Our Project during the 5th World Youth Congress in Istanbul

Connecting African Youth with the Post-COP15 Climate Change Discussions

The evidence is clear: climate change is with us now and treating our lives, our families and our future. To tackle the climate challenge we will not sit back and watch. We already face the effects of climate change. Our communities are deprived of clean drinking water, denied access to education and vulnerable to disease every time it floods. Our plates are empty due to drought. Our future is at risk, and we are not only demand that something be done but we are also taking actions. The youth in the world are ready to take action, and African youth are also ready.

The ‘’Connecting Young People from Africa with the Post-COP15 Climate Change Discussions’’ is a two hours mass media communication project aiming to connect young people from Africa working on sustainable development initiatives in their communities with youth leaders and development experts attending the 5th World Youth Congress 2010 around two videoconferences focused on sustainability and Post-COP15 Climate Change discussions. The event want to mobilize youth in Africa who haven’t been selected as Delegates to attend the Congress via the Virtual Congress but more effectively via videoconferences engaging their peers and experts. The project will support the Turkey Congress in reaching these youth’s objectives through better and upgraded sharing experience collaboration, and also invites them to become part of the Congress community during and after on the topic of climate change international negotiations’ results and its impact on the African countries. The project will develop a collaboration between African youth leaders and groups working in the field of sustainable development and the tool is open source, low bandwidth (easily accessible with slow internet connections) and offers most necessary tools for collaborative distant. The tool is constantly being improved through user feedback.

The initiative will create a global community of youth working collaboratively to address the causes of climate change through creation of action for greater global impact on climate issues after the COP15. Youth will use the videoconferences with various degrees of involvement, whether communicating and collaborating on work within their community and Congress Delegates and experts to empower their involvement. They will have an opportunity to share experience on Monitoring and Evaluation of local projects. The videoconferences will be held on two times: August 3th and 11th, 2010. Around twenty organizations around Africa will participate as local partners to get involve young people and mobilized them the discussions focused on climate change. This project will really help youth involvement in the Congress attendance and help them celebrate great achievements, give inputs, share local experiences and celebrate the International Year of Youth with all the Congress Delegates. Roundtable participants including delegates with agreat experience, UN experts, experimented experts on development will conduct the discussions in Istanbul. 

For more information about the Congress go to: www.turkiye2010.org