Young voices on Rio+20

Sébastien Duyck, 24, France, Rio+20s, http://rioplustwenties.org/

Our right to participate is the result of hard work by young people before us, so now we must make sure our voices are heard, ambitious and uncompromising. If we don’t get politicians to think long term, we will never get what we need. Our role is to bring new solutions to the table, like an ombudsperson for future generations – someone who can legally represent the concerns of future generations. Let’s stop thinking about ‘realistic’ options, and start thinking of options that are ambitious enough.

Victoria Wee, 18, Canada, WeCAN

Here at Tunza, we’re finding out what our common needs are, and getting together as one body – the world’s youth – pushing for change at Rio+20. It’s been inspiring to be with young people from so many different countries, learning about their different priorities and needs. I’ll be going to Rio as youth director of WeCAN, a nationwide initiative to get Canadian voices heard at Rio+20. In winter, I’ll be visiting schools and communities in indigenous areas to gather messages from indigenous communities for Rio.

Daniel Zardo, 24, Brazil, BYEE 2010

We have everything we need to live sustainably – money, technology, knowledge – but what’s really hard to change is culture and lifestyle. I’ve recently formed a group of youth working together as the Brazilian Agency of Innovation and Sustainability. We offer young entrepreneurs training and support to help make their businesses sustainable. In Brazil, the young people I know are excited about Rio+20. We hope that the world’s nations can make and implement big decisions that allow sustainable development.

Arleo Neldo, Aghnia Fasza and Anisa Haernissa, Indonesia, Bandung Berkebun, http://indonesiaberkebun.org

Our youth-led project, Bandung Berkebun, encourages Indonesians, especially children, to grow food and be more self-sufficient in the face of diminishing urban space and rising food prices. Our network across 14 Indonesian cities helps create community farms, plants flowers, fruit and herbs in unused city plots, and designs vertical gardens to grow vegetables in limited spaces. Urban farming has ecological, economical and educational benefits. Plus, it’s fun!

Ben Vanpeperstraete, 27, Belgium, Bandung Declaration Youth Steering Committee, Rio+20s

My job at the Tunza Conference was to help empower young people to speak for themselves. In the lead-up, we looked at a lot of Rio+20 youth declarations developed by regional groups and Tunza networks, and condensed their messages into one draft. Then we led the finalization process. We asked whether the Indonesian government would attach the Bandung Declaration as an annex to their official submission, and they agreed, giving weight to the declaration. It was a good opportunity to educate and mobilize young people – already local leaders – to hold governments accountable. We hope they’ll go home and transmit the ideas they’ve absorbed here. It may not change the outcome of Rio+20 dramatically, but there’s a lot of potential.

Alina Bezhenar, 23, Russia

I was a delegate at Tunza 2007 in Leverkusen, Germany, and am now here as a workshop facilitator on health and environment, gathering and exchanging ideas with young people about how to discuss these issues and raise them in governmental processes. We identified the need for a global platform in which we can discuss urgent health, environment and climate change issues. I’ve only had European experience, so it was great to meet global youth and expand my horizons. At Rio+20, I hope to lead a side event about health and environment.

Jose Umberto, 20, Costa Rica, indigenous TYAC, 2011-2013

I am from the Brebre tribe in south Costa Rica, a forest people who make their living from agriculture, especially plantains. Our community faces threats from industry that cuts down trees for construction, drying out our land and rivers. Our farmers, worried about dwindling production, are also using more chemicals that make the situation worse. I try to empower youth in my community to participate in environmental decisions, but the elders are resistant. I hope that now that I am a TYAC, they will take us more seriously. The Tunza programme offers opportunities for children and youth around the world to have a voice, and it’s important for indigenous youth to have access to this knowledge so that we can help our communities protect our natural resources.

Kevin Ochieng, 24, Kenya, TYAC 2009-2011

The great thing about young people is they have ideas. I think the Tunza network, and global youth in general, must find a way to harness the brains of Earth’s massive population to effect change. Every engineering graduate I know in Africa has done a project. Where do all these ideas go? Imagine if we put them all together, how quickly could we change the world! I’m developing a crowd-sourcing site, a place to gather, map, and share different ideas, where they can be moderated and voted on. Over time, the best ideas can gather collaborators and peer funding. Advocacy is important, but if we can offer alternative solutions, it could be far more powerful.

Mariana Carnasciali, 25, Brazil, www.cala-bocajamorreu.org

My organization educates Brazilian children and teens about Rio+20, training them to report from the Summit. We’d like to assemble an international group of kids to cover the event, because producing communication is creating change. In Bandung, we taught kids to make videos and radio programmes, which will be broadcast on our online radio station.

I think it’s good for Rio that the Summit is coming back. When a country hosts an event like this, it must rethink the way it deals with environment, forcing it to deal with garbage problems, poverty problems. Brazil has made many environmental improvements already, but there’s still much to do.

Hu Ching, 21, Singapore, BYEE 2007

The declaration process has posed some challenges. We were grouped by region, and in Asia-Pacific there are many differences between developed and developing countries, so it was difficult to reach a consensus. Within Southeast Asia, some of the main issues are protecting forests and poverty eradication, whereas in Singapore, resource and energy efficiency are bigger problems.

I was also a youth participant at COP-15, the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, where countries were focused on their own positions, impeding progress. Rio’s focus will be broader, more holistic, and will encompass a wider range of issues. Hopefully we can achieve more from Rio.

Christopher Grant, 23, St Vincent & Grenadines, Caribbean Youth Environmental Network, http://www.cyen.org/

I’m here to represent the Caribbean, which has distinct environmental resources, cultures and ethnic populations. My island, St Vincent, is just recovering from hurricane Thomas – our bananas and many other crops were levelled. But in a time of food insecurity, the way of the future is still agriculture. At the Tunza Conference I learned about implementing projects to introduce crop diversification to farmers, which is what I plan to work on when I get home.

Rishabh Singh, 17, India

A country will always prefer to industrialize than to ‘environmentalize’. India has developmental aspirations, and the government is looking at the short-term benefits of a big economy rather than a stable and sustainable economy. That’s the challenge we face: to convince our governments to make long-term investments. Our delegation asked to add intergovernmental cooperation to the Bandung Declaration, because it’s also about countries helping each other. The environment is not divided by borders, and every country is a part of the planet.