for the state at the Legislative level, at the Executive level, to understand what it is young people think we need to do, where we probably ought to be going and what are some of their suggested solutions to some of the issues at stake," he said.
On Saturday morning, delegates worked in small focus groups, not unlike the committee system used by the original convention. They compiled lists of 10-20 goals pertaining to each of the five conference issues. The small groups then brought these lists before the entire delegation, which had the opportunity to hear testimony from adult facilitators and local experts. These discussions provided the day's most intriguing conversation.
In the resource development debate, it became clear that the youth delegation was following in the footsteps of their adult counterparts, as a partisan divide became apparent amongst the participants. The discussion became bogged down in political opinion, until delegate Matthew Moon of Anchorage, an employee of Artic Slope Regional Native Corporation, made one of the most poignant statements of the day.
"Natural Resources should not be a conservative versus liberal, republican versus democrat issue. This is way to way too important to characterize those issue as such."
Today, the delegates will choose what they feel are the five most crucial goals for Alaska in each of the topic areas. In the afternoon and evening sessions, they will create and debate plans for action. All of this will build to the final vote on Monday, where the groups will propose and ratify formal action statements. These action plans will then be submitted to local and state lawmakers.
Saturday Overview (Jan. 14, 2006)
