Global Citizenship blog

My name is Tehseen Mirza and I am studying Dental Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Yesterday I and four other members of the UK Youth Climate Network, funded by Plan UK, travelled to the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices in Westminster.

It marked the culmination of our One Step campaign that we’ve been running this year.  We’ve collected nearly 2000 pledges from young people all over the UK – telling how they’ll make one simple change to combat climate change.  Every pledge is written on a individually-designed footprint.  They range from “I will take shorter showers” to “I will grow my own vegetables” to “I won’t leave the TV on standby”.  The aim of the campaign was to hand these pledges to the UK government, to build momentum for change before the UN Climate Summit in Durban at the end of November.

First we attended a special climate webcast. The panel consisted of the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne, the foreign secretary William Hague, South Africa’s Ambassador at Large for Climate Change, Nozipho Mxakato-Diskeko and the Chief Executive of the British Council, Martin Davidson.

The webcast was really interesting and it was beneficial to have the opportunity to address the issues that we were concerned about. I asked a question to the panel which was ‘What can be done to educate the public more on climate change’ and in fairness I got a good response and felt like the panel understood the importance of making the public aware of positive ways to combat climate change.

After the webcast we had the opportunity to speak to Chris Huhne and present the ‘One Step’ campaign.  We told him what we had been doing and how we have had success collecting pledges from young people from different parts of the UK.  We even showed him one of the “steps” sent in from Bradford that was designed by 4 year olds in a reception class at Peel Park school in Bradford!  We also stressed the importance of Mr. Huhne taking young people’s voices on climate change issues to the COP17 in Durban and making young people’s voices heard.  Cat Hudson, from the Youth Climate Network, is going to be in Durban and she will be keeping in touch with Chris Huhne during the summit.

Tehseen Mirza from the Youth Climate Network

Blog posted on the Make the Link - Climate exChange website

A visit to the land of Simba

On August 7^th, the Make the Link Climate exChange team met in the “land of simba” – Kenya. Simba in Swahili means lion, but most of you probably learned this by getting to know Mustafa’s son Simba, the star in Disney’s “The Lion King”.

Lions are a source of income for Kenya thanks to protected national reserves. In fact, tourists from all over the world come and bring in an approximate 620 million pounds each year. For this reason, it is distressing to read that Kenya’s lions could disappear within the next ten years.

According to an article in the new scientist, 100 lions are disappearing from Kenya each year. The major reason is the destruction of their habitat, but drought has also been a contributing factor. Kenya is experiencing a severe drought and this is leading to rural people going into “wildlife areas in search of grazing and water supplies for their herds of livestock”. The increase of severe drought is linked to climate change. I am writing about lions because their disappearance has something to do with what our project is about because in the next ten years the young people we are working with will inherit our world and will have to solve one of our greatest challenges ahead: climate change.

Make the Link – Climate exChange is all about young people’s increased awareness and understanding of the global dimensions of climate change. During one week in Kisumu, Kenya’s third biggest city, our representatives from Kenya, Malawi, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and the UK met to discuss how we take the programme forward and keep on inspiring teachers and young people on let’s be honest a quite dry topic.

The highlight of the meeting was a surprise visit to three schools in Kisumu, where we met with Peter, the head teacher of Obola Primary school, Richard doing a water and sanitation project at Nyabera primary school and Florence and Atieno from Nyamgun Primary school. It was so inspiring to see that our African partner schools have both solar panels, green houses and are using the power of the sun to keep students healthy. Encouraging teachers and students to adapt to climate change will be very important in East Africa, because the drought is not something happening 10 years down the line, it is happening now. Make the Link – Climate exChange wants to bring this reality back to Europe in order to ensure that in the jungle the mighty jungle the lions will still sleep tomorrow tonight… if we continue our work on halting climate change…

Blog posted on the Make the Link - Climate exChange website

In 1717, Derby used to be the centre of the Industrial Revolution. A water powered silk mill, a knitting machine and a cotton spinning machine where amongst the many great innovations that speeded up the Industrial Revolution and it all happened in the city of Derby!

Now, let’s fast forward 300 years to an interdependent and globalised world where textile production has moved miles away from Derby and where most of us haven’t ever seen a knitting machine. Today Derby has a new niche and one of them is that it has become the centre for global education- well that’s my experience at least.

From July 4^th till July 8^th I attended an EC funded training ran by Global Education Derby called Connect, Challenge and Change. For five intense days along with participants from Turkey, Romania, Poland and other parts of the UK we  debated how we can get young people excited about global issues.

Raul, from Mundi, an organisation part of the East Midlands International Youth Work and Development Education Network, showed two photos: one with blue fin tuna and the other with people on a small fishing boat in the middle of the sea. He asks us what the connection was between the images. Overfishing is a big problem in the Mediterranean, which has meant that a lot of fishermen have lost their jobs due to large fishing corporations, hence leading to an influx of economic migrants in Europe. Global education is not about learning to play an African instrument, he states, it is about getting young people to critically question their surroundings.

I guess the overarching question about the training was, “How do we get young people to engage and critically question their environment?” Ruth and Alison our lovely facilitators from Global Education Derby made us explore this through workshops where we connected, where we were challenged and where we were inspired to change.

During the first day we looked at how we get young people to connect to global issues using their experiences as a starting point. Using a shower curtain that had a huge world map, we were asked to take a little chip and place it on the country where our clothes were from. Most of us unsurprisingly put it on China. A simple shower curtain sparked a long debate about capitalism, globalisation, and the textile industry and youth unemployment.

On the second day of our training we were challenged by role play. I was asked to play the role of the coca farmer in Bolivia. My name was Juan of course. We argued we had to continue growing the coca plant because it was our livelihood and the only thing that would make us stop would be better opportunities in life. We had grown coca for our whole life and it would be hard to get a new job, moreover it gave us enough money to send our children to school and pay for our doctor. After presenting each role we then saw a video were the coca growers actually explained why the coca plant was so important to their culture. They would do toothpaste, shampoo, tea, beds and all kinds of products by the coca plant. This was an interesting eye opener for me.

On our last day of training we were asked to discuss change and how we get young people to do it on a personal level, local and national level. We watched some really inspiring videos. One of them was about young people in Tower Hamlets who had led a campaign against the arms fair that happened in their local community. The young people were asking the organisers how come they sold arms to countries were people kill each other.

I believe this links very well with what the Citizenship Foundation does through our previous Youth Act work, Act Global, Giving Nation and now the project I run called Make the Link – Climate exChange which links young people to environmental issues. Global education to me is very much about getting young people gain confidence on how to live in a 21st century world and adapt to the fast-paced changes.

Global education is a field in transition now due to obvious reasons of funding. As practitioners we still need to wonder why we haven’t been able to make a stronger case for the UK government of how valuable it is for young people to understand the global interdependencies between countries and how that affects them on a daily life. I thank Global Education Derby for an insightful week and I am looking forward to join forces on this continuous complex debate of what global education in the 21^st century should look like.

Are you:

    * between 15 and 19?
    * passionate about climate change issues?
    * able to commit several weekends to this project?
    * willing to travel short and long distances?

Become part of the UK Youth Climate Network in the International ‘Make the Link Climate exChange’ Project.

‘Make the Link – Climate exChange’ is a development education project run across six partner countries: the UK, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Kenya, Malawi and Senegal.

This three year EU-funded project aims to increase public awareness of the links between climate change, poverty and child rights through resources and an interactive web platform where young people from the global north and south can exchange thoughts and experiences about climate change.

http://www.plan-uk.org/about/jobopportunities/youth-climate-network-project/

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the DARE Network meeting in Lithuania’s capital city, Vilnius from 1-3 July 2010. The afternoon of our second day was set aside for a field trip to Lithuania’s Soviet past.  In my experience, this type of lesson is often demonstrated by a visit to a museum or perhaps by watching a film dramatisation of historical events. I was quite surprised and intrigued to learn that our approach would be much more hands-on: any willing participants would be taking part in a so-called ‘reality show’ in a Soviet bunker, spending the afternoon as citizens of a communist state who were imprisoned.

A brave bunch of us got on a bus and were taken out of the capital city, through forests of tall trees and stretches of road. We were passed around a ‘confirmation’ to sign where we agreed to become citizens of the USSR, obey orders and endure punishments if we did not comply. It certainly all played into the experience and by the time we pulled of the road and into the remote location, my heart was pounding! Upon arrival, a guard dressed in full military regalia entered the bus and announced that we no longer had the right to personal belongings and anyone found with any would be punished. As we entered the main building, we were given a few minutes to get dressed - we each donned had a heavy, smelly damp coat that fitted like long dresses on some of the petite women with a record blaring in the background that could only make me think of old war movies. Soon the General entered and his booming voice began shouting commands at us in Russian that we had to learn to obey, although we had a translator for everything else that he would say. After marching into the next room and being searched by our guard’s enormous German shepherd, we marched outside to the national anthem and soon found ourselves 5 metres below ground in the bunker.

We ran through the dimly lit corridors, being yelled at with the dog always barking and snarling behind us from somewhere. We were taken to various parts of the bunker, although a few particularly stand out in my mind. One was the room where we had to learn how to put a gas mask on in three seconds and wear it. This was no friendly lesson as we had to wear the mask and jump around while being yelled at by the General. We also spent some time in the KGB medical room, and finally the KGB interrogation room, with a lone spotlight shining in the eyes of the interrogated prisoner that was chosen while we stood still against the walls of the small room watching quietly.

Our experience came to a close after two hours that felt much longer, with a final themed lunch in the dining hall before being allowed to see the light of day again. On the ride back into Vilnius, and for the rest of the evening, many of us discussed our take on the experience. Many of the participants had snickered throughout, as they were able to detach themselves from the experience and see it is a play. Others, including myself had managed to get very involved and felt that it was really happening to us, as silly as it may sound. In the end, I felt like it was an extremely powerful experience and that I really surprised myself. I didn’t think I would be so affected by it and that I would actually be able to see how I would react in these circumstances. Despite it being a dramatisation, I really felt like I learnt much more than had I visited a museum or seen a film. I don’t think that this learning tool would be appropriate for every historical lesson, but in this situation I can attest that taking part in a simulation had a great impact on me that I won’t soon forget.