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Posted: Aug. 03 2006,05:21 by JoLofgren
from INTERNATIONAL - Jo Lofgren |
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Questionnaire
1. (personal response by CDAC
intern)
a) My name is Galen Bean, I am currently a 20 year
old university student enrolled at Villanova University in
Pennsylvania. I represent, at least in demography, the upper
tier of what is considered the youth (25 and under). Personally,
once I have completed my undergraduate studies a year from now, I
would be willing to give whatever time and resources necessary to be
a part of any youth advocacy group or program that aimed to give a
real forum for discussion of youth issues and for propositions by
the youth themselves for youth issues. This could include anything
from youth run organizations having hearings at the UN to youth
delegations visiting any and all manner of governmental and
non-governmental organizations to make their case and be
honestly/respectfully listened to. I would also be willing to
participate in any projects that attempted to mobilize the younger
generations as a force for change within their own countries as
members of the Civil Society. The youth is strong in numbers and
passionate about the causes they take up; the opportunity simply
needs to be provided to them to really get involved and to make sure
their pleas and demands make it to the ears of the people in the
positions to act upon them. I would also be willing to participate
in any projects aimed at cultural exchange or
inter-cultural/inter-religious awareness among the youth. Without a
solid basis of respect for all humans of every race, religion, and
culture, there is no hope of the succeeding generations to progress
any further than the current generations already have.
b)
Non-financial support oriented toward supporting these types of
projects would include first and most importantly just the inclusion
and invitation of youth delegations and youth organizations from
various sectors (civil society, business community, academic world
and the media) into official UN (and other upper-level diplomatic
sector) conferences, hearings and other events. A special place or
places could be reserved to make sure some measure of youth
involvement was always present, as well as to make sure those issues
most salient or important to the youth were at least presented and
defended. A permanent mission of youth delegations, either in
general or one from each region of the world, could even eventually
be integrated as a part of the UN system. Secondly would come some
sort of database or catalogue of youth organizations and their
goals/purposes. One of the biggest problems is even if youth wish to
get involved they do not know how or do not know who is already
working on what they seek to participate in. A database (like the
one CDAC is already working on and has partially completed) that was
open to anyone to look through, of all the respected and qualified
youth organizations and movements would go a long way toward
increasing youth participation and redresses of issues pertinent to
the youth. Taking It Global (TIG), a youth led international
non-governmental organization based in Toronto, Canada already
provides a comprehensive and searchable online database of over 9000
organizations from all over the world that are youth led, focused on
youth issues, or are dealing with youth issues in some capacity. A
link to their website and database from the UN website would not
only legitimize their organization and its resources, but would
increase the probability that youth make use of this resource by
increasing overall awareness that such a resource exists. This would
also prevent the UN from having to spend time and UN resources to
create its own database that would undoubtedly mirror the TIG
database to a great degree, and would therefore be somewhat
redundant. Finally, along the same lines, would be some sort of
program CDAC could design and implement, putting youth in touch with
international officials, experts in various fields, and key
stakeholders of the global community, allowing the youth access to
not only to information, but also to participation in the key policy
making international summits putting them in a position to
include their voices in the main decisions, as well as help
implement programs (e.g. student exchanges and youth led advocacy
delegations participating in global summits and forums). Perhaps a
network involving various universities and schools from around the
world, that are willing to accept or support student exchanges and
youth delegations, could ideally be constructed. CDAC is already
working in that direction.
c) CDAC is already focused on, and
would therefore be more than willing to provide further support to
and participation in, education, advocacy and continuous learning
-oriented youth activities. Education and inspiration of the younger
generations, in a spirit that would foster among the younger
generations a stronger sense of human solidarity and respect for all
cultures/civilizations, is a primary goal of our organization. Among
the projects at the core of our program are:
• an internet
database of dialogue related links, organizations, and information
centers;
• a university level course on the subject of
comprehensive dialogue that would teach students not only how to
engage in respectful, effective dialogue, but that would also foster
among them that aforementioned spirit of dialogue;
• A manual
conjoined to that program entitled “The Golden Rules of Dialogue”
which aims to lay out basic rules and guidelines for engaging in
respectful, effective inter-cultural dialogue;
• A MDG-related
Advocacy Campaign and Educational Program, starting in Switzerland
and meant to spread internationally through the networks (academic,
operational and promotional) CDAC is in the process of building. In
this context, CDAC would be in the position also to facilitate the
participation of youth in the Global Partnership for Development,
one of the key MDGs;
Generally speaking, CDAC would give
support to any activities that educate the youth against extremism
and intolerance. While all of these goals and programs are in the
early stages of development, further assistance especially in
funding is required to complete them, implement them especially (the
university program most notably) and ensure that they are
comprehensive and affectible/effective. CDAC could, with this in
mind, make great use of a UN developed network or database of
Universities and educational institutions promoting, or willing to
promote, the CoP ideals and goals. CDAC would also be willing
to support and help to achieve other activities that bring members
of the younger generation together in cultural appreciation.
Activities in this vein could include concerts, cultural/student
exchange programs, and multi-ethnic youth delegations to important
international organization meetings and hearings. One attractive
idea that would engender much youth into participation, while at the
same time fostering the respect and appreciation of other cultures
simply through increasing the general knowledge of other cultural
peculiarities, is sports or competitive game events to be engaged in
by the youth. These should be culturally traditional sports and/or
games from all over the world, conducted in a friendly and
sportsmanlike ambience, with an emphasis on sportsmanship. CDAC is
also firmly behind making use of and implementing real action teams
that would go out into the field and not only document/monitor
progress of these goals and programs, but assist in implementing
them too, allowing for a measure of legitimate oversight by the
UN.
d) The non-financial support necessary to carry out these
goals would require mainly the written and/or verbal support and
advocacy for our education program, from the UN, to universities and
educational institutions. Further support could include admission of
certain CDAC employees to any UN resources, such as the library in
the UN office at Geneva, that contain a large amount of information
on dialogue through history, as well as current information
pertaining to the spirit and culture of dialogue; in order to make
sure our research is as comprehensive and inclusive as possible of
all important dialogue related issues. Beyond that, nominal support
from the UN, for any activities such as a concert or viewing of CoP
minded film would go a long way in convincing participants to join
as well as esteemed organizers to include their cultural works. UN
backing would in many ways ensure an air of legitimacy to any such
proceedings. The UN can also act as the legitimizing force to assist
organizations working toward the CoP to keep in contact, through,
most effectively, accessible web links and computer networking
schemes; ensuring no gaps or breaks in the chain of organizational
actions promoting these goals.
2. a) My country, the United
States of America, already enjoys quite an active youth demographic
with regards to participation in Civil Society. Nevertheless, there
are still areas that could need improvement. One of these areas, and
the most important, is education. The United States government
woefully under-funds public education. At present there is
even a bill that provides money to send children to private schools
if their public schools are not sufficiently providing for their
education. This does nothing but to remove the most committed
students from public schools, and in no way solves the problem of a
lack of educational funding for public schools. The United States
needs to seriously reform its education practices and cut a large
amount of funding from the pork barrel politics and defense oriented
appropriations that currently exist. Even a negligible percent of
defense funding transferred over the educational spending could more
than double the capacity of public schools to effectively educate,
at least with regards to the financial resources that would then be
at their disposal. Similarly to how the UN could benefit from
permanent youth missions, so too could the United States benefit
from some permanent measure of youth advocacy or lobbying as an
official part of our democratic system. Finally, there needs to be
reform of the current laws that essentially gut the U.S.
Constitution of its protections of free speech, free press, free
association, and peaceful assembly. This is simply a necessary step
to restoring real active democracy to my country that is currently
being overrun by dictatorial-type leaders, completely uninterested
in upholding the personal protections of individuals and the limits
on power of any one elected or un-elected official.
b) As I
have already mentioned, the UN would first of all be taking a great
step forward toward youth participation in the CoP to simply include
youth representation in their dealings. A permanent mission of youth
delegations to the UN, as mentioned before, could be formed.
Similarly some measure of UN recognition for outstanding youth
organizations, or simply official recognition of qualified youth
organizations, would go a long way in helping these organizations to
be known among the youth of the world, as well as helping them to
ascertain funding. The UN must of course become one of, if not the
leading advocate for, educational reform in the direction of open
and culturally respectful and inclusive education, that is seriously
lacking in many parts of the developed and developing world. Finally
the UN must continue to work toward the cessation of any wars and
even increase those efforts, because the youth generally make up the
literal body of any military, the soldiers. Wars destroy generations
and young populations especially, and nothing increases cultural,
religious, or ethnic hostilities like war and violence. The UN must
also pay special attention to the need for cures and treatments for
diseases, especially AIDS, which children are always more
susceptible to than adults; in the case of AIDS it hurts primarily
the sexually active and non-committed i.e. young people who are
engaging more than other demographics in sexual acts with numerous
partners (as opposed to married couples, which tend to be
older).
Optional Questions
4. In order to ensure and
improve the flow of information, the UN needs to participate in
greater outreach to any and every legitimate organization working to
implement CoP goals and ideals. Implicit in this is UN assistance in
networking these organizations with one another so that they can
make use of each others resources and expertise toward their common
goals. The UN also must implement clear information policy and
increase its level of information dissemination to these
organizations and the public at large. One exceedingly useful and
effective tool toward this end would be regular newsletters on the
subject of a CoP and how its implementation is
progressing.
5. The first step toward managing the monetary
aspect of implementing the CoP would require a cross-sector board
including governments, businesses, INGO’s, and the UN; capable of
not only good fiscal practice/monitoring, but representative of all
the different areas concerned with and pertaining to a CoP, and
responsible for allocating or appropriating the funds to the
projects. Another important aspect to be included in the
administering of funds would be, in the vein of allocating,
attention to the method of how to appropriate funds to advancing so
many different goals at once. One solution is to commit funds to
each separate issue of the CoP one at a time; for example focusing
perhaps for the first year on educating the youth, and the second
year on promoting gender equality. On the other hand this allocation
of funds could be campaign based, requiring each individual campaign
to report regularly on its financial situation and spending, thereby
organizing funding in that manner, as opposed to just doling out
money to each of the multitude of organizations
specifically.
6. Perhaps the first and most important method
of integrating more youth participation into the CoP would require
both the intervention of educational and academic institutions, and
enthusiastic and committed task-forces to literally travel across
the world and promote the CoP. Their mission would be to inspire
youth participation, make real to the youth of the world these
issues and their ramifications, to create bridges and build their
capacity to facilitate their participation in the key processes, and
if nothing else to reach out to untapped youth and show them an
avenue of participation they may otherwise be unaware exists.
Another immensely important tool is media outlets. Television and
the internet most specifically are the best friends of youth the
world over. Popular youth television stations like MTV can go a long
way in mobilizing youth participation, and the internet is
invaluable in its capacity to reach the youth and present them with
a plethora of information on CoP activities and possibilities for
their involvement.
Contact information:
Comprehensive
Dialogue among Civilizations (CDAC)
Rue de la Servette
100
CH-1202 Geneva
Tel: + 41 (0) 22 734 48 05
Fax: +
41 (0) 22 734 48 04
Contact person: Michael Karlen, Secretary
General
Email: m.karlen@civilizations.ch
Website:
www.comprehensivedialogue.org |
