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 Chris meets Sir Bob Geldof 

By Chris Cooper  / Spinebreakers Crew



I am sure many of you have been following the events in the run up to the G20 in London on the 2nd of April, and if not, you must have heard about it in the news somewhere. Well, I was lucky enough to be asked by the Department for International Development to become a Youth Reporter, and attend many of the events leading up to the G20.

The first event I went to was the White Paper Conference where I managed to grab an interview with Sir Bob Geldof, who gave an insight in the way he feels the current poverty crisis should be addressed.
Chris interviewing Bob Geldof

Click to play video interview
Medium Video


I also interviewed Douglas Alexander MP, who spoke to me about the role young people have to play in the current Economic and Climate Change crises. The most important point conveyed being that we need to take some kind of interest, as the decisions made today will affect the future world that we will live in.

I was in a team of nine reporters, who also managed to get interviews with Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Head of the World Bank), David Miliband MP, Ed Miliband MP, and Krishnan Guru-Murthy, reporter for Channel 4 news, among many others.

I was lucky that I have the background of being an Editor for Spinebreakers, as I already had some experience with interviewing people, having interviewed Kevin Brooks, and Bernardine Evaristo, and spoken to Meg Rosoff and Marcus Sedgwick at the Children's Literary Festival in Bath last year.

The youth reporters have been working hard to get young people involved in the G20, writing blogs and articles for the London Summit website, and the Facebook group [London Summit: Future Voices]. We have also had articles published in The Guardian, and Bliss Magazine, and various local papers.

Chris interviewing Bob Geldof

I also attended the Youth Conference, where we got a chance to meet Youth Delegates for difference charities at the DFID headquarters, where we interviewed Ivan Lewis MP. Three of us also got VIP passes to the G20 March through London, where we were able to march at the very front of the procession!

The final event I went to was the open discussion in St Paul's Cathedral with Gordon Brown PM, Kevin Rudd PM of Australia, and The Bishop of London, which was really good, albeit a bit chilly in the cathedral.

Overall it was an amazing opportunity and I hope that the project will carry on so that we can engage more and more young people, and help them to take an active interest in the world today, and in the future.

Chris Cooper, 19, Youth Reporter for DFID, and Editor for Spinebreakers 


Read more on the Youth Reporters' Blog

View Chris' crew profile