The Sozidanie Foundation’s

16.04.2005

World Tour de France

In April, 3-16, 2005 in France there was carried out a grandiose event Les Journees Mondiales Des Jeunes Solidaires /World Tour de France/ devoted to celebration of the 6^th Global Youth Service Day /GYSD/. World Tour de France 2005 was organized by Association de la Fondation Etudiante pour la Ville /AFEV/ conjointly with other associations, institutions, government agencies and organizations. This event was conducted under patronage of Jacques Chirac, the President of France, and was fostered by Kofi Annan, Secretary-General United Nations, Robert Badinter, Senator of Hauts-de-Seine, Michel Barnier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Francois Lamour, Minister of Yout, Sports and Community Life, Claudie Haignere, Minister of European Affairs, Jacques Delors, Former President of European Commission, Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former Secretary-General of United Nations etc.

100 young people from 46 world countries, GYSD participants, - Italy, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Uganda, Armenia, Georgia, Brazil, Cameroon, Togo, Bangladesh, Philippines, Palestine, Czech Republic, Honduras, Turkey, Austria, UK, USA, Romania etc. were mobilized to educate the general public about their activities and contributions to society, encourage youth to meet the needs of their communities through volunteering, share experience of carrying out GYSD, different effective methods of community service and discuss future plans. Throughout France volunteers took part in organization of commitment forums, debates with policymakers concerned with youth issues to foster universal solidarity, ceremonies, meetings, festivals and concerts to get together and celebrate GYSD.

World Tour de France 2005 participants:

Tatiana Popova /19 years old/, Moscow, volunteer of Foundation “Sozidanie”

and Russian Center of Volunteer Development

/e-mail: Tatianamail12@mail.ru/,

Alina Levina /20 years old/, Saransk, Republic of Mordovia,

volunteer of Volunteer Service Agency PIETAS

/e-mail: Alinaslim77@msn.com/