Stand Up and Speak out

On October 16th and 17th , millions all over the world will once again Stand Up and Speak Out against poverty and inequality and in support of the Millennium Development Goals. The Stand Up Speak Out initiative is planned to coincide with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. On this day last year, 23.5 million people stood up against poverty in a 24 hour period setting a new Guinness World Record.

This year the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and the United Nations Millennium Campaign plan to mobilize people all over the world to break this record, urging millions more to join this growing global movement. They will demand that their governments keep their promises to achieve the Millennium Goals to end extreme poverty by 2015. From workers to students, women’s groups to community groups, people will call on political leaders to deliver more and better aid to the poorest nations, implement fairer trade conditions, cancel debt, ensure gender equality as well as greater transparency and accountability from their governments.

They will stand up and challenge the world record
Events are being planned in over 100 countries. These will range from major rallies and concerts to gatherings in school assemblies, town halls and refugee camps. Participants will be asked to register for the Guinness challenge in the 24-hour period from 9pm GMT on October 16th to 9pm GMT on October 17th.
For more information on Stand Up and Speak Out events and a video reel from last year visit www.standagainstpoverty.org

They will speak through music, political meetings and using banners
A new piece of choral music, The Poverty Requiem, will be performed in a global chain of performances in over 25 countries. Delegations will meet politicians to present their demands to end poverty and on four continents International Women’s Tribunals on Poverty will be held to raise awareness of gender issues. Elsewhere, groups are making giant Banners Against Poverty with messages for leaders and later linking these on key global mobilization dates.

Sweden wins bid for 2010 World Summit on Media for Children

The 6th World Summit on Media for Children will be held in June 2010 in the city of Karlstad, Sweden.

The World Summit on Media for Children Foundation (WSMCF) announced today that the bid led by Director Per Lundgren on behalf of the City and University of Karlstad, Sweden had been successful in the contest to hold the next World Summit, supported by worldwide media organisations.

“Director Per Lundgren and his partners proposed a compelling and forward-thinking proposal. The 2010 Summit will be a seminal event.” said Dr Patricia Edgar AM, Chair of the WSMCF from Melbourne, Australia. “The world we live in is changing rapidly. Children are citizens of the world. All media platforms for them should have a depth and focus of educational commitment. Children are forging changes in the new media landscape as education and media production for them are being transformed by new technology The new media context for children requires risk taking both on the part of producers who should test new boundaries and on the part of educators guiding the young. As world leaders in children’s well-being1, Scandinavia will provide an ideal context for such initiatives”

The Summit Movement works to ensure the needs of children are met as an audience and as participants in media production. World Summits are held every three years and attended by media, technology, policy and education professionals dedicated to children’s services. Each Summit provides a unique and fertile environment for global networking and the sharing of ideas and information. World Summits which involve young people and adults are catalysts for communication, collaboration and international exchange.

Previous World Summits have been held in Melbourne (1995), London (1998), Thessaloniki (2001), Rio de Janeiro (2004) and Johannesburg (2007), supplemented by Regional Summits held in The Philippines (1996) and North America (2000).

“It’s both a pleasure and an honour for us to bring together media players from all over the world to a global agenda on creativity, critical thinking skills, quality in media and cultural diversity in Karlstad, Sweden” said Per Lundgren. “We look forward to welcoming the world to Karlstad”

Journalists for training on Millennium Development Goals

Twenty junior radio and print journalists from twelve Caribbean Commonwealth countries and two non-Commonwealth countries will be in Jamaica from September 12-16 for a training workshop on Reporting the Millennium Development Goals”.

The workshop which will be held in Mandeville, Manchester is being organized by Panos Caribbean and is funded by the Commonwealth Foundation.

During the workshop, local and rural issues in addition to national and regional issues will be highlighted.

A press release from Panos Caribbean quoted Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, Dr. Mark Collins as saying that “at this half-way stage towards the MDG target date of 2015 it is vital that Caribbean governments keep up the momentum. Journalists play a key role as opinion-formers who can ensure that citizens and politicians alike recognize that there is no room for complacency in tackling these goals. They must be achieved and this workshop will help to ensure that the issues are kept alive and kicking.”

Jan Voordouw, Executive Director of Panos Caribbean stressed that MDGs are of prime importance to Caribbean societies, especially the vulnerable ones.

“However, often people do not easily see how to translate such global goals to local realities. During the workshop we will explore how media can assist in evaluating progress on the goals in our specific islands, to see how far we have come whether it is nationally or in marginal areas,” Voordouw said.

The release said also that the training during the workshop will focus particularly on HIV/AIDS, climate change, education, and debt relief.

“We expect that after the workshop, more radio and print stories will come out on the MDGs in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The workshop will also provide an opportunity for networking and joint investigation among journalists across the region,” Voordouw said.

The participants are drawn from Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Haiti and Suriname.

Presenters will include Dr. Maureen Samms-Vaugh from the Early Childhood Commission, Canute James, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communications, Dale Rankine from the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme in Jamaica, and Peter Espeut from the Caribbean Costal Area Management Foundat-ion, the release added.

In 2007 a large UN Conference agreed on eight MDGs, setting targets for the substantial reduction of poverty by 2015. Nearly all the countries of the world have signed up to them.

The eight MDGs are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

EU/Africa summit in december

The Joint EU-Africa Strategy is planned to be adopted at the Lisbon Summit. It is the second ever Summit between heads of state and government from EU and Africa and is planned to be held in Lisbon on 8-9 December, 2007. The first summit was held in Cairo in 2000.

The European Union and the African Union have in the past years strengthened their relations and participated in a structured dialogue since the first EU-African Summit in Cairo in 2000. Africa is a priority of the European Union as stated in the EU strategy for Africa adopted in December 2005 by the European Council and now both continents are heading towards a second EU-Africa Summit that should take place in Lisbon at the end of 2007.

The European Union and the African Union have thus decided to further strengthen the ties linking both continents by developing a co-owned ‘joint strategy’ which reflects the needs and aspirations of the peoples of Africa and Europe. The purpose of this joint strategy is to develop a political vision and practical approaches for the future partnership between the EU and Africa, based on mutual respect, common interests and the principle of ownership.

A public consultation was launched by the African Union Commission and the European Commission at the beginning of February. The aim was to gather civil society recommendations on the joint EU-Africa Strategy to be approved at the planned EU-Africa Summit in December 2007. The first phase of this consultation lasted until the end of April, with the approval of an outline of the future joint Strategy on 15 May by the joint EU-Africa Ministerial Troika Meeting.

The first phase of the consultation was mainly carried out through an Internet consultation on this website, open to all Europeans and Africans. It also comprised a seminar organised by the African Union Commission (AUC) for a number of representatives of African civil society in Accra, Ghana, on 26-28 March and a conference co-organised by VENRO and ECDPM in Bad Honnef, Germany, on 23-24 April.

In the second phase, ECDPM will focus on sharing information on the official negotiations, on related events and positions of civil society representatives as well as provide some analysis on the progress of the negotiations. The website will thus be more geared towards information sharing than towards moderating on-line discussions as was the case with the Internet consultation until May 2007. Contributions and position papers will be published, and shared with the officials and all interested actors.

MORE INFORMATION
http://www.europaafrica.org

UN announces high level meeting on climate change

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced that he will convene an informal high-level event in New York on the margins of the General Assembly on 24 September to promote discussion on possible ways to move the international community toward negotiations on new global agreement on climate change at the upcoming United Nations climate change conference in Bali in December.

The Secretary-General hopes that world leaders will send a powerful political signal to the negotiations in Bali that “business as usual” will not do and that they are ready to work jointly with others towards a comprehensive multilateral framework for action on climate change for the period after 2012.

Stand Up against poverty on October 17

On October 17, join millions of people from around the world to Stand Up and Speak Out against poverty and inequality.

In 2000, world leaders from 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals, a global plan to halve extreme poverty by 2015.

Last year, more than 23 million people in 87 countries stood up and took action to remind them of this promise. It was the largest single coordinated mobilization in the history of the Guinness World Records.

In 2007, we are at half time – but the world is falling behind.

This year, you can join this growing movement of people calling on our leaders to take action now.

On October 17, 2007 Stand Up and Speak Out!

More information
Stand Up Against Poverty

Event: International Youth Symposium 29 October – 2 November

Entitled, “Youth Participation and Empowerment – Getting Beyond the Rhetoric and Slogans”, this international symposium seeks to bring together young people and youth policy and programme designers to share experiences, ideas and aspirations and to identify what motivates and sustains successful youth-designed and youth-led actions.

This Symposium seeks a balance of 75% youth activists (ages 15-30) and 25% youth policy and programme makers. The focus of the Symposium is to listen to the experiences and ideas of young people who have stepped up and have made a significant impact on their societies through their actions.

For more information on the symposium, please visit http://www.bankofideas.com.au/Goa