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Sahar Vasquez reporting
After much anticipation and preparation, participants from over 40 different countries have finally gathered in one room to discuss driving societal change towards the sustainable development goals from a youth perspective. These young men and women are serious about making a difference by not just by learning life-changing information but also by sharing best practices.

Shaopton Toussiant, Haiti
"Basically you know I am from Haiti. It is one of the countries most affected by the climate change so now I am trying to use the knowledge that I am getting here so that when I come back to the country I can try to implement something new to change the country."

Anya Edwin, St. Lucia
"For me it is a matter of forming partnerships creating partnerships with the representatives from all over the world, exchanging ideas, best practices, that me as a St. Lucian youth leader can bring back home and implement as well as empower our youth in St. Lucia."

Taisha Estrada, Belizean
"I feel more than honoured that the world youth conference is being held Belize because as we all know I won't say we are a small country to me are big so hosting the world youth conference where we get to meet all the different countries."

The main focus of the conference is the sustainable development goals. These goals are important keystones in effecting meaningful change in countries all over the world. To guide them towards this, they have experts talking to them about achieving the different goals.

Lisa Lewis, Member - WYC Secretariat
"When we talk about the conference to put it pretty much in a nutshell they are about 4 thematic areas that sustainable development goals look at one is overall humanity, the second is pertaining to the environment so we find sustainable ways on land, air, water to preserve sustainability, the third is overall health for all populations, and the other is quality education."

"We have a variety of speakers, international speakers as well as locals."

Sahar Vasquez, reporter
"Now, this is an important presentation because corruption is something that has overtaken a lot of the world. Do you think that they will be receptive to this?"

Jamie Anne Chevannes, Youth Outreach Officer National Integrity Action Jamaica
"Well for the most part, yes once they understand the connection and how it impacts them directly and prospect for their future a lot of times persons tend to think of corruption in terms of government it is not that affecting me but once they see that it does have a ripple effect I think that they will and how they can help to fight against it which is very important."

For many of the excited participants, this is their first time to Belize. Many of these participants come from big towns and cities with more traffic lights than speed bumps so they are fascinated by the way our small city operates, in fact, one participant admitted to being jealous of Belize.

Nuranisah Abdumani, Malaysia
"This is my first time in Belize and I feel like when I saw Belize from my flight actually I was kind of shocked because for us it is less developed, but one thing that made me feel jealous of Belize because it is less developed than my country but i think Belize has a good opportunity to make things right because in our country we already have traffic jam pollution and Belize still has so many things they can do and change they can learn from us not to do our ways and that is my opinion I feel jealous of Belize you can do so many things here."

The conference concludes on Friday.

The 2016 conference was held in New Delhi, India.