Korean and international youth will gather at Eunpyeong Hall on Saturday and Sunday for lectures, themed debates and the drafting of the Eunpyeong Declaration
Eunpyeong-gu in Seoul will host the "Global Dialogue" — the main educational program of the 2026 IFWY Eunpyeong Conference — at Eunpyeong Hall in the district office on Saturday and Sunday, bringing together Korean and international youth participants.
IFWY stands for International Forum We, the Youth, an international youth forum where young people discuss agendas for a sustainable future. More than 27,000 youth from 163 countries took part in the 2025 event.
This year's event is themed "Culture, Our Common Future" and unfolds in three stages: the Eunpyeong Academy (preliminary education), the Global Dialogue (main program) and the Eunpyeong Conference.
The preliminary Eunpyeong Academy held two sessions — on Sept. 30 and Oct. 7 — covering global citizenship education and debate training. Youth selected from among those academy participants will take part in the Global Dialogue.
On the first day of the Global Dialogue, Saturday, Georg Wilfried Schmidt, the German ambassador to South Korea, and novelist Seo Su-jin, who received a special prize at this year's Lee Ho-cheol Unification Road Literary Award, will deliver lectures. Their talks will cover "Korea in the World and Public Diplomacy" and "AI, Humanity, Dialogue and Literature," respectively.
In the afternoon, participants will split into six thematic groups to share the agendas they have each prepared, exchange views and work toward consensus.
The six themes are climate crisis and cultural heritage, the creative economy and youth employment, cultural rights and equal access and representation, AI and human creativity, heritage amid peace and conflict, and governance, democracy and youth participation.
On the second day, Sunday, participants will hold formal debates by theme and use the results to draft the content of the Eunpyeong Declaration. The program will conclude with a networking event among participants.
The Eunpyeong Declaration drafted during the Global Dialogue will be unveiled at the closing ceremony of the Eunpyeong Conference, to be held Oct. 31 at Jingwansa Temple. The conference will feature an opening ceremony, keynote lectures, thematic presentations with expert commentary and a cultural experience at the temple.
Eunpyeong-gu District Mayor Kim Mi-kyung said the Global Dialogue is "a process through which young people directly define international agendas related to culture and translate them into concrete policy proposals through debate," adding that the views participants refine together will be compiled in the Eunpyeong Declaration and presented at the Oct. 31 closing ceremony.
Further details are available on the official website.
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