Making a direct connection (excerpts from statements by UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar)

The experience of the United Nations, as well as the call of its Charter, is that the struggle for peace, decent lives, human rights and human dignity is everyone's work. The challenges . . . are so great that nothing less than the collective effort of all of us will be enough to meet them. To create the will to make that effort, we need to know each other, to explore and use what we share, and to understand the reality of our similarities and differences. You have already gone a long way, in that necessary commulnication. The culture of international youth, which is written and talked about so much, has become more profound than its commentators often think. Of course, there are common tastes in customs, clothes, music, food and dance. But you and many in your generation have made these interests much more than their sum; you have created from them the beginning of a common understanding of what is important, what is worth striving for, and what must be achieved.