GLOBAL YOUTH FORUM 2022 - YUNGA SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
by Dr QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General
19/10/2022
GLOBAL YOUTH FORUM 2022
YUNGA SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
Opening Remarks
By
Dr QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General
19 October 2022
(Plenary Hall, 10:30 hours)
Hello everyone,
Hello to the younger generations.
1. Let us have a fresh start this morning. Your future is in your hands.
2. When I was your age, I had a lot of dreams. Can you guess what was my number one dream?
3. It was having enough food in one day! Because 59 years ago, I went to bed without food or without enough food. I went to bed hungry!
4. For this reason, I wanted to end hunger - to have enough food.
5. Now, you are fortunate, living in Europe, in Italy. You can enjoy food prepared by your parents, your grandparents or by your sisters and brothers. You have enough food.
6. However, please remember we still have at least 20 percent of people in the world who do not have enough food, every day.
7. That should be your dream: to start to help FAO and to help people in those vulnerable countries to end hunger.
8. This is the first message I want to give you.
9. The second message is: how you can help people who need the most help.
10. First, prepare yourselves to be capable persons.
11. What does it mean to be capable? It means you need to study by having more knowledge.
12. You need to study and understand the world.
13. The world is not just the one you see today, it is much more complicated – you have to therefore understand the real, big picture of the world.
14. Third, you need some specific skills – you need technology to empower yourself in order to be able to help others.
15. Last but not least, you need a big passion, a big love.
16. Not only the love you have for your sisters or brothers, your parents, your grandparents, your neighbours, but you must have love for all the people on this planet.
17. And then, you need to be strong physically and psychologically, because you will face stress everyday while you grow up.
18. Even now you face some stresses: you are struggling to get up early, or you do not like to do exercises under the high temperature, or you do not want to finish the homework your teacher gave you.
19. That is a small stress for you, but in the future, you will face a lot of stress.
20. Therefore, I hope you have a vision and a mandate; that you have love in your heart and in your soul.
21. And then build yourself up to become a capable person in the future, when you go to the field, when you go out on the street, or you go to work together with other people – you must do it in a friendly and honest way, and in a way that delivers results.
22. You must walk the talk.
23. I wish you a bright future, a bright career and a happy and healthy life.
24. I wish you all the best!
25. Thank you.