Category: SDGs

Climate Action, Climate change, Indigenous Peoples, Life below water, Life on Land, SDG 14, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs

VoFG CHILDREN & YOUTH COMMENT ON GENERAL COMMENT 26

Submitted by Nico Roman (13, Canada, UK, Switzerland & Germany), Child Ambassador of the Voices of Future Generations (VoFG) Children’s Initiative & Co-Chair, Cambridge Schools Eco-Council, as one of the VoFG Child Authors, Child Ambassadors & Friends 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on the draft of General Comment 26, which will guide governments by explaining how children’s rights are related to the environment and climate change, and what they must do to protect our rights. We especially appreciated your extra effort to provide a Child-Friendly version of the first draft General Comment 26 in different languages. This has allowed us to more easily discuss your draft with the younger youth and children from all over the world in our networks, and really helps us to contribute our voices for future generations.

As child authors and child ambassadors who work very hard to raise awareness and inspire action for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many of whom are also climate-strikers in our communities, we are very concerned about our world’s current climate change and biodiversity emergencies, and how the impacts will violate children’s rights. Through your General Comment, we hope that governments can help children and everyone to change all our ways before it is too late, in order for future generations (including our own) to hope for survival. 

We feel that the General Comment first draft is a good start but could be stronger in many ways, especially by committing more clearly to non-discrimination, to prevention and to much greater ambition in climate action. You have asked us to focus on specific sections of the General Comment, and to provide our views. We are happy to do so.

Right to education (GC26 para 31 – 38)

Your General Comment 26 says: “Children should be taught environmental education that is accurate and in ways that they understand. Environmental education should support children to connect with, and respect, the environment and other human beings. The places where children learn should be safe from environmental harm.” 

Many of us are able to receive some environmental education, even if information is often outdated and upsetting, so we really appreciate para 33. However, much of our current environmental education is not very focused on solutions and on how we can all contribute to children’s rights and advancing the SDGs. Our schools are the first place where many of us are trying to make a difference. In some of our schools, we have formed Sustainability Councils or Eco-Societies, then Eco-Councils of the clubs and societies. We have drafted Climate Action Plans and even helped to implement them for our schools and our communities. These small steps make a big difference to us. 

Might this kind of action please be mentioned in your GC26? If at all possible, could the General Comment 26 highlight the need for education but also action in our schools, so that we do not feel hopeless and angry, but instead we can contribute to sustainability solutions.

Rights of Indigenous children (GC26 para 49)

Your General Comment 26 says: “Indigenous children’s lives, survival and cultural practices are often very connected with their natural environment. Governments should make sure to protect their rights and involve children in all decisions being made about their lives.”

We really appreciate that you highlight indigenous children’s relationships with nature, survival, and the need to stop destroying our world, especially. The indigenous child authors and child ambassadors in our networks, with all our support and solidarity, feel it is very important to also mention the importance of indigenous languages, that are at the heart of the relationship with nature. So many irreplaceable and precious indigenous languages are being lost right now – just in our generation – and with them, so much important culture and understanding of the environment and climate change is lost too.

Right of non-discrimination (GC26 para 50-51)

Your General Comment 26 says: “No group of children (for example, girls or children with disabilities) should suffer from environmental problems more than others. Governments should collect information to learn more about the inequalities between groups, and take specific actions to resolve them.”

We deeply support this point, but we also hope that you could highlight the need to find ways to involve children of all differing abilities, and children from all groups in environmental and sustainability activities. If at all possible, you could also highlight the terrible situations that are being faced by children who are losing their entire territories, countries and communities due to climate change impacts, and how unfair this is, just a bit more clearly and strongly.

Right to be heard (GC26 para 56-58)

Your General Comment 26 says: “Children should have a say on issues related to the environment and climate change, and to be taken seriously by adults. Governments and businesses should involve children when making decisions about the environment and climate change.”

Many of us are trying to have our voices heard in decision-making about climate change, biodiversity and global health emergencies, so we really appreciate paras 56 and 57. We have learned to work together online, through digital meetings, and we think it is helpful that you highlight these opportunities in para 56. We actually edit an online journal for children and youth concerned about global sustainability (harmonyyouthvoices.com) and we hope it really helps to inspire and empower youth worldwide. 

While we totally agree that children and youth voices should be heard, and that we can and should participate in adult decision-making on all levels, we also think we can contribute a lot to developing and acting for solutions for children’s rights, protecting and restoring our environment, and advancing the SDGs ourselves too. Our communities are very important places where many of us are trying to make a difference. We can form Sustainability Councils or Eco-Societies in our schools, we can also create Eco-Councils or Guardian’s Networks among these clubs and societies in our communities. We have drafted Climate Action Plans and even helped to implement them for our schools and our communities as mentioned earlier. On other levels, for such councils or guardian’s networks, we do need some support and help to link us all together and connect, and also to help keep our councils or networks going year by year, with youth and children especially. It’s about empowerment and agency. Might this kind of action please be mentioned in your GC26? If there is a way to encourage youth and children organizing ourselves, we would greatly appreciate it.  

Right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly (GC26 para 59-61)

Your General Comment 26 says: “Children often stand up for their environmental rights as human rights defenders. Many children also spend time with friends and groups in different environments. Governments must protect children from anyone who wants to stop them from doing so.”

Thank you for including the section recognizing our rights to express our concerns. This is very, very important. Many of us are climate-strikers, and we are prevented or punished for trying to stop the actions that are destroying our Earth. We greatly appreciate that the General Comment is very clear on this. We also greatly appreciate the advocacy and hard work of the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Environment Prof David Boyd and the others who have held this role, they have helped us a great deal and is tirelessly defending defenders.

Access to justice and remedies (GC26 para 62-70)

Your General Comment 26 says: “When children’s rights have been affected by environmental harm and climate change, children should be able to access justice – that is, solutions, support and compensation for the harm and consequences they are experiencing – at regional and international levels.”

Thank you especially for directly speaking about children and youth climate justice cases, and our access to courts and remedies. We really appreciate this aspect of our friends’ efforts being highlighted, and feel it can make a real difference if children and youth can use our justice systems to advance change. It might be good to highlight indigenous laws and governance systems, as many of these justice systems are so important for the environment, the natural world and climate change. We strongly support the efforts of youth, academic leaders, governments and others to request an Advisory Opinion in the International Court of Justice, and in other courts including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and we hope that this General Comment can be understood to strongly support it too. In such a high-profile and symbolic case, an Advisory Opinion can bring our entire future to the world’s attention, and that is desperately needed.

Right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment (GC26 para 71-74)

Your General Comment 26 says: “While this right is not directly included in the Convention, the Committee explains that children have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Children need a clean environment in order to enjoy all of their human rights. Children should have access to clean air and water, safe climates, healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, healthy food and non-polluted environments.”

Thank you for including the section recognizing our rights to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This is very, very important to us all. We agree that action needs to be taken immediately on all fronts to protect and realise this right for children. We understand that you might need to ask to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels (para 73 d), but many of us who are climate-strikers feel very, very strongly that it is already nearly too late, and all fossil fuels need to be banned as soon as possible. It is crazy that current generations of adult are still allowing our energy to be coming from non-renewable sources that poison our Earth, and this has to change immediately.

General Comment 26 Section V (GC26 para 75-81)

Further, we really appreciate that the General Comment includes how States should ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights, focusing on their obligations.

Thank you for including this section – it is very important. We were a bit confused by the part in para 76 about ‘paying due regard’ to the precautionary approach. Would it be possible to make this stronger and commit to the precautionary principle for all children and for nature directly? We also strongly support the call for laws and policies. If possible, could these laws and policies clearly refer to environmental health, safety and also sustainability? The SDGs are very important to us, and where international guidelines exist, they should all be respected. New guidelines and treaties are also needed in some areas, like to stop plastics from destroying our natural world.

General Comment 26 Section VI (GC26 para 98-123)

Finally, we deeply thank you for including such a long and careful section on the responsibilities of governments to take action on climate change. However, we feel that since the global Biodiversity Emergency, globally, is just as serious and equally terrible, impacting millions of species that our generation, and all future generations, might lose forever, and never even know about. You do mention that climate change is devastating biodiversity, and you mention the rising problems of biodiversity loss and destruction of nature in your discussions of some of the children’s rights, but we believe that right before or after the sub-section on Business and climate change (D, para 114-118), a new section should be inserted recognizing the need for urgent action to protect nature and biodiversity in the interests of current and future generations. This section can refer to some of the commitments agreed in Montreal during the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15, especially the important promises in the Global Biodiversity Framework to look for ‘nature-positive’ solutions to climate change and biodiversity emergencies, and to protect much more of land and sea for current and future generations. As another idea, you could do a second General Comment specifically on biodiversity, even though we do think that the advice could be stronger and clearer (and more interconnected) if it was included here. (For more on children, youth and the GBF, please see Nico’s Natural World blog – nicosnaturalworld.org).

We hope that this contribution is helpful, and again, really appreciate the opportunity to comment on your Draft General Comment 26.

Yours sincerely,

Nico Roman (13, of UK, Canada, Germany and Switzerland)

YR9 Scholar of Winchester College, UK; Co-Chair of the Cambridge Schools Eco-Council; Child Ambassador of the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative; and Junior Editor of the Global Youth Council on Science, Law and Sustainability online journal Harmony.

Background on the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Rights Initiative consultations among child authors, child ambassadors and friends from different countries and regions. 

Who are we, and how are we consulting among our networks?

Our consultations are taking place online between December 2022 and February 2023, engaging children and youth leaders from the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative network from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Uruguay, Zambia, Zimbabwe and other countries (www.vofg.org), also indigenous children and youth from their territories and nations. Many of us are boys and girls involved in creating stories, artwork, music and drama about protecting our earth, climate chante and sustainability, we also serve as child leaders of eco-councils and other student clubs in our communities, and we range in ages from 7-8 years old (new members) to 17-18 years old (alumni). We have also posted our comments on Nico’s Natural World, a blog led by the student who prepared this comment (nicosnaturalworld.org), and on our online journal (harmonyyouthvoices.com)

The Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative (VoFG CI) is a movement on children’s rights and sustainable development. VoFG CI is a unique programme of action that empowers children to promote the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Worl’s Sustainable Development Goal agenda (SDGs). Our mission is to assist children to advance the right to education and literacy globally through the children’s book series. Books are authored by children aged 8-12, for children aged 6 and above. These stories from around the world are illustrated and published, and the books disseminated globally to schools and libraries for all children to benefit from the knowledge and insight. Through our Intergenerational Dialogue Programme, Online Roundtables and Eco-seminars we enable children to enter into effective and inspiring communication with experts and global leaders, who are effecting positive change in the fields of children’s rights and sustainable development.

Climate Action, Climate change, endangered species, Life on Land, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs, Uncategorized

The Importance of the New Global Biodiversity Framework under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity for Youth

By Nico Roman

Introduction

Nature is very important for youth, not just to value the uniqueness and wonder of the natural world, but also because we depend on natural systems, natural resources and ecosystem services for our quality of life and our very survival. Young people can connect with our environment and the natural world through green spaces, protected areas on land and underwater, and other areas. We can help to protect and restore biodiversity, finding and promoting nature-positive solutions for sustainability.

According to the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN): “Our generation has seen many of the promises of the Millennium Development Goals, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and the Kyoto Protocol fail.​”

“We need real transformative change – for humankind to realign priorities, values, behaviours, and actions. We have the creativity, will and energy to reinvent our systems, equitably and sustainably. But for our generation to have hope for a future built on peace and harmony with nature, we need unprecedented action.”

The adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of the United Nations in Montreal this December 2022 represents an historic moment – our opportunity to bend the curve on global biodiversity loss.

The newly adopted Global Biodiversity Framework includes several very important commitments by countries, stakeholders and communities.

In the Global Biodiversity Framework, countries have promised to take action, before 2030, to ensure effective conservation and management of at least 30% of the world’s lands, inland waters, coastal areas and the ocean; to have restoration completed or underway on at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland waters, coastal and marine ecosystems; and to reduce to near zero the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance, including ecosystems of high ecological integrity. These promises are important for youth because many of us have not yet had the opportunity to explore and learn about our lands, inland waters, coasts and oceans – we need to protect natural systems for current and future generations, and to save the millions of plant and animals that many young people love from extinction.

Countries have also committed to reduce by half both excess nutrients and the overall risk posed by pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals.  This commitment is important for youth because chemicals can be dangerous for wildlife and also communities who live near areas that are contaminated, especially young people and the elderly who are often much more vulnerable to poisons and hazards.

Further, countries have promised to prevent the introduction of priority invasive alien species and reduce by at least half the introduction and establishment of other known or potential invasive alien species and eradicate or control invasive alien species on islands and other priority sites. This is important for youth because such efforts give a fighting chance to the species which we need to protect for future generations and prevent invasive species from destroying the habitats and ecosystems that many young people depend on for food and income.

In addition, in the Global Biodiversity Framework, countries commit to cut global food waste in half and significantly reduce over consumption and waste generation. This will mean, if we can also improve food distribution, that there is more food for the future families who would otherwise suffer from nutrition and food insecurity. Further, it will mean less waste in the natural environment, affecting quality of life for youth and others who depend on nature.

These commitments are underpinned by new finance for nature, which includes to mobilise by 2030 at least $200 billion/year in domestic and international biodiversity-related funding from all sources; and to raise international finance flows from developed to developing countries, in particular least developing countries, small island developing states, and countries with economies in transition, to at least US $20 billion per year by 2025 and to at least US $30 billion per year by 2030. This is important for youth because nature-positive finance can open new jobs and opportunities for young people to help protect and restore nature and earn their livelihoods while doing so.

Further, countries community to progressively phase out or reform by 2030 subsidies that harm biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year. This is quite important for youth because it means finance is redirected towards projects that are good for biodiversity, which can support new efforts in these areas, and also that finance does not support activities which degrade and destroy that natural world, making young people who depend on it suffer.

They further committed require large and transnational companies and financial institutions to monitor, assess and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity through their operations, supply and value chains and portfolios. This is important for youth because it will mean there is accountability for  companies which ruin environments and habitats, and if companies can assess and manage their activities and products more sustainably, they can sell higher quality more sustainable products to young consumers who can learn to consume more responsibly.

Conclusion

All countries including youth should take action immediately to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework before it is too late.  Even with these new targets and commitments, we need to scale up the action, partnerships and resources that are desperately needed right away to keep these promises for our natural world. We face a terribly urgent biodiversity crisis which is sure to worsen as climate change, conflict and other conditions worsen. Our efforts need to be backed by education, awareness and political will, and supported by more widespread media coverage. As youth, we have an opportunity and an obligation to make change in our schools and communities, so that everyone will be able to respect, restore and appreciate the natural world.

Climate Action, Climate change, Convention of the rights of the child, endangered species, Indigenous Peoples, Life on Land, SDG 14, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs

Register now: Free Online International Roundtable on Indigenous Children’s Voices & Rights

Are you interested in learning about the links between education, Indigenous rights and sustainability?

Are you inspired by the leadership of children and youth to advance the global Sustainable Development Goals?

Would you like to help implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, by encouraging Indigenous children’s voices?

TO REGISTER CLICK HERE

Register now for a very special online International Roundtable on Indigenous Children’s Voices & Rights, which takes place on Tuesday 9 August 2021 at 8:00 EST | 11:00 EST |16:00 BST in celebration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

This Online International Roundtable on Indigenous Children’s Voices & Rights engages young leaders from different Nations as well as specialists and experts working to promote Indigenous Peoples’ and children’s rights. In an interactive and intergenerational dialogue, it seeks to strengthen and promote Indigenous Children’s Rights and the global Sustainable Development Goals.

 The event features Indigenous Child Author Adelyn Sophie Newman-Ting*, the first Voices of Future Generations Indigenous Child Author. Adelyn wrote Finding the Language, a creative and captivating story about reclaiming language through the land and its creatures, highlighting the interconnected cycle of life and culture. The event also features Indigenous Child Ambassadors Bella Morrisseau and Sydnee Wynter. Honoured chairs and speakers also include an Indigenous member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO Youth Advisory Group (YAG), Ms. Portia Garnons-Williams (Senior Editor of Harmony Online Journal & University of Toronto student), Master Nico Roman (Junior Editor of Harmony Online Journal & Child Ambassador, VoFG CI), Dr. Aruna Alexander (UNA- Canada, Quinte Branch), Ms. Jaydum Hunt (Interim Director, Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre, WISC)  Adv. Wayne Garnons-Williams (National Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation of Canada Chair), Ms. Elaina Cox (Senior Researcher, First Nations Treaties for SDGs Project, University of Waterloo), Ms. Eva Wu (Senior Researcher, First Nations Treaties for SDGs Project, University of Waterloo), Prof. Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger (University of Cambridge / University of Waterloo / CISDL),  Prof Carey Newman Hayalthkin’geme* (University of Victoria Professor & Impact Chair, Master Carver), Adv. Neshan Gunasekera* (Lead Counsel for Peace, Justice and Governance, CISDL), Dr. Odeeth Lara-Morales (University of Waterloo / CISDL / UNA-Canada), Ms. Courtney Defriend (Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange, First Nations Health Authority) and Ms. Kyla Judge (Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s Youth Advisory Group Member and Cultural Program Officer at the UNESCO Georgian Bay Biosphere Region).

With warmest thanks to the partners and collaborators:

Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL)

First Nations Treaties & SDGs Project, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED), University of Waterloo

University of Cambridge

National Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation of Canada

Audain Professorship of Contemporary Art Practices of the Pacific Northwest, University of Victoria*

Waterloo Indigenous Student Centre Shatitsirótha’ (WISC)

And a special thanks to our friends and mentors from:

Canadian Commission for UNESCO

United Nations Association in Canada (Quinte Branch)

TO REGISTER CLICK HERE

Climate Action, Climate change, Convention of the rights of the child, endangered species, Life below water, Life on Land, SDG 14, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs

Festival of Nature 2022

On Sunday, June 12, 2022, I joined the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative to host a virtual storytime as part of the Festival of Nature.

The Festival of Nature is the UK’s largest free celebration of the natural world. (We) Children from around the globe took the audience on a magical journey by sharing our stories, hopes, dreams and vision for a sustainable world.

I was the speaker who opened up the event for the VoFG CI delegation, then Child Authors followed.

If you missed it or want to watch it again here is the video:

SDGs

Song Spark Recovery Magic by Nico Roman

My short story Song Spark Recovery Magic won first place for the 2021 LUNE SPARK Short Story World Contest and is part of the book A Few Drops of Hope.

Song Spark Recovery Magic synopsis:

Magical music comes to the aid of a young blind immigrant struggling to wake her adopted city, in order to secure a spark of real recovery and build back better lives in the aftermath of a global pandemic.

Get your own copy!

Song Spark Recovery Magic
By Nico Roman Cordonier Gehring (12)


“Something important is missing…” mused Song, as she helped her mother carry their battered chairs and worn rugs up the cold concrete stairwells to their council flat. Since they first saw the grim, looming halls of the housing estate, she had felt an icy absence – like a gap opening in her shattered world. It was a whispered warning, spoken over and over in the background, too soft for conscious grasp, but ominous in its subliminal impact. The omission haunted her: their new building had no song!


Where they had lived in the West, before a terrible global coronavirus pandemic had ripped her grandmother away from her tiny family, also taking her mother’s low-paying janitorial job, life had been different.


Although she had learned not to mention it to strangers, to Song each building hummed with its community’s unique spirit, celebrating their shared ideas, dreams and lives. Each edifice, each neighbourhood sang its own special tune, woven from the shared history and harmony of its people and place. Sightless since birth, Song relied on textures, tastes, scents and especially sound – music – to make sense of her world. Her service dog, Mozart, a small husky granted to her family by a local charity, helped her to navigate when her mother was away. But she used to revel in the quiet music, entering a home for a morning playdate, or tiptoeing past and listening, on a peaceful evening, could learn the purpose of an office-building or the courageous mission of a hospital.
Here in the East, even as vaccines slowly reached each generation and the pandemic slowly wound down, things were strange. Her new building sounded heavy, chill and empty, the long hallways echoing with dust and neglect, the inhabitants disconnected and alien. Not even the sad, tattered sparrows on the grimy windowsills were singing.


Song could not see the towering, imposing glass structures far above her, nor the flashing neon lights that attracted others to the city, even in days devastated by the disease, with its millions of losses, the fear, distrust and economic collapse. She only felt the disconnect, and suffered.


Song tried to settle into their flat. Her mother had to leave very early each morning to labour in the chemical sewers of a factory that had re-opened, making personal protective equipment for hospitals, and Song was left alone with Mozart. The winter was oppressive. Song sensed deeply the hopelessness and grief of the grim city, polluted and silent. The scents of iridescent diesel oil spills wafted from the puddles on the roads and discarded rubbish rotting uncollected on the curbs. Slimy discarded masks, gloves and other plastics clogged the drains, making Song and Mozart slip if they went out. Already, the constant horns of traffic again blared and roared along the highways beside their grimy flat, melding with the constant background wail of ambulances.


Song sat on the faded linoleum next to the open window in their tiny kitchen, taking tiny shallow breaths of the cold, polluted city air. She was sad and angry. She wondered how her world, so full of joyful tunes, had somehow –in the midst of the global pandemic and the disastrous move– turned so silent. She wanted to change things, but she couldn’t imagine how.


Her one cheerful thought, which she held close to warm her like a glowing golden ember, was her special flute. Once her grandfather could visit, bringing the ancient instrument that he had reserved just for her, Song hoped the crystal notes would form and dance around her as they always did when she played in his tiny cabin along the white cliffs and turquoise heather moors of the West.


Finally, after nearly two weeks of painful pause, the day arrived! Masked and cautious, Song and her mother travelled through the cluttered, noisy but somehow dead streets of their pandemic-struck city to the train station. When Song’s grandfather stepped smiling from the carriage, his wrinkled arms outstretched, Sybil barely needed the pressure of her mother’s light hand on her back to fly towards him. His answering laughter, and the pure notes of greeting that she heard from the precious instrument he carried carefully, made all the waiting worthwhile. On a bark of welcome from Mozart, as he too heard the notes leaking from the battered but beloved black case, a bit of her former confidence returned.


With her flute, Song’s grim life in the dead, silent, cluttered city of the East improved. Cold, lonely halls and silent sadness still formed a cage around her tiny soul, but her music surrounded her, clear and pure, the notes cascading through her days. Unfortunately, the only teacher available in the city was much more expensive. As she set out with Mozart for her first lesson, she had a spark. Rather than burden her tiny family, she could contribute to the cost herself, by playing her flute!


Song’s first clandestine concert took place in the centre of her new city, at the intersection two major alleyways, next to an abandoned street market. Her trusted Mozart guided her through the crowds. Secretly she hoped that they all had been vaccinated because she felt people gathering, and some seemed rather close.


Song unpacked her instrument and started to play. The indigo notes of the ancient, slender silver instrument flowed like a crystal river through the grey, silent city streets, touching the lives of each person, and planting seeds of hope in the crushed hearts of the homes, buildings and neighbourhoods themselves. As Song shared her very soul, the city around her slowly stopped. Pedestrians, cars, buses froze to hear the lovely music. The notes formed a warm waterfall of beauty and light. And as the people of the soundless, soulless, songless city learned to listen, many for the first time in their lives, they became inspired to build back better.


In the crowd, a boy on a skateboard with gleaming raven-wing hair and purple high-tops stopped, astonished, and then quickly pulled out his mobile. His light fingers sped across the keys, and an app glowed with indigo energy as Song’s music engraved electronically. After the performance, Song crumpled in exhaustion on the stone stairs beneath the arches of a stone doorway. Then Mozart barked in greeting. The boy approached, with awed eyes, and asked her permission to post her performance online. Scarcely recognising herself, Song agreed.


The music went viral, travelling everywhere through the city, and transformation travelled with it. A sad, pointless prison for the poor broke the chains of solitude and started rapping its rhythm out from the ground. A polluted petrol station and a greedy fast-food restaurant realised their destiny, and lifted an upbeat, jazzy saxophone duet number. A rubbish tip heard her music, waking from its methane-laden haze and throbbing with deep, happy, decomposing bass notes. The cut-rate pawnshop awakened from its uncaring mist of mangled memories, to pluck a guitar string. With Song’s music came a spark, and with the spark, recovery.


Millions of views and new listeners later, the entire city began to slowly awaken, as if from hibernation. Song and her new friend, Raven, composed new melodies directly online, activating his music apps and her flute talent, and more and more people tuned in to listen, and to transform themselves.


A visiting playwright teaching a story to a group of children in a sad, underfunded schoolroom with a special indigo ink pen paused to listen, as Song’s notes played through the public address speakers, and smiled softly to himself, as the building began to hum the notes back, and recovered into a handsome library brimming with books. A travelling street artist spray-painting an endangered orca and her calves onto a tall shipping company wall with shimmering indigo paints laughed in delight, as the high-rise responded with a soaring soprano solo, and transformed itself into an ocean-wise sustainable aquaculture co-operative.


As Song’s music washed through the city, relentlessly recovering, more and more buildings changed. The clawed pawnshop became a public museum, open to all and housing a tiny delicious bistro and an antiques hall. The dank prison became a community centre with rehabilitation programmes and a legal aid clinic. The petrol station and a fast-food restaurant became an electric vehicle charging station, with renewable solar panels on the roof, and a farmers market in a green corner nearby. The busy highways and rushing traffic calmed, replaced by bike paths and electric trams.


As Song’s mother explained, leaning over the counter of her new job in a tiny global coffee shop that had opened in the revived arts, crafts and organic foods market: “The children have almost invented a whole new form of music… and it’s changing our city, for the better.” Unheard by the adults, the little shop itself began to giggle, as its own lilting jig awoke in response to the flute’s magical notes. Song herself heard the music of her own building awaken and fill the air around her with joy, and stepped confidently with Mozart out into the warm sunshine of their new jade and olive green rooftop garden. She smelled the lavender bushes as returning bees buzzed softly around her and her friend, felt the balconies of their green flats bursting with new fruit and flowers below, and smiled in delight as once-grim halls echoed with children’s laughter, and with the music of a real recovery.

Climate Action, Climate change, endangered species, Life below water, Life on Land, SDG 14, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs

INTERNATIONAL ONLINE JOURNAL FOR AND BY YOUTH

I’m happy to announce that I’m a junior editor of an international online journal for and by youth.

Harmony was launched in the UN’s COP26 climate change events in Glasgow on November 6, 2021. This online journal was built on special links that the youth created during the global pandemic lockdowns. They hosted a series of short online tutorials with professors and heads of institutes from world-class universities to inspire young people that were left stranded by COVID-19 school closures.

Harmony was launched in the UN’s COP26 climate change events in Glasgow on November 6, 2021

Go to Harmony Online Journal here: https://harmonyyouthvoices.com/

Climate Action, Climate change, Eco-Council, Eco-Society, Life below water, Life on Land, SDG 14, SDG13, SDG15, SDGs

The Cambridge Schools Eco Council – Cam YS4C Actions

We rallied outside Great St Mary’s at 5:30 pm on Friday, Sep 24.

Then on Sep 25, 2021, we were l at the Cambridge Climate Fair on Parker’s Piece.

For the last 18 months, the Covid-19 pandemic has overtaken all other issues of discussion. We made a stand with thousands of other youths across the world to remind everyone that the climate crisis has NOT gone away. It’s real, it’s dangerous and – as shown by the recent floods in
Germany and London – it is already upon us.

This November, world leaders fortunate enough to get the vaccine will gather in Glasgow, UK, to participate in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). They are supposed to be implementing constructive solutions to the climate crisis and be initiating real, meaningful action.
However, over a period of time longer than most of the lives of Eco Council members and Youth Strikers 4 Climate, they have obfuscated the issue with greenwashing and avoidance of accountability.

In such chaotic times, it is up to us, the activists, scientists, engineers, lawyers, ordinary individuals – and children to raise the alarm bells. We thus return to the streets to protest with youth across the world for a brighter future. And that is why we show our support this Saturday to the many other climate activists fighting for meaningful action to be taken.

We thank everyone, children and adults, who joined us on Friday and Saturday, but these actions are just the beginning. They are a prelude to the strike from school on Oct 22 and the COP26 actions in November. Get ready, Cambridge. Change is coming whether you like it or not.

We also made into the press, check this article by Cambridge Independent:

Climate fair, school strike and a walking activist – Cambridge looks to COP26 for change

In Cambridge, Cambridge School Eco Council and XR Youth Cambridge organised a protest – the first such public event this year – outside the Senate House on Friday evening, on the same day Greta Thunberg spoke at the Bundestag in Berlin. Hundreds of school strikes took place across Germany ahead of their election on Sunday in the week the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the world was “seemingly light years away from reaching our targets” on climate change.

“As the world slowly reawakens from a horrid pandemic, youth strikers across the world are rising up with actions to say #BuildBackBetter,” says the schools eco council, as speakers repeated their concerns at the prospect of having no water in Cambridge, and demands for “a Green New deal now!” on King’s Parade.

By Mike Scialom

Read the full article here.

Convention of the rights of the child, SDGs

ONLINE INTERNATIONAL ROUNDTABLE ON EDUCATION, THE UN CRC, AND THE WORLD’S SDGS

WED 08 SEP 2021 | 9:00 EST | 14:00 BST

This note invites you to save the date for a very special online now. The registration is already open; please just click here to register at no cost.

The International Roundtable on Education, hosted jointly by the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative, in partnership with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), and experts from the University of Cambridge, McGill University, and the University of Nairobi, among others, convenes teachers, child and youth leaders, mentors and experts on intergenerational equity, children’s rights and sustainable development for an interactive dialogue to raise awareness and speak up for education, children’s rights and the global Sustainable Development Goals.

This special online event celebrates the global launch of ten beautifully illustrated new children’s books. 

The event features VoFG CI Child Authors and Ambassadors from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, the Middle East, Oceania and the Pacific Islands. 

Further, honoured invited chairs and speakers include: Judge Prof. Marcel Szabo*, former Ombudsperson for the Rights of Future Generations and Chair of Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative, Adv. Neshan Gunasekera, CISDL Lead Counsel, Prof. Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger of the University of Cambridge and the University of Waterloo, Senior Director of the CISDL, all leaders in the VoFG CI International Commission; alongside keynote remarks from Ms. Roda Muse, Secretary-General of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, together with Ms. Isabelle LeVert-Chiasson, ASPnet Coordinator with Canadian Commission for UNESCO, Prof. David Boyd (UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Environment), and Isobel Abulhoul OBE(CEO and Trustee of the Emirates Literature Foundation & International Commission, VoFG), 

The Voices of Future Generations new children’s books being celebrated with UNESCO, CISDL and partners on International Literacy Day 2021 include: