But, how can you mobilize the youth to act
in Rio+20? How can the youth be empowered to deal with sustainable development
issues?
Borrowing from our experience of a
simulation of the Copenhagen negotiations on climate change organized by
Sciences Po in 2011, we arrived at the conclusion that giving the youth a taste
of the UN negotiations was the best way to pique their interest. In this context, we decided to organize a
simulation in Paris of the upcoming conference in Rio de Janeiro this June.
Our project is thus aimed at mobilizing the
youth, educating them on the urgency of sustainable development issues and
encouraging them to involve themselves in the negotiation process, albeit from
a distance. At our simulation, we will test new methods of negotiation and will
arrive at some potential outcomes. Through our experimentation, we will come up
with innovative ideas that can restructure the UN processes and restore hope in
them. UNESCO, our partners in the project, will be working with our research
team in developing a hypothesis for our conference. However, it is important to
note that irrespective of the outcomes of our simulation, empowering the youth
to take action is our main objective. If we manage to do this, we will succeed
in achieving the primary goal that we have set for ourselves, i.e., that the
youth is ready to play an active part in international negotiations and to
shape its own future.
Through the active support of UNESCO, we
have moved towards disseminating the idea globally, extending beyond Paris and
France, and looking at other cities in the world. We are encouraging other
cities to jump onto the bandwagon and to host their own Rio+20 simulation as we
believe that our initiative is worth partaking in.
We have, so far, received an enthusiastic
response from many youth organizations and universities worldwide, making us
feel optimistic that the MyCity+20 movement will be a success. Currently, we
have representatives in Asia (Colombo+20 and Mumbai+20), Europe (Rome+20 and
Amsterdam+20) and Central America (MexicoCity+20), Africa (Kampala+20 and
Kinshasa+20) who are willing to organize their own simulation of Rio+20. We at
Paris+20 will provide interested cities with support; giving them ideas on how
to start their own simulation; potential people to contact and overall complete
flexibility in organizing their own event. Any interested cities are welcome to
contact us at mycityplus20@gmail.com
for further details.
The feeling that the time is ripe for the
youth to take over the negotiations is being translated into action with this
movement and we encourage everyone to participate in the process!
Read this article on the official UNCSD website: http://www.uncsd2012.org/
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