Dear All,

This is the time of the year when we enjoy HOLIDAYS, SNOW and SANTA... but this is also the time when we make resolutions or in other words we pledge. Here is a video with some young people pledging for our planet, sustainability and our future (from COY 7 again).

If this video was seen at the end of a young people's seminar or meeting, it would instigate emotional feelings because one would know that this time would never come again and if the people who pledged see this after 5 years, they will be more nostalgic than ever.

I invite you to see these very innovative pledges which range from wanting to surf to taking five minute showers to safe sex. What is your pledge? Do you dare to pledge, if yes then do it right now by commenting on this blog or maybe blogging about your pledge and leaving your link here, I promise that I will follow up in Dec, 2012 if I know where to contact you.

Enjoy this, organise similar "Lets pledge" drives and lets be the change, NOW!

 In this high level meeting on 3rd Dec, 2011 at COP 17 with Deputy Executive Director of UNEP one learns more about UNEP activities centring Rio+20 and young people. What is also noticeable is the absence of the mention of sexual reproductive health of “young people”, the very issue that is central to the population that UNEP is trying to cater to through conferences like that held in Bangdung.
Equal rights are quintessential for a sustainable world and the first on that front should be the rights over one’s body.

If you think making someone laugh is a difficult job then think about how difficult a job it will be to make influence someone’s thoughts because of a pun filled act or a comic act. On the last day of the Conference of the Youth before COP17 one of the interesting workshops, which worked on capacity building for using a funny approach to address serious issues, was that on clowning.
If one is into dramatics then it is the exercises which are fun and keep one riveted. This workshop makes one realize that you just need to be passionate and strategic when advocating a cause. Then drawing attention is a piece of cake both from the people that you prefer would stop being silent spectators and do something along with those who have power because the first kind will join you for the concept is no longer abstract but palatable. They can associate with the cause. The later will begin to think when there is the strength of numbers supports you.
The video is of about 20 minutes but once you get a preview of what the exercise is and the potential fun it can spell along with the power it underlines, you can fast forward it a bit. >wink!<



Will end with the hope that you hold similar workshops within your campus and can tap into the powerful tool of clowning to advocate for your cause.

We celebrated our World AIDS Day on 2nd December, 2011. How is that possible?

Well, we (Mimi, Leo, Lemuel and me) were at the Climate Conference and we were racking our brains with what activity could we do within the Conference Venue such that people know of our issue and try to give it some thought. Now, there was a complicated method of "performing" an action within the ICC grounds. One needed to fill a form 24 hours in advance and get approval. A girl called Maya sent an email around stating her desire to do something on this day too (to attract attention to our cause, of course) and became an ally. We filled an "action form" and sent it.

The secretariat obviously had too much on their mind so there was some confusion and we got the permission to perform our action on 2nd instead of 3rd. What can i say but, "this can happen only at COP!"

Our action was simple...wear red, play with a globe and show how people were playing with the future/the world by not paying heed to the consequences and the "need-immediate-attention" causes.

A creative attempt at capturing the essence of that action through this animation...our Mimita can be spotted in some of the pictures too >smiley<...to the brave lady who made it to the action despite her feverish condition! (Three cheers to her and all the brave souls who did something in their communities to raise awareness or fight stigma)



(Special Thanks to Mayur Bandyopadhyay for piecing my pictures together to create this animation)

Name one person who doesn't like a short video which sums it all? Well for all those who do, this is one video which is worth a watch because through loads of cartoons and some information overdose in the form of verbal diarrhoea (at times!).

It draws some weak connections between climate change, our lifestyle issues and population growth. But are these connections really weak? Can they be mentioned in less than a micro-second and just greening up everything will be an answer? Maybe that is a slight exaggeration because this video hands down speaks of sustainability and some solutions but we need to make our message as SRHR advocates more subtle as well as assertive such that videos like these which speak of sustainable development include the solutions from all perspectives.

Here is the video.
Hoping that it would inspire you to collaborate more with other advocates working on other issues such that...
we all work in collaboration and not in silos....
we work together....
we work now...
we work for a sustainable world!

 On 1st of December, 2011, which was celebrated as Young and Future Generations Day at COP 17 and also happens to be World AIDS Day was filled with actions, side events and sessions by the youth yet at most of these events WAD was not mentioned so it will not be surprising news to any/many that reproductive health was not mentioned because come to think of it Human Health at large seemed to have been forgotten (I mention human health because the health of the planet was picked and spoken about, thankfully).

At the end of the day just when I thought that WAD would never be picked up except for the people within the Advocates team, I heard a lady’s voice speak out aloud during the Q and A session of the side event “African Climate Stories: Voices from the frontlines of the Climate Crisis”: It is WORLD AIDS DAY and I wonder what the young people of this panel are doing here and back in their countries to link climate change and reproductive health.

Silence was the response. Panelists tried covering up this gap but I regret to say that everyone vaguely knew the connections but no one had a concrete response.

I, of course had to interview her, so here is a short and sweet interview with a member of the South African Parliament amidst the youth chatter which is characteristic of a youth gathering recently dispersed.



Thank you, Lady for carrying the torch and treading where the faint hearted would be scared to go.

What made COY (Conference of the Youth) important for us was our chance to mingle with young people, understand their thoughts and how we could make them more aware of climate change as well as reproductive rights connections such that while doing the wonderful work that they did back home, they wouldn’t forget other issues of development and would work together towards a sustainable world. In order to fulfil this aim we organized a workshop with Population Action International and Sierra Club. This workshop has an interesting name with a powerfully attractive word : SEX while the workshop was named SEX and SUSTAINABILITY. We had an audience of about 25-30 people which was big considering that this was the last day of COY and people just wanted to relax, use free internet and forge friendships. Kim from Sierra club tried an ice breaker by throwing the world (no not the actual one but a replica ball of the same) around the room to understand the kind of issues that people pointed out when the world was thrown at them (literally). The workshop got people from countries like India, Mexico, Nigeria and Philippines tell their personal stories and the connections that they saw between climate change and reproductive health. At the end of this workshop I thought it would be fun to see what people thought about the connections as well as whether they saw them or not. So here is a very short byte from a young shy American from Earth within brackets giving his views.

On 28th November, Third World Network organized a side event, ‘What must Durban deliver to Climate Justice: Is the international climate regime evolving or unravelling?’ at COP 17 within the Durban Exhibition Centre. It spoke about KP or Kyoto Protocol.

Earlier in a blog which showcases a primer video of some young people explaining some UNFCCC concepts, KP is mentioned but in passing. One of the speakers, Lim Li Lin (TWN) sheds light on KP but it is interspersed with quite a bit of US bashing towards the end. (However, it was Kate Horner from FOE US who spoke of how USA needed to clean up its act without mincing any words.)

It is important for us as advocates and young people to understand concepts and processes because only when we understand them can we think of making as well as make interventions.



Hope this helps and next time all the youth advocates can use this knowledge to work upon intermingling climate justice with gender justice and health rights.

Since 1st December is WORLD AIDS DAY, I thought it would be good to check out what people at COP 17 thought about that and I met a young passionate lady who is planning an action on the day at COP 17. Stay tuned for what happens at the action, today but this is her shout out which was recorded yesterday.


If anyone out there wants to join us there or know more about COP 17 activities do let us know as there are opportunities to have a face to face video conference. We can do our best to facilitate it. Comments and suggestions of what we could do here on this day to raise awareness and highlight connections between sexual reproductive health rights and climate change would be great.

Conferences of the Youth are always fun. You get food which might be less in quantity or there might be a short supply but it is filled with love, inspiration and call for action. You get workshops which might be easy but too many in number and one might want to attend all yet they need time to breathe and take the information in. So this is from Day One. Excitement is high, there are reunions and there are newbees. Everyone wishes for before lunch sessions finish off in a jiffy such that they get a chance to be out, eating, chatting and networking.

However, this session which was also before lunch was heavy but informative and
"surprise...surprise..." it had a good number of people present (a lot of them south africans and as we learnt on the last day of COY, there was a reason for them wanting to know everything about UNFCCC, lobbying, media....A SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH CLIMATE NETWORK came into existence at the end of this conference).

This session was a primer which helped one understand what UNFCCC was all about and it is for beginners. It is exceptionally useful for those young people who want to be involved in the climate movement but have no clue how. It builds up a little bit about how COP came into being, its significance, how KP (Kyoto Protocol) is not greek and much more.
This just captures the presentations and a few questions (very few).



It is slightly long (24 minutes: I should know because I have spent 3 days trying to upload it.) but the first 16-18 minutes are a knowledge capsule.