Are we talking about climate change or are we talking about sustainable development?

Last time I checked, we were talking about both — but that apparently is the debate here at the UN Meeting on Climate Change (COP17).

In a special dialogue on climate change, hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the “UN must continue to deliver as one.’ I wonder what he would have said last week when Ms. Figueres responded to a question regarding access to sexual and reproductive health information and services as an issue that her “other” UN colleagues should handle, because it's not a “relevant” issue here at COP17.

If only Ms. Figueres attended the COP17 side event, “Implementing the Cancun Adaptation Framework: vulnerability, changing populations and human mobility” hosted by researchers, advocates and various agencies of the United Nations. She would have understood that climate and variability already affect human lives and livelihoods, health, wellbeing and security, and will continue to affect the ways that these contribute to vulnerability, challenging people’s capacity to adapt to climate change. She would also understand that, at the same time, those countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts are also the ones experiencing the most significant changes to their population.  

Population, climate change and sustainable development are intrinsically interlinked and this is why Advocates for Youth is pushing for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to prioritize and elevate sexual and reproductive health and rights at COP17.
We must also recognize that globally, the world is much more mobile because of climate change and this can be positive, but also has put strains on sustainable development including the strengthening of public health systems.

The impacts of changing climatic conditions, coupled with factors such as environmental degradation, extreme weather events, population growth, rapid urbanization, weak governance and tenure challenges, have led to increased competition over scarce natural resources-most notably fertile land and water-and resulted in tensions and conflicts between communities and livelihood groups. In addition, the relocation, migration, displacement and urbanization among populations directly impacts communities’ access to sexual and reproductive health information and services.

We shouldn't be wasting our time debating on whether we're negotiating on climate change, sustainable development, or the "global business plan," as Ms. Figueres described it--but the the holistic lives of individuals and communities, and our right to a just, sustainable and equitable world for us all, whoever or wherever we are on this planet.

Today, I attended a meeting hosted by the US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change, Jonathon Pershing, where he engaged in dialgoue with American youth to discuss the negotiations curently going on at the Conference of Parties (COP) 17 in Durban, South Africa.

Mr. Pershing gave an overview of the negotiations, while highlighting the US interests in addressing climate change which was then followed by a Q&A session. In response to a question regarding how the US and countries can play a role in adaptating to climate change by investing in family planning/reproductive health programs internationally, Mr. Pershing said this:



In the midst of the COP discussions mainly focused on offsetting carbon emissions and coming to a legally binding agreement, it feels quite daunting as an advocate to bring awareness and push for accountability for governments to invest in an effective solution like voluntary reproductive health/family planning programs.  However, as an American, I found Mr. Pershing's words encouraging that by mobilizing young people in coalition to push issues that matter to us, we set the stage for opening up broader discussions of sustainable development like expanding access to education, clean water, health care among other priorities that will help build communities' resilience to the negative impacts of climate change.  I also appreciated how he, throughout his talk, expressed his satisfaction with the number of young people in the room-clearly over 100 youth leaders-that were purposeful wtih their questions and genuinely interested in bringing change.

Throughout the rest of the COP meeting, the Advocates for Youth delegation will continue to advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights by targeting our various government officials and leaders, asking them questions to make sure that SRHR becomes a topic to discuss rather than an issue that gets sidelined by the politics of carbon credits.

Stay tuned for more!

Hi everyone!

I am excited to report to you on the first day of the UN Climate Change Conference here in Durban, South Africa on behalf of Advocates for Youth, with my fellow colleagues and youth activists Leo, Lemuel and Roli representing our climate change youth advisory board from the Philippines, Mexico and India.  Some of you may ask, why is Advocates for Youth, an organization focused on young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, participating in a climate change conference

Climate change disproportionately affects women, especially young women, who are often the stewards of their area’s natural resources — as they must walk farther to collect water, work harder to produce crops from dry soil, and cope with drought, flooding and other natural disasters and disease. At the same time, empowered women an be particularly strong agents for sustainable change in their communities. 

More...

 Hi friends!

I'm here in Bamako, Mali, accompanied with many of my colleagues, including Nana Nyarko Boateng and Jaevion Nelson, International Year of Youth (IYY) journalists reporting on this meeting via Amplify blogs, Facebook and Twitter.  Day 1 was an exciting day where we had Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS Executive Director and the President of Mali, Amoudu Toumani Toure speak at the opening ceremony.  Following the ceremony were youth-to-youth sessions focused on themes like youth leadership and key populatios.  Then, we participated in a "speed dating" session to (quickly!) discuss more technical issues like the civil society hearing, African Union and Global Fund Board.  Throughout these sessions, we pulled out recommendations that will be streamlined into the Call to Action that will be finalized by the end of this meeting.

Overall, Day 1 was interesting (and tiring!) to say the least, and I'm sure you'll get what I mean once you hear from my colleague, Jaevion Nelson from Jamaica.

Here's Jaevio's video with his perspective of the meeting before the Opening Ceremony:





And here's Jaevion's video with his perspective by the end of Day 1:




Although we don't have wifi at the Conference Center (crazy, I know), our team will do our best to keep you updated throughout the meeting! Thanks and stay tuned!

My trip to Africa started two weeks ago in my country of origin, Ethiopia, where I attended the Africa Youth Forum hosted by the African Union.  Many of you have seen blogs and videos from my colleague, Abongwa Victor, a youth journalist who captured the news of this meeting.

If you haven't yet, not to worry...you can check out his blogs here at: www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/papavic

After this meeting, I decided to take a detour to Nairobi, Kenya and meet youth leaders working for change in their country.  This was a nice detour from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as I am now in Bamako, Mali here to attend the Mali Youth Summit hosted by UNAIDS.  Young leaders from all over the globe will attend this three-day meeting to discuss the way forward in the global response to HIV/AIDS.  I will keep you updated on this meeting, along with my colleague, another youth journalist, Nana Nyarko Boateng.  

In the meantime, I would like to share a video series of four youth leaders I met in Nairobi:

1) Meet George, a climate change activist who went to the Copenhagen meeting and is now gearing up for the next meeting in December by planning a month-long road trip from Nairobi to Durban (where the meeting will be).



2) Meet Charity, a youth volunteer at the Red Cross in Nairobi. Aside from her working managing HIV prevention programs, she's currently working on a research project to understand the need of women's access to sanitary towels. Girls and young women often resort to finding anything to replace sanitary towels, including the material from a mattress. As a result, girls face low self esteem and miss school dealing with the lack of access to sanitary towels.



3) Meet Job, my colleague who I met in Vienna. He's a doctor working on women's health (including gynecology) in various hospitals. He's also the National Focal Point of the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, an organization that I work with a lot!



4) Meet Ann, a new friend from Y-PEER who works with various organizations in Kenya advocating for comprehensive sex education in Kenya's schools.



So that's my trip to Nairobi!

I'm so excited to meet new youth leaders from across the globe here in Bamako.  My goal is to share their stories with you on Amplify, so stay tuned for more inspiration!

Today marks the first day of the African Union Pre-Summit, hosted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where young leaders from all over Africa will come together to develop concrete messages and a Plan of Action in preparation of the annual African Union Summit to be hosted this July, with the theme “Accelerate Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development”.   The Pre-African Union Summit will be held from April 1-9  where my colleague, International Year of Youth journalist, Abongwa Victor, will be keeping you updated with interviews from young leaders themselves on the progress that needs to be made to sustain development through youth leadership and empowerment in Africa.  Abonwga will also be posting his own blogs to document the meeting from a youth perspective and advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

We hope you stay tuned throughout the next 9 days of the meeting and we hope to hear from you on your own perspective of this Pre-Summit.

Now, check out an introduction video from International Year of Youth journalist, Abongwa Victor from Cameroon:


 

Now that the council of youth activists in Nepal have their own plan of action from our training in Dilukhel, we left the next morning to return to Kathmandu and conduct our "part II" of my trip...which was for them meet with various stakeholders working on youth sexual and reproductive health and rights to share their plans for the year and potentially identify points of collaboration or advocacy entry points (depending if we're talking to local organizations or policymakers!).

We met with the:

-Program Manager in the Youth Section of the Family Planning Association of Nepal (FPAN);
-the Joint-Secretary in the Ministry of Youth;
-Program Coordinator of the National Network of Women Living with HIV/AIDS and Program Coordinators of Solid Nepal; and, what would have been the
-Regional Director of UNFPA-Asia and the Pacific (but that was cancelled at the last minute—booo! Meeting to be rescheduled).

In reality, traffic is so hectic in Kathmandu that this was as much as we could have done in 2 days especially including our debriefs back at the YUWA office to discuss and develop follow-up plans.

OK...so after all the discussions with our colleagues who were very familiar with the landscape of advocacy in Nepal, we were pleased to learn some best practices and discover that they were advocating for a better, more comprehensive sexuality education curricula too.

In-between the meetings, the council members and I were split up in various taxi drivers and stuck in HEAVY road traffic. This allowed us to talk and…talk and…talk some more about all sorts of things.

Personally, I learned so much about traditional Nepalese culture from these intimate conversations—and definitely nothing I’ve found through my own research online. I learned about the challenges they face with dating and talking to their parents about sex. I also learned the struggles they face with trying to change their parents’ traditional attitudes and beliefs, particularly towards gender and sexuality.

For example, Sanskriti is trying to teach her mother that it’s not right to follow the traditional belief that if your daughter is menstruating, she’s associated with evil and is forbidden to be in the kitchen. During a girl’s first menstruation, she must be completely isolated from everyone and stay in a farm with cow dung during the entire week.

This led to a whole other conversation of better ways to change her mother’s beliefs; one idea being to have Rojy’s progressive mother—one that could definitely relate to Sanskrit’s mother—talk to her about these various traditional beliefs and how the conflict with women’s integrity and rights.

Aside from the heavy road traffic in Kathmandu, I’ve learned so much from these youth activists these past few days. Seeing them in action at meetings demanding that the Ministry of Youth take accountability for involving young people (especially since it's the International Year of Youth!) or thinking critically together about how to change traditional norms around gender and menstruation in long cab rides in-between all of these meetings—has inspired me on so many levels.

They will transform Nepalese society.

Now that I'm back in DC, I’m so pleased to reflect on the entire time I spent with them and how I now have a whole new set of friends and even better—PASSIONATE friends working on sexual and reproductive rights!

Coming from Nigeria, I was exhausted. I whipped out a week of training each and every day during my trip in Abuja.  When I imagined another of THAT (although fun and exciting) in Nepal, my head started spinning.  Imagine training all week plus moving forward ANOTHER six hours in time to train some more: wowzers!

Coincidentally, though, my trip to Nepal started off easier than I thought. Ajay—my other half in Nepal managing our project—was actually on the same flight as me coming from Doha to Kathmandu. You may ask, “umm, then why wasn’t he supposed to be in Kathmandu?” Well, hypothetically my response would be that Ajay is a rock star and was recently nominated to serve as youth representative on the Civil Society Task Force for the upcoming United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS to be held in New York this June...so he ended up flying back from New York City to meet me to Doha just in time for both of us to facilitate our training!

After I spent my first day in Kathmandu catching up on all the sleep I didn’t get in Abuja, Ajay and I met at 6AM the next morning to meet the council of youth activists we’ll be training and supporting throughout the year.   Thanks to Ajay, our plan was to take a fun road-trip to our residential training at this amazing lodge with delicious food and an incredible view on top of a mountain in Dilhukel, a town 25 KM outside of Kathmandu.  AND it only cost 25 USD per night–that’s cheaper than my rent in DC!

Prior to my trip, I knew very little about the youth activists we were going to meet.  I worked with YUWA (meaning "youth" in Nepali), our partner organization on this project, in drafting the criteria to select the youth and drafting the application....but from then on forward, this was all in YUWA's hands.  

All I knew was that we had a week set out for us that would include a three-day training on top of a mountain in the Himalayas and a couple days planned with meeting local organizations and government representatives to discuss our future advocacy efforts.  Well, first I'll spoil the anticipation and say that the youth activists were AMAZING...the training was PHENOMENAL....and the meetings were well...FANTASTIC. I guess you can put all those pieces together and see that it was a trip to remember for sure!

Going back to our first morning:  after Ajay and I met, we went straight from my hotel, the Anna Purna to YUWA's office.  Ajay gave me a tour of the office and we hung out and relaxed until the members of the council arrived.   

Soon enough, Ajay called me to say we were ready to roll.

When I first jumped in the big, colorful van, I said a simple, sweet and nervous “Hi, I’m Mimi” to the smiley youth activists sitting cozily inside. They responded with a joint “hello” and soon enough, we were off on the road!  Seconds later, I heard thunders of giggles and excitement for the trip ahead.

On that hour ride to Dilhukel, I kept quiet for most of the ride up to take it all in and digest the beautiful sights on our bumpy, mountainous trek.

More...

I recently went on my annual site visit to Abuja, Nigeria (my favorite time of year!) to meet with the entire council of youth activists supported by our partner, Education as a Vaccine.  I'm always reenergized for the rest of the year, after an exciting week of devoted time to train, discuss and restrategize our advocacy efforts to improve policies and increase funding towards sexual and reproductive health and rights in Nigeria.  Every year, I'm more impressed by them than the previous year--mainly because I can see how they've grown so much as individual advocates but also as a passionate team working together to make change in their communities.

Aside from school and work, they come into the office every single day and work with Tope, my other half who is managing the project in Nigeria.  Our three-day training even stretched out to five days, once we realized the load of work we had set out to do for the year.  We achieved a range of activities from speaking with the Family Health officer in the Ministry of Health about budgetary processes to drafting our first e-action alert that would urge the Chairperson of the Senate health committee to pass an anti-stigmatization bill that would protect young people living with HIV/AIDS in schools AND prohibit mandatory HIV testing as a prerequisite for admission into the universities.  Believe it or not– this disappointedly happens quite often in Nigeria! 

More...