Following the Global Youth Conference on Forests, Water, Health and Peace, you will find below a series of interviews all directly related to the event in addition to the complete webcast of the event.
Click on each image to play the corresponding videos:
Earth Focus Foundation organized a special event with the support of the Green Film Festival in Geneva on the 24th of February 2011.
Earth Focus Foundation presented THE PLAN written and directed by David Osterberg and Michael Stenberg of Biospheric Pictures AB (2010, 58’, Sweden) followed immediately by live discussion with Bruce Mau and Bisi Williams, and director David Osterberg.
Video summary of the event:
After the screening of THE PLAN, Bruce Mau lead a discussion exploring these questions:
How can we get the power of design into the hands of the 99% who have not had access to higher education?
How do we break through the noise, and make the best of human culture the most visible?
What can we do to accelerate the best (and stop the rest)?
Interviews:
What is the Massive Change Network?
The Massive Change Network is purpose filled, entrepreneurial, experienced based design possibility network. The key strategic idea of the Massive Change Network to provide via various means and methods the inherent and native capacity of citizens, students, governments, business and community leaders to develop and enhance their critical design thinking skills. The vast majority of global citizens lack access to this critical working tool.
Our purpose is sharing knowledge with the 99% of global citizens who do not have access to college, university, or post secondary education. Our intention is to deliver the most knowledge, wisdom and culture to those with the least. The Massive Change Network is mandated to focus on inclusivity rather than exclusivity.
To greet the greatest opportunities and meet the most pressing challenges being presented to our world, citizens must be equipped to accelerate the uptake of new solutions. The emerging global conditions will require a new kind of scholar, worker, entrepreneur, leader, and educator. This emerging ecology of ever increasing technological, social, financial, environmental, governmental, and educational challenges, will require citizens committed to working collaboratively across professional silos, the ability to not only think critically, but creatively, and to move beyond theoretical musings to practical implementation. The 21st century will be the century where every citizen must become a life-long learner of some capacity. A network changes everything.
Presentation of Earth Focus foundation in video featuring Mrs Nicola Spafford Furey during the 2048 project meeting in December 2010 in Geneva as well as young students at the GIN (Global Issues Network) conference and at the Global Youth Conference explaining their actions to change the world:
The Earth Focus foundation, continuing the work with young people started within the renowned Bellerive Foundation, organized the World Youth Conference (8-11 November 2010), in Geneva.
The conference welcomes young people from all over the world to contribute to the subject of Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
The conference consisted of plenary sessions with experts regarding the effects of climate change, such as:
Mrs Nicola Furey, Vice President, Earth Focus foundation
Dr Quentin Deville, Member of the Board, Earth Focus foundation
David Hiler, Minister of Finance, Canton of Geneva
HRH Prince Frederick von Saxe-Lauenburg[1], Grand Cross Saxe-Lauenburg (GCSL), Fellow of the International Institute of Peace Study of London (FIIPS), Children of the World
Stands from many of those organizations were present on site, to expose and promote their activities, give information and testimonies of their actions, and initiate discussion with the conference attendees.
The conference started with encouraging words from the Earth focus foundation and a message from the Geneva Authorities. The audience had the privilege to attend very interesting presentations completed by questions and answers with the panel.
You can view the webcast of the whole conference by clicking here.
The themes of the day were "Education, Youth and Civil Society" and "Nuclear, Clean and Renewable Energies".
After a presentation by Antony Hequet, Jon-Hans Coetzer, General Manager and Academic Coordinator of the Geneva School of Diplomacy & International Relations, introduced several presentations from students of the Koc School, Turkey, on the topic of education, youth and civil society.
The plenary sessions were complemented by workshops on various topics, such as:
Ethics in Modern Society by Brianan Kiernan and Antony Hequet
Climate Change and the Global Commons by Heiner Benking
Ecology, Economy and Social Flow by Sarah Dreyfus
A New Approach to our Environmental Dilemna by Rosie Waygood
Connecting to our higher values and the power of thought by Karoline Buys
Latin America: Strategies Inherent to Natural Resources and Sustainable Tourism as a Development Alternative (Venezuela) by Corina Cortes
During the morning, Noé 21 and ItsOneHumanity presented films and Philippe de Rougemont animated a workshop and debate. Following the proposition of Prince Frederick von Saxe-Lauenburg, a 1 minute silence commemoration in memory of the First World War armistice was made at 11am, the 11th of November. A message from Jean-Paul Moka (viewable below), from Congo, was shown to the participants which had the opportunity to comment and respond to. The conference ended up with voting on a clear message to negotiators at COP 16 in Cancun and a walk to Place des Nations to deliver the message to United Nations, World Meteorological Organization, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and World Trade Organization.
Message from Jean-Paul Moka:
Here is a 10 minutes movie clip summarizing some of the events of the conference:
^ Prince Frederick von Saxe-Lauenburg, with and for Children of the World, is organizing a Teddy Bears' picnic in Geneva, in Summer 2011. Please contact the foundation if you are wanting to collaborate, donate funds, time or anything from office space, phone line, fax machine or computer; any help is very warmly welcome!
^ For a limited time only, you can purchase an ecologic ICE-WATCH that will allow WeForest to plant 100 trees! More information on their website.
We are a group of students from two Geneva high schools, English Worldwide College Claparède and College Emilie Gourd.
We meet once a week during the school year (September to May) and find humanitarian projects and raise money for them. This year we have had two major projects in Nepal and in Tanzania.
Nepal
High in the Himalayan Mountains in the villages of Marpha, Mustang and Thak there are children whose families are too poor to buy pencils, books and school uniforms.
With a bakesale and a Nepalese meal we raised enough money this year to send FOUR village children to school for FOUR years each.
Tanzania
Our second project this year was for a leprosy camp outside the town of Mwanza, Tanzania, on the shores of Lake Victoria.
This camp is a special place as the older people have leprosy, many of their children have died of AIDS and so they are now looking after their grandchildren (who do NOT have leprosy).
There are about 250 people (not counting the children) who live in this camp.
Nepal
