BPN 1431: New York: here is the WSYA (3)

This Sunday many of the teams will get their first dive into New York. For many team members it is the first time that they are in the big Apple. And as the world leaders gather at the United nations for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Review Summit in New York, people will stand up and ask attention for the goals. In New York this happens at Lincoln Center.

The members of the winning team start working on placards and T shirts to make known the MDG they ask attention for. And then they go up to Lincoln Center: metro in and metro out, through Central Park. After taking photographs the winner team members start to look around and listen to the speakers. There is an information market with some 20 booth. A music band plays in between speakers who stand up. There are some ten TV crews. However the public attention is very disappointing.

Being in New York for the first time and then immediately standing up and speaking out for your MDG, requests some courage. But some of the WSYA winners do. A winner from Pakistan was standing and listening to people talking about Pakistan. He concluded that those people had good intention, but had never been in Pakistan and experience the poverty, increased by the floods, and social situations. So he got up the stage and took the microphone to tell from daily experience.

In the evening the WSYA winners went to the Hard Rock Café on Times Square for dinner, offered by one of the sponsors. Before getting food the winner would have to tell about their project. It had an estranging effect to talk about poverty in the environment of abundance of the artefacts donated by popstars such as beautiful guitars. After the meal, the group had to find its way back to the hotel in Long Island City.

BPN: 1431