- guardian.co.uk, Saturday July 2 2005 01.22 BST
Wilfried Ebene Minla, a Unicef ambassador visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photograph: Unicef
Wilfried Ebene Minla looks like any teenager in his red Hawaiian shirt and shiny new trainers. But when he speaks about his plans for the weekend it's with a maturity that goes way beyond his 17 years. Today, as a young ambassador for the global children's charity Unicef he will travel to Dunblane in Scotland where he will take part in C8, the young people's equivalent of the meeting of the eight most powerful men in the world at the G8 summit in Gleneagles.
He's clear of his mission. "We need to remind adults - in the African governments as well as the G8 leaders - about the lack of education, poor health, the poverty, HIV and corruption that has a direct impact on children in Cameroon and Africa in general."
Wilfried mentions Cameroon first because it's where he grew up. Three years ago he moved to Pau in the south-west of France and is part of the French delegation to C8. He speaks, in French via a translator, of having seen the difference in the way children grow up; in Cameroon most children don't go to school because they have to pay - in France they do.
But he also speaks of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country he visited with Unicef last year. "I met child soldiers, it was a tremendous experience. They told me about their life at war and it was deeply shocking," he says. "They are traumatised because the war killed the human poet in them, it killed their childhood and it's difficult for them to get that back."
At C8, children from all over the world will join British schoolchildren to draw up a plan of what they require from the most powerful men in the world. It's an attempt to make their voices heard. On Tuesday all the charities working with children will join together under the Make Poverty History children's day banner to share what they have found. Separately, the Department for Education and Skills is also bringing together British schoolchildren at the J8 conference in Edinburgh, which will, on Tuesday evening, present a communiqué to ministers in the Scottish parliament.
Wilfried has clear ideas of what he wants the G8 leaders to do. "The first would be to take into account the voices of the youth, listen to what we have to say to open new perspectives on the developing world." Added to that they should cancel the debt of the poorest countries and enforce the Millennium Development Goals they agreed in 2000, which includes universal education for all primary aged children and closing the gap between the number of boys and girls who attend school.
"If G8 leaders don't take measures to change the situation I think populations, people, all around the world will see what kind of leaders they are and who they have given the keys to our countries to. They will prove that they aren't trusted leaders and they won't be able to look themselves in the mirror.
"A child deserves to have his health protected, to live where he is respected, where he can express himself and his voice is heard. I want to believe that the voices of children will be listened to at C8. I hope that the leaders don't act as if they are listening just to have a clear conscience. I really hope that this will come out with actions."
