TRANSCRIPT (957 words, slightly edited for clarity):
What was your impression of this World
Summit on Sustainable Development?
I felt that it was a very strange thing, this whole summit,
because there are all these people who have come together to discuss
poverty as one of the most important things the have got to try
and eradicate. And while they are saying that, they're staying in
like five star hotels, with an amazingly plush conference centre,
more luxurious and opulent than anything I have ever seen in my
life! And like last night I was at a reception where they were giving
away free oysters and champagne and stuff, and talking about how
important eradicating poverty is - and like five minutes down the
road you've got Alexander where there are just sort of shacks on
the side of the road. So I found that very change.
But then, on the other hand that fact that there are
people all here together to talk about sustainable development is
a really positive step. And I know a lot of people have said there
is not the positivism that there was at Rio, but I think that's
partially the fact that people have started to realise that you
can keep on making nice promises and stuff, and saying yes we want
to do all sorts of things, but until you actually get down to examining
how you're actually going to do that, it's not going to happen.
So I think that the increase in realism involved in the whole process
has actually been quite a positive thing.
What about all these Peace Child projects
that have been posted up on the NetAid web site. Can you tell us
a bit about that?
Well NetAid is... We're now focusing more on a sort of
adopt-a-project type scheme whereby people actually adopt physical
projects. And the idea of all of our Be the Change! projects is
that, you know, that they're not massively complicated. They're
not trying to do incredibly difficult or strange things, because
they are much more likely to fail. So what we are trying to encourage
young people to do is to is to address something within their community
which they can actually identify as a need, and then put in a proposal
for how they can fix that - with the partnership of adults to make
sure that it's actually a success. Because there is nothing more
un-empowering than having a great idea and trying to do something
about it, and then because you haven't got the resources to make
it happen, it not happening, and you then say stuff it, there's
no point! So what we're trying to do is create an opportunity for
young people to come to Peace Child with an idea and actually get
it done.
Can you describe some of the more interesting
projects that you've done?
Yeah. Well as I said they are quite simple. In Lima [Peru]
we've got a smog project, whereby the smog in Lima is obviously
- like in a lot of developing cities - terrible, for young people
especially, they are suffering from a lot of respiratory diseases.
So the idea was to provide little face masks that actually clean
the air that you're breathing in. So that was one of the projects.
Also in India we've got an immunisation programme. And the idea
with that is again to... within a small community, a girl of 14
recognised the fact that people weren't immunised and so therefore
were falling prey to terrible diseases. And it was not difficult
to immunise people, but you just need someone to go forward and
say "this is what needs to happen and here it is!" And that's what
she managed to do, and I think that's great.
Can you say a few words about the World Congress of Youth which Peace Child is organising in Morocco in August 2003?
The aim of this Congress is to try and build on what we did
in Hawaii in 1999. Because we felt that there have been lots of
conferences for young people, in which young people have come together
and they've talked about the things that they think are important,
and they've gone home and they reflected on what was really a great
experience for them and they met lots of interesting people and
had a great time, but other than that nothing much has happened.
So what we wanted from Hawaii was to actually have a conference
where people went on to actually do stuff, so that's what Be the
Change! is about. And next year will four years on from Hawaii,
and so we want to see what people are doing, and also bring in new
people, new young people, so they can learn what other young people
are doing. Because, I mean, I think that's one of the things that
young people find overwhelming: it's like "well there is nothing
I can do". So by having a forum for people to exchange ideas and
talk about what they are doing, as well as in Morocco they are actually
doing action projects during the conference itself. So as well as
finding out what other people are going to be doing, they are going
to be having talks from experts in the field of development who
will be talking to young people and saying "look, this is how we
do our project; you know, if you're interested in this sort of stuff,
here are some tips and ideas on how you can make things happen in
your own community" so that young people will come away from this
conference not only with a great experience of having met people
from all over the world, but also with a lot of good ideas on how
they can go out into their communities and do the stuff.
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