Wednesday 13 June - WAGGGS Side Event Day

Today I realised a dream by speaking at the UN. I was given the chance to speak on a panel at a side event hosted by WAGGGS. Our event was about Youth Led Solutions to Sustainable Development and we invited some partners from the Major Group for Children and Youth to join us in explaining the role of youth in delivering community and national solutions to the challenges of poverty, environmental sustainability and social justice.




What I said

I spoke about the Girl Guides Australia advocacy project Guides Say, which was a survey of the views and opinions of girls and women aged five upwards who are members of Girl Guides in Australia. The survey asked members to rate the issues they care about on a global, national and local level. When asked to rate the most important UN Millennium Development Goal, MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability was rated most important by most youth members.
Girl Guides and Girl Scouts have been celebrating our centenary in various places around the world from 2009-2012. Our centenary theme is plant, grow, share so in Australia the girls planted the trees at a celebration day each year for 3 years. We created a partnership with Mount Annan - one of the largest Botanic gardens in the world. Over 1,000 girls attended each year and took part in a day of environmental and outdoor activities around the garden as well as learning more about our indigenous culture.
Based on the success of this project, I called on those planning youth projects to:
- Encourage young people to find their own voice and identify ways that they can take action
- Ensure that projects involve young people in the planning as well as the execution. Include an evaluation element to build project planning skills and develop a sense of accountability.
- Incorporate an active component to the project. Through Girl Guides we know that young people learn best through doing.
- Think about what other skills youth can develop through the project. Projects offer a great opportunity for non-formal education.
Our event was quite full, at one stage all the chairs were taken. The other speakers on the panel were Girl Guides from Kenya, Canada and Brazil who talked about local sustainable development projects they were working on. We were also joined by Alice Vincent from the World Future Council and Lloyd Russell-Moyle from the European Youth Forum.
Although that we have proven that we stand for much, much more we finished our session by handing out Guide Biscuits (or Girl Scout Cookies) from Australia, Canada and USA




The highlight of my day was being interviewed by UN Radio. I gave a five minute interview about WAGGGS, why we are here and why non-formal education is important.




Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in gaining access to the Australian government delegation today, but it looks like we have found the meeting for tomorrow. Australia is one of the governments, along with Canada, EU and Nordic nations that can influence the inclusion of non-formal education in the text.
In the evening we were hosted at a reception by the Federação de Bandeirantes do Brasil (FBB, Girl Guide Federation of Brazil). At first the reception was challenging since the Brazilian hosts did not speak English. But after a while someone found some samba music on YouTube and the Brazilians taught us to shake and shimmy.
Tomorrow I will be sitting in on negotiations and helping to write policy for the Major Group for Children and Youth. I will try to tweet more as we go through the day (@jane__harris). Also, my regular Optus email has imploded from the amount of conference emails sent (at least 25 per hour) so if you would like to contact me please use jane.harris.australia@gmail.com

Location:Rio de Janeiro

YouthBlast

Today was our first day of actual conference activities. In the morning we went to YouthBlast - the official youth forum part of Rio+20.




At the plenary session we had our first experience using headphones to translate from Portuguese to English. We heard from Brazilian environmentalist and politician Marina da Silva about the importance of intergenerational leadership and alliance. We also head from Hannah Thomas, Green Jobs Director at The Otesha Project UK. She spoke about the need for decent work for young peoples the green jobs industry and the need to ensure that the green economy is not as exploitative, marginalising and unstable as the current economy.

During the morning session we also heard from a 12 year old native American boy from Colorado who has created a network of children who do amazing things to protect the environment. He was involved in a project that saw one person from each US state bringing legal action against the government for not sufficiently protecting the environment. Some cases lost, but some won and there is Federal action in progress.




To close the morning session the creator of 1990s children's cartoon Captain Planet appeared, to tell us how the idea for Captain Planet came out of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Most of the room knew Captain Planet and there was extreme excitement when he appeared. In a South American twist, we danced the macarena with Captain Planet. For those of you who were Captain Planet deprived:





After the close of this session, WAGGGS held its first side event on the engagement of young people in sustainable development. We played some games to show how we introduce sustainability and advocacy to girls and then we held some mock UN negotiations with or participants to help them understand where different Rio+20 stakeholders are coming from. A quick wander around showed us that our event had easily the most people.






After YouthBlast we returned to the headquarters of the Brazilian Girl Guides for some training, practice and preparation for tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will be attending the first official day of the conference and running a larger side event on youth led sustainable development solutions.

Location:Rio de Janeiro

Where is she off to now?

This Saturday I will be flying to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.  I am one of a delegation of 16 young women from 13 countries representing the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.  To find out more about the delegation click here.

With ten million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts from 145 countries across the world, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) is the largest voluntary movement dedicated to girls and young women in the world.

The World Association supports girls and young women to develop their full potential as responsible citizens of the world. We focus on leadership development and active citizenship. These are delivered through our innovative global education and community and advocacy programmes.

We deliver a well-established, unique values-based approach to non-formal learning, that is international and intergenerational. Girls and young women develop life skills through self-development, challenge and adventure.

To find out more about WAGGGS click here.  To find out more about Guides in Australia click here.

What is Rio+20?

Official Blah

Rio+20 - the short name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012 - is an historic opportunity to define pathways to a safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all.

History Lesson

This girl was 12 years old in 1992.  Her speech is amazing (and not that long).  If you want to know what young people can offer to these forums, watch the video. If you get bored at any point - think about what you were doing in year 6.  This was 20 years ago, hence Rio+20.

What are we doing?

At Rio+20, our delegation will represent the voices of girls and young women throughout the world.  We are part of the Major Group for Children and Youth,  and we will focus on education, gender, and youth issues at Rio+20.

Specifically, our delegation supports the following:

• Inclusion of non-formal education in the text
• Inclusion of eliminating violence against women and girls in the text
• Proposal for a High Commissioner for Future Generations
• Proposal to develop a global strategy on youth employment
• Development of aspirational global sustainable development goals

I leave on this Saturday 9 June.  For regular updates check back here or follow me on Twitter: @jane__harris