“jugend denkt um.welt” international initiative to train youth climate ambassadors launched today
Young people from four continents join together for climate protection
Some 200 students from eleven countries have decided to participate in “youthinkgreen . jugend denkt um.welt” until spring 2013. The environmental
project is taking up the major sociopolitical challenge of training young people as climate ambassadors and players in sustainable development.
The project is being launched during the UN Climate Conference in South Africa. The timing
and the venue were deliberately chosen. The budding climate ambassadors shall arouse the public conscience, call for proactive action and play a pioneering role. International climate agreements provide an institutional framework for climate protection, but this must be brought to life in an everyday context by each one of us.
“We are living today at the expense of tomorrow’s generations. That is why it is so important that young people in particular urge us to map the path of progress so that coming generations have the leeway needed for shaping the social and economic future. And it is precisely this point that the ‘jugend denkt um.welt’ project addresses,” Federal Environment Minister Dr. Norbert Röttgen said.
15-20 young people aged between 15 and 20 are taking part from each of the participating countries. The international dimension of this initiative gives the young players the opportunity to experience and critically question the different perspectives on similar problems offered by intercultural dialog. The objective is to stimulate a willingness on the part of the young people to jointly reflect on sustainable solution models in response to environmental damage in their respective countries and to actively implement these models. “Our work will have been worthwhile when the major challenges of our time – sustainable mobility, sustainable consumption, sustainable energy and resource management – have become firmly anchored in the everyday lives of young people,” Helmut Spiering, voluntary project leader, said.
Apart from the main sponsors Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft and Stiftung Mercator, the project is also supported by Bandesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz and Reaktorsicherheit (BMU), das Umweltbandesamt (UBA), Deutsche Bandesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), Umweltbandesamt (UBA), Bingo-Stiftung and the Federal Foreign Office (AA).
The initiative links up with earlier successful events. The 1st European Youth Summit on Climate Change took place in Berlin in 2009. At that summit, over 100 young people from five European states were trained as climate ambassadors with the support of climate experts, prominent artists and representatives from the community, politics, the media and industry.
Contact:
youthinhkgreen – jugend denkt um.welt
Contact person: Dr. Jaime Sperberg
Phone: 0027 (0)82 592 59 46
sperberg (at) youthinkgreen.org
www.youthinkgreen.org