Event Support
The 3rd World Youth Congress is a biennial event aimed at promoting the role that young people can play in helping governments tackle areas such as poverty eradication, peace, equality, health and the environment.
Scotland was selected as host for the third event of its kind in summer 2005 and the Scottish Executive was responsible for funding and organising the event, which set out to attract 600 delegates from over 100 countries.
Barkers was employed to raise awareness of the event and its issues to young people around the world and specifically in Scotland as 100 delegates place were reserved for young Scots.
A coordinated media relations plan was implemented in the run up to and during the Congress. A media pack and news releases were issued to hundreds of media contacts around the world, including youth media and contact was made with editors across the UK media to put forward young journalists to participate in the event.
Local and regional activity was implemented focussing on action projects in Scotland and Scottish and UK delegates and media relations activity was implemented in support of Change 05, an initiative launched in Scotland aimed at young people aged 15 to 25 to do their bit for sustainability.
A 24-hour press office was set up on-site during the 10-day event. This involved daily briefings issued to the media, handling inbound enquiries and on-site media visits as well as incident management.