That time I interviewed the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth

The UN Youth Envoy - Jayathma Wickramanayake, is someone I greatly admire. Just a few years older than me, she’s been such a powerful voice on the global stage making space for youth at the UN, making genuine change regarding how we’re engaged and amplifying our voices on some of the most important issues. From being a vocal part of the movement to end unpaid internships across the UN system, to pushing climate change and youth-led climate action to the top of the agenda, her work speaks for itself.

I am always drawing inspiration from powerful women doing good in the world - from arts and culture to science and politics, and in September 2020 Jamaica had just appointed our youngest ever Senator, a young woman in her early twenties. So we decided to use our platform to highlight young women in leadership, from the local level to the global, and an SDG Young Leader who has had the amazing opportunity to see the Envoy in action and to have the support of OSGEY (Office of the Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth) for the work I’m doing in Jamaica with Talk Up Radio, inviting her was an easy decision.

I reached out to the Office and requested an interview with the Envoy and in between her many engagements we sat down to speak for roughly half an hour. In our conversation we talk about her journey as a young leader - the challenges, high points and lessons, but we also speak more generally about the issues affecting young people globally, the state of youth power - youth-led efforts to make change and what her office and the UN is doing to change things for example - the UN Youth Strategy.

Listening to young people across the world sharing their ideas, solutions and innovations for making a difference and building mechanisms to support them is a central part of the work she does and she also shares insights from her interactions with them. On the other hand, as a young leader herself, she shows a deep understanding of our frustrations with decision-makers. A couple of the questions I ask in the interview also come directly from young people in our youth community who were invited to submit questions via social media.

You can listen to the entire conversation below, it’s a light-hearted but forthright exchange that I certainly learned a lot from.