Be the Change - First Project Report

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YOUTH-LED ACTION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

PROGRESS REPORT prepared for the World Summit for Sustainable Development Johannesburg, South Africa by David Woollcombe, Peace Child International Headquarters Sheku Syl Kamara, Peace Child Sierra Leone Jagan Deveraj, Peace Child India Kathleen Ogatcha, Kenya Orphans Relief Ebenezer Malcolm, Rescue Mission Ghana Carmen Mori, Misi n Rescate Planeta Tierra - Per

' a project of Peace Child International

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Contents List Foreword 1. Background 2. The Future 3. The Projects ¥ Latin America ¥ Africa ¥ Asia ¥ Europe ¥ Island States 4. Projects seeking funding 5. Adopt-a-project strategies 6. The Bi-annual Reviews 7. Millennium Development Goals Back Cover: Executive Summary

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Foreword WELCOME to Be the Change! - the world s most ambitious youth-led sustainable development action programme! And first, may I thank our funders and partner pioneers:- the governments of the Netherlands and Finland, Levi Strauss, Ben & Jerry s, the Global Catalyst Foundation, Netaid and others - who have made possible the achievements you will read about in these pages.

Since 1992, Peace Child International has been promoting sustainable development to young people as the major challenge of their generation. Now, more than ever, we are convinced that it represents the last best chance for humanity to save the planet from the wanton destruction that we have caused by our careless exploitation of natural resources. For that reason, we have encouraged, prepared materials for, and run courses in, education for sustainable development.

But, as the young delegates to our conference in Hawaii pointed out, learning about sustainable development in a theoretical way is not enough: young people have to be persuaded to ACT! There is so much that young people can do! Just reading through these pages will show you how much they have done and how much they want to do. That is why we plead with governments, development professionals, NGOs and the UN agencies to TAKE YOUNG PEOPLE SERIOUSLY! We believe the Millennium Development Goals will not be realised unless that half of the world s population who are under 25 is fully engaged. We see our role as engaging them.

Be the Change! is one of several programmes that provides the opportunity of engagement. So help us, support us, and we believe that you will find that young people are the most powerful and the most cost-effective achievers of sustainable development in the MDG process.

David R. Woollcombe, Founder and President, Peace Child International, Coordinator, Be the Change!

Be the Change!

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1. Background

Youth can help!

Empowering Young People Peace Child International was founded in 1982.

Its mission is to Empower Young People .

During the 1980s, it did this by enabling young people to write, direct and perform over 6,000 presentations of the musical play, Peace Child which tells the story of young people ending the Cold War and bringing peace and justice to the world. In the 1990s, it empowered by enabling young people to write, illustrate, design and edit a series of excellent books on such global themes as sustainable development, human rights, global governance and the environment. These books have now sold over half a million copies and been translated into many languages. We continue to publish plays, books and magazines but, since 1999, Peace Child has had an action focus for its work:

Congress and outlining action strategies was published. It was called Be the Change! - from the Gandhi line: “You have to be the change you want to see in the world...” The clear message of the Congress to Peace Child was that the books, the magazines and teaching materials were fine but if we really meant it about promoting youth-led sustainable development, we would initiate an action programme to fund the implementation of actual projects. This is exactly what we did.

Be the Change!

Read further and you ll see how this youth-led programme has delivered on its early promise.

With 50 projects underway, it is closing in on critical mass, proving that young people can be empowered by taking action for sustainable development.

Also, as adult partners like to point out, they achieve results at a fraction of the cost of adult led projects. But this is not the main point: the rise in self-esteem, self-confidence and hope that results from the successful completion of a BTC project is of incalculable value as we seek to strengthen civil society in the world s poorest countries.

YOUNG PEOPLE DELIVER! From the young casts who learned whole plays Millennium Young People’s Congress in Russian overnight, to youth teams who put In 1997, following the Rio + 5 event, Peace together whole books in days, Peace Child has Child and its affiliates in 150 countries around left adults gob-smacked by what young people the world, decided to try to breathe new vigour can do. Now, as we move into the field of into the Agenda 21 process by mounting a action for sustainable development, we expect young people s Earth Summit. Held in Hawaii in to do the same - leaving adults amazed at what October 1999, its goal was toagree youth priorwe can do in half the time at a tenth of the cost! ities for the New Millennium. It was preceded For centuries, adults have conscripted by a series of National Consultations involving young people into armies to fight their wars for millions of young people in 150 countries. The them. Several million of us still bear your arms, Congress agreed some interesting conclusions: including 200,000 child soldiers. Now, we beg - education, peace, human rights, employment, you to conscript the 3 billion of us who are and AIDS stabilisation emerged as top priorities under 25 into a partnership to work alongside - mirroring almost exactly the Millennium you in the struggle to save, sustain and develop Development Goals agreed a year later at the our world. That is the only battle worth fighting!

UN. A book laying out the conclusions of the The youth staff of Peace Child International

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2. The Future Partnerships Peace Child International sees the future in partnerships. Since 1982, young people have proved that they are not prey to the turf wars which afflict many adult-run NGOs. We know that, with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - there is more than enough work for us and tens of thousands of other NGOs to do to engage and mobilise young people to help achieve them by 2015. So we are seeking, here in Johannesburg and beyond, to work ever more closely with partners to promote youth-led development. We already have some excellent ones - OXFAM s International Youth Parliament, the Youth Employment Summit Campaign, International Care and Relief, YCare, Students Partnership Worldwide, United Games, Global Youth Service Day, Global Youth Action Network and the cutting edge Taking IT Global group that provides an internet portal for many of us. These partnerships will expand to embrace adult-led organisations and funding agencies to raise the $20 million we want to see invested in youth-led sustainable development over the next five years.

Winning the Intellectual Argument The logic of engaging and mobilising half the world s most energetic and potentially most committed sector in the effort to achieve the MDGs should be inescapable. Yet it is a logic that has escaped most of the major funding agencies - most of whom do not even acknowledge our letters let alone engage in debate.

Though document after document produced by the UN acknowledges the contribution young people can make, when confronted by our ambitious proposals, all we get is a wry smile, a condescending nod as if to say, Nice idea

Sierra Leone Field Office: 40 Pademba Rd. Freetown but not a serious strategy... Well - we are serious. Very serious. And we seek $20 million over the next five years to prove that youth-led projects work. In some areas, like the AIDSafflicted villages of sub-Saharan Africa, young people already lead their siblings and their grand-parents in coping strategies for survival.

In this booklet, you will read of young people who achieved massive improvements with minimal resources. Our goal is to prove to government, to academics and to development professionals that young people are a powerful untapped resource, willing and able to assist them in their efforts to shift society to sustainability and achieve the MDGs. Education for Sustainable Development Johannesburg will, we hope, announce a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. This is excellent - young people need to learn the concept. But all the evidence shows that we learn better by doing. So we want youth action for sustainable development to be at the heart of that decade-long strategy.

Every child, from the time they enter nursery school to the time they leave university, should be engaged in learning, action and debate on how to achieve economic growth while at the same time conserving natural resources. Action should include fund-raising. Last year, in the UK, schools raised £27 million for charity. Now, via our internet-equipped Field Offices, they will be able to bridge the digital divide and watch the projects that they sponsor grow via webcams and digital photos, building relationships with the young people doing them via e-mail.

Thus we shall harness the power of the Internet to achieve sustainable development.

Be the Change!

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Projects Underway • Latin America: “Alerta SMOG!” Campaign, Lima, Peru This first project of the Peru Field Office was initiated by a group of street children who earn their living by washing car windscreens or selling single cigarettes on the streets of Lima. They are always coughing and sick from the exhausts of unregulated vehicles which causes the dreadful smog in Lima. With £58 raised by a primary school in Cornwall for Be the Change! - they bought smog masks and printed leaflets - showing how black the masks are after a few days in the city. Starting on Earth Day 2002, they started a campaign - coordinated

with schools and the police across the city - to get children on the streets to go up to stopped cars, wearing their smog masks, and hand out the leaflets.

Earth Day was a big success. 1,000 leaflets were distributed. Now, the campaign continues: the core team of street children are going into schools to conduct workshops on the effects of smog, recruiting Alerta SMOG! clubs to join the effort. The second Campaign Day saw 2,500 leaflets being distributed and the Campaign drawing the attention of the Press.

New anti-Smog laws are now being considered by the legislature.

VIDA-San Marcos, San Marcos, Peru Coming out of the recent political scandals and upheavals, young Peruvians are bitter, cynical and unaware of the rich traditions of environmental conservation on which their culture is based.

Ursula Carrascal and VIDASan Marcos plan to change that with a year-long campaign of education, debates, seminars and demonstrations. Be the Change! set a 3:1 matching campaign for funds - which meant that three quarters of the funds for the project were raised

locally. The project started in May 2002 with teams of young people and others doing an audit of the natural and cultural resources of their community - and putting a price on them with the help of mentors. Next, Ursula and her friends ran a 2-day Public Workshop with San Marcos youth to learn their worries and hopes. This material was analysed and data assessed. The results were compiled into booklet called "Environmental problems in San Marcos". Tree-planting and clean-up campaigns, managed by San Marcos young people, followed in the next months across the city. Videos were made, testimonies gathered and the results showed in schools and community groups. A Final Workshop will be held to assess progress, report to the council, and plan a follow-up campaign next year.

Blooming Colibri, Cusco, Peru Karla is a bright and talented 16 year old former street child.

With help and hard work, she got off the streets and now has a home, a job and some education. She now wants to give the same opportunity to other street children - to empower them and increase their self esteem through their own talent. Karla is working with Alcides Jordan who started Programa Colibri - a soup kitchen. Her project is to provide showers and clotheswashing facilities at the Soup Kitchen, and to set up batik and T-shirt production workshops for the children.

With funds from Be the Change! and the TIME project of the Netherlands, the showers have been installed and

50 T-shirts produced. These are being sold to tourists in Cusco, and 20 have been shipped for sale in Sintermeerten College - TIME s headquarters in Holland.

Rooms have been secured to start lessons for the street children - and provide places for on-going T-shirt production. All profits are re-invested in Programa Colibri - to provide a sustainable source of income for the children s food and, eventually, jobs. This enables the youngsters to escape from their life alone on the streets and return to mainstream society with dignity. The situation for street children is worsening as police prohibit them selling in the centre of Cusco, where most tourists are.

Our project sells the childrens work in prestigious art and craft shops which builds pride in their work.

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• Africa: Youth in Focus, Aids awareness, Kenya Masiga Pius, the young leader of the Youth in Focus Foundation, reports: We aim to empower young people to join the fight against HIV/AIDS through powerful theatre performance. Given that we (youths) are the most vulnerable, we need to stand up and fight the spread of this scourge. In Kenya, statistics show that 30% of youths aged 15-29 are infected by the virus. It is a fact that we are a sexually active lot. Though brave attempts have been made to create awareness, a participatory approach is essential to register more impact. In our performance on HIV/AIDS, created in partnership with local youth, we were able to entertain and educate our audience with vital information on the virus and to Improving Mandela Camp Freetown, Sierra Leone Mandela Camp is one of the biggest camps for internally displaced people - those people who were driven from their homes during Sierra Leone s vicious 10-year civil war. 1,000 people crowd into its narrow passages and there are only 7 toilets serving them!

John Koroma is pleased that there are any toilets at all - what concerns him is their tumble-down state, and that the sewage from them flows down the middle of the passage outside his home. With his friends, and with Be the Change! funding, he set about laying a new 100 metre plastic sewage pipe, and getting smart new frames and materials to renovate the toilets. The Total Cost? $1,045. The whole community is behind John who Youth Forestry, Sierra Leone Kalokoh Alama was born within sight of a hillside that was once a rain-forest teeming with wildlife. Through his childhood, he saw it being torn down to provide firewood for the people of Freetown. His grand-father told him he d replanted a small piece of woodland when he was a boy. Now, for his grandson, it was a full grown forest. This inspired Kalokoh to start planting trees at age ten, knowing it would be his grand-children who would reap the benefit. He has a talent for it. The community gave him space for a seedling nursery - and his seedlings are so strong, the Catholic Relief Service gave him a 3-month contract to replant areas affected by forest fires in the regions where they were working.

activate a collective response. This has resulted in new attitudes and behavioral change in the target age group.

The main goal of the show is to reach young people living in slum areas who are uneducated about the disease. We worked with them to structure the show and created scenes that will touch, amuse and move them.

With the sound of the drum and traditional tribal calls, we keep their attention during the street shows.

Good News! The government has announced that the infection rate has taken a downward trend. The challenge now is how to cater for those already infected by the scourge. We need to be more open about those with HIV/AIDS. I do take this opportunity to thank our partners who made our show possible. reports: April 27th 2002: we go shopping for shovels and picks. Next day, we start work - the trench is dug in the morning with 40 people working. The pipe is laid and covered in by evening. A local engineer connects our pipe to the main sewer. It is inspected, and passed!

May 15th: the press come to see the renovated toilets. There are still 3 old ones standing so the contrast is stark. By the end of May, all the toilets are finished. The smell is gone from the area; our street is clean and the flies are fewer.

With his friends in the Youth Forestry & Development Association, Kalokoh now feels ready to start his most ambitious project: to replant the denuded hillside he sees when he gets up every morning. He already has the permissions from the municipal authority. He has calculated the number of trees he needs (100,000); he has worked out the patrols he and his friends need to mount to protect the trees, and how long it is going to take to plant them(two months). With a $1,200 budget from Be the Change! he has bought the spades, shovels, wheelbarrows he needs + transportation of everything to the forest. He and his friends work as volunteers, with the whole community joining in. The seedlings are now sprouting and will be planted in the autumn. Total Cost: $1,200!

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SODA - Old People’s home refurbishment, Harare, Zimbabwe SODA(Society for the Destitute and Aged)is in a walled-off plot of land with a big garden. However they only have 4 staff and only receive Z$250 a month for each resident which hardly buys anything at today s prices. There are 30 male and 8 female residents who mostly reside permanently in the home. The average age is over 70years and most have to be waited on though they do try to help each other.

One amazing old man recycles threads from plastic which he ties to bamboo to make a mat to sell in the market. However, he is the exception: Anusha and I used to walk past the home every day on our way to school. What depressed us was that the old men sat in exactly the same place, with the same expression, on

the way to school and on the way back. They never moved! So we went inside to find out how we could make their lives more active. We found the ladies more eager to be active than the men. With funds from Be the Change! we planted separate orchards for the women and men and started a vegetable garden, These add protein to their diet and help the economy of the home.

They draw their own water so have no water bills but we installed solar water heaters, so their electricity bill is now lower. We bought crocheting hooks, gathered material strips and started a crocheting circle. Within days, we had a superb coloured blanket made from woollen squares.

The old people are incredible individuals. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to help them and to interact with them.

Providing marketable employment skills in Accra, Ghana This project was proposed by George Adopkah, 19, to provide employable skills to needy Junior Secondary School graduates in the Adenta Community of Accra.

On 28th May, 2002 £315 (£345 less £30 bank commission) was received from Be the Change! The project is structured in two phases:-

The rationale behind the theoretical training is to equip the students with knowledge and skills appropriate to the business community. Subjects on the timetable include:

English Language (with emphasis on Business Communication), Graphics, Batik & Textiles, Financial and Cost Accounting, Mathematics (with emphasis on Business Mathematics), Social Studies, Business Management, Computer studies and Integrated Science .

The first phase of the project is on-going. During the last 2 months of the project, the students are taken through practical training in Batik and Sign writing.

There are now 40 students doing the course. We had to turn many away, so great was the enthusiasm of needy students. The schools are most supportive. The headmaster of West Africa Secondary School has given strong moral support to guide the project. The students are very enthusiastic and are taking their lessons very seriously. We have 40 more who want to do the course next year.

IT Centre, Bukavu, Dem. Rep. of Congo Jean Karongo and his team from Bukavu are faced with a difficult economic situation.

All are unemployed and most have suffered as a result of the wars and political upheavals that have afflicted their country during all of their lives. They know that Information technology(IT) is a vital modern tool. IT is a skill deemed necessary for success in our modern world. IT touches all aspects of life. It is impossible to ignore it without being marginalised. But it is all but unknown to most Congolese.

Certainly, it is not taught in any school in Bukavu.

The aim of Jean s project is to start a computer centre in Bukavu both to address the unemployment issue through computer training and also to connect Bukavu to

the rest of the world via the internet. The inhabitants, particularly the students, of Bukavu will learn to use computers, printers, photocopiers, binding equipment, scanners etc. to manage projects, start businesses, do administrative work, and do their academic work.

Jean reports, "The computers have just come through from Be the Change! and we are very excited! The computer centre in Bukavu is very important because everyone needs a computer to work these days, whether it be in NGOs, companies, or university. But computer training sessions are too few compared to our high population and the demand. Bukavu has many universities, institutes, high schools, NGOs, public services and companies. They all need e-mail and computer services for their work. Now we can provide it!

1. 4 months theoretical training 2. 2 months practical training in Batik and Graphic Designing.

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• Asia: Anandapuram School Project, Bangalore, India Anandapuram (Place of Joy) is one of the poorest slums of Bangalore. The drop-out rate among school pupils from is very high. Most children do not complete standard VII the basic certificate which is a passport to entry-level government jobs. Rajendra grew up in the slum and knew that most kids could get that qualification if they had the chance! So he applied to Be the Change! to help him create a network of teachers to prepare 60 slum children for their exams in March/April 2002. ¥ December 2001: Big launch party. Very important. The slum director, several dignitaries + many parents came.

Rajendra felt if he could persuade the parents the kids would follow. It was not to be so! When classes start,

only a handful of kids turn up. Rajendra and his team rushed around the slum urging kids to come. By the end of the week, a respectable class of 30 students were coming along, determined to pass their Standard VII. ¥ February 2002: Now two classes are registered: 20 for literacy- 33 for standard VII. Two free classrooms donated; 3 teachers committed daily up to the exam. These teachers will handle different subjects such as Maths, Science, Kannada, English, Hindi & Social Studies.

March 2002: Exam time! We now see that the time was too short for these barely literate kids to be prepared for Standard VII. Only 4 will take it. 15 more will take it in October The four pass! Rajendra is very pleased as is the community. They have found funding to continue the project next year.

Afghan Refugee School Afghanistan Zuhra and her friends wrote to us: We are a group of volunteer teen-agers working for Afghan refugee children and youth. One third of the population of our country has been forced to flee, and now live in refugee camps with no schools. We want to take one of them and equip a decent school with a library, science lab and sports equipment. That was two years ago. Then the Taliban was overthrown, and Zuhra,17, wrote back to us and said that she wanted to re-build and re-equip her old school back in Mazar-al-Sharif in Afghanistan as many refugees were returning. We agreed - and the project is

now going ahead. Books in English, French and Farsi have been collected and sent over to the new library which Zuhra and her team are renovating. Classes for girls have begun - openly for the first time in years. The girls are flocking to the schools, thirsty for classes after all this time. There is still much work to do - and the Be the Change! grant cannot do all of it. But it made the important breakthrough of getting the school started, and it demonstrated that a bunch of teen-agers could not only build and renovate a school, but equip it with teachers, equipment and sports facilities so that it would be fun for kids as well as educational. We feel Zuhra and her friends got their priorities right.

Summer Camp for former Drug Addicts, India Arul(left) had an idea for a summer camp for drug addicted children because he himself had come from a slum area and suffered at the hands of drugs. The drug in question is type-writer correction fluid. Young people from slum areas can get hold of this in large quantities. Sniffing it gives a mild high — but it comes along with inhalation of cancer-causing chemicals and other harmful substances. The point of the 3-day camp was to get drug addicted kids together with teachers, doctors, artists and other young people who had not succumbed to drug addition, to try to point them in a direction of life without drugs. The exercise was almost entirely successful.

Arul and his 7-member team worked to recruit 31 former drug addicts from 5 slum areas. However, inter-

nal strife in the NGOs made Arul think he could not continue. All Be the Change! projects have adult Mentors and Arul s was a star! He brought in another young man, Jayatheerta who suggested hosting the whole camp in Vijayanagar - a UNESCO world heritage site in the jungle where 400 temples and palaces are being restored.

The camp itself was an amazing success. Several participants had been taken off the streets: they had never slept on a mattress! All the cultural activities - the games, the medical sessions went off well. The kids participated enthusiastically in all of it. Several now want to get involved in Arul s work for rehabiliting the sniffers and drug addicts. Arul s confidence soared!

It was great to see how he and his team grew in stature and assurance during the camp.

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Baby Vaccination Project, India Kuheli s project is a legend within Be the Change! Not only was it one of the first to be completed - she also set up the first internet chat between India and her sponsors around the world to explain why the project was so important and how she went about planning it.

The concept is incredibly simple. In slum areas, mothers do not always know what vaccinations their babies need and often cannot afford them even if they do know.

This results in premature deaths and terrible diseases: measles, meningitis and polio still occur in these slums.

So Kuheli and five friends who are training to be doctors and nurses, decided to move in and arrange for vaccinations for as many slum babies as they could coax along to the clinic. With $720 from Be the Change! and gen-

erous donations of time by professional doctors and nurses, and a donated clinic, the team bought the vaccines and set up over three week-ends to innoculate as many babies as they could get through the door. In the event, they did 200+ babies - and so impressed the authorities that they have agreed to provide more vaccines if the team go out and get more mothers to bring in their babies.

As well as providing vaccinations, the team also train the mothers in basic hygene - as many child deaths are down to simple diseases caught through dirty water and bad hygene habits. Most of the client mothers were maids in the local colony who complained that they had no time to take their babies to clinics. No time to save their babies lives!! Kuheli and her friends are educating their communitieis about correct priorities!

Water Project, Vietnam This is an amazing project.

Vu Thuy Anh is an amazing young woman who runs a Young Volunteers magazine. In case the magazine becomes boring, she seeks out projects in rural areas to generate exciting articles to write about in it. In one village, Lung Cu, 500km from Ha Noi, she was incensed to find that children could not go to school during the dry season as they had to walk 30km a day to fetch water.

So she worked with her mentor, a top water engineer, to design a water tank and a pipe with a solar pump at the end to draw water 12km from the nearest spring. Total Cost: $3, 732 - about a tenth of what a government contractor quoted for the job. Vu and her team travelled up and worked with 60 people from the village - digging the

trench for the pipe in two days. The tank took another week-end. Then the engineer came and fixed the solar pump for them. Within days, the 40 cu.mtr tank was filled and the children never had to make the 30km round trip with heavy buckets of water again. School felt such a blessed relief to the kids! They came all bright and eager for their lessons and the local teacher was pleased to see a full classroom during the dry season.

The project is completely sustainable as the solar pump needs practically no maintenance. The engineer, Mr Nguyen Xuan An, trained a couple of local youth to oil the moving parts of the pump and check it regularly.

They check it daily with many young helpers who come to view the pump that has saved them so much effort and walking!

Computers for an Orphanage, Vietnam Quan Nguyen Hoang, 17, arrived in 1994 at the orphanage with his brother.

He was a bright student and did well. His teachers hope he will continue his studies at a French university. But right now, Quan just wants to get on the Internet. So with his fellow orphans, he wrote a dazzling proposal to Be the Change! for computers and funds to erect a new building to house them.

His proposal was accepted and within days he d started - not waiting for the money. He got a local engineer to train some of the orphans as computer maintenance technicians. He also got the director of the Orphanage, and the founder and president of the orphanage to be his project mentors and start looking for funds in France

to support the computer centre in future years.

The building is now finished; the computers, bought locally, are installed and Quan has his dream of being connected to the Internet - and in touch with the world where he hopes to make his mark.

Montlucon-Saigon orphanage is home to 45 orphans aged 3-17. They are amongst the most vulnerable in a country where life is never easy with a communist regime struggling to re-build the country after a war that killed thousands. They are desperately poor and economic growth ground to a halt after the 1997 Asian economic crisis when foreign direct investment fell from $8.3 billion to $1,6 billion in a year. Only 0.1% of Vietnamese have access to the internet. The orphans of MontluconSaigon are now amongst them!

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• Europe: Tree-planting project, Minsk, Belarus Dmitry Savelov is 15 years old and he lives in Minsk, the industrial center of Belarus. The city is dangerously unhealthy and serious air pollution is being caused by high industrial concentrations. To improve the situation, Dimitry and his classmates invited Be the Change! to help them create a Millennium Park in the Minsk neighborhood of Uruchje. They have moblized both youth and adults in the community to join together in planting 2000 trees in the park.

In his own words Dmitry says, "I m a student in the 8th grade of Minsk Gymnasium and a participant of the project The Voices of Youth Mass Media for Healthy Life Style. The air of the city is badly polluted by the fumes

of the industrial enterprises and there is a heightened level of radiation in the city after the Chernobyl catastrophe. We believe that the opportunity to a healthy life with pure air, pure water, and pure soil is an important civic right of a person. We know that trees are unique creations of nature — taking in carbon dioxide, they produce oxygen. Therefore, we think that trees can improve the atmosphere and health of our city. Our project promotes a healthy life style among young people."

Dmitry s project is one of several funded by Netaid, UNDP s internet development arm. Peace Child, like Dmitry, is very grateful to UNDP and Netaid for their support in these early days of youth-led sustainable development.

Sophia Ravine, Horlivka, Ukraine Ann Kokoza(16) is concerned with industrial pollution in her community. She wrote to us: "There are more than 80 polluting industries in our town.

Together, they emit nine toxic chemicals in concentrations 1.2 to 3.5 times above safety levels. One day, my friends and I came across a beautiful place - at the same time unforgivably neglected. It s called Sophia Ravine. We decided to plant trees to create better living conditions for birds and wildlife and soak up the toxic gases. Each tree absorbs up to 62 pounds of CO2 a month, thus becoming the ’lungs’ of our town."

Ann s project was funded with $1,140 from Be the Change! and $650 from VUSMA - a local environmental fund. It started on 5th April 2001, finishing on 21st June.

Ann wrote excellent reports(some in poetry!): "All were very glad that this ravine, an open sewer for many years, is being improved. One young couple with a baby aged three with throat problems told me: "We are newly married and haven t enough money to move away from the polluted air and the harrowing smell which makes us and the baby ill." Another old resident told how the place was once so beautiful, Nikita Kruschev came to visit. Now, he says, We may see those days again!

“One may have a dream or two, Sit on fence, not come true Pollution, waste and flues Nature dies you have to choose, Defend and save all forms of life; No time to waste, make up your Ann Kokoza mind!"

Ann won her town s first environment prize for her excellent initiatrive.

THE BUS Project, Cornwall, UK THE BUS project stands for Towards Holistic Education Building Unity and Sustainability Jodie Tellam, its leader, says: Kids in the UK are brought up in a consumerist society where people s common aspiration is only to succeed in acquiring an excessively high materialist standard of living. We are dedicated and committed to being living proof of a society that does not exploit or oppress individuals, communities or the environment.

We act on principles of solidarity, grassroots democracy, co-operation, education and ecological sustainability.

Through performance, improvisation, art and a lot of imagination we will be exploring and discussing ideas of human/environmental rights and fairness. Cornwall based, they have established links with Ethiopia and

have done training days across the county. They also ran a Human Rights week - with an aboriginal day, India, Mexico and Ethiopia days - each bringing a new culture and traditions to the young people of Cornwall. They also created a yurt for the week where young people could find rest and meditation. At the Golowan Festival, they helped young people explore their own ancient celtic culture - to re-learn the lessons of their ancestors who lived more sustainable lives. We plan to get a bus and tour community centres and schools, says Jodie.

Like Peace Child, our aim is to empower young people.

We are serious about making change by providing a fun and informative education and listening to the aspirations of young imaginations.

Be the Change!

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Bridges to a Healthy Future, Minsk, Belarus The former Russian republic of Belarus is in crisis. Belarus is a zone of ecological disaster and the state has a monopoly over all human activity. There is limited access to up-to-date information from anywhere in the world. At the same time the educational system is not equipped to provide the skills needed to survive in contemporary society (such as computer skills).

A group of young people led by Hanna Balshakova, her brother, Serge and Elena Sergeeva aim to change this. They formed the Youth Entrepreneurship Support and Development Centre, an organisation that aims to help local young people. The main feature of their project is to organize communication between young people about issues, both national and international, by means

of the Internet. They call their project, Bridges for a Healthy Future. It will provide: i) Computer training; ii) Internet access; and iii) a forum for local youth discussion (on topics such as human rights, HIV/AIDS and business start ups.)

Hanna writes: "It is so good to have got started on this project. The youth in Belarus have very few opportunities to use the Internet for education. Now we see our Centre take shape, we know we can find solutions and different ways of dealing with our problems. Internet forums will allow us to be in touch with youth from all over the world all the time.

Wonderful."

Reading International Solidarity Centre, UK Be the Change! helped Fola Ekundayo(23) set up a programme of events for young people to promote understanding of human rights and development issues.

Their Passion for Fashion event was a great success: there were workshops about poor working conditions in the garment industry led by campaign group, Labour behind the Label. All day, youth transformed old clothes into funky items to show how to extend their life.

Message on a T-shirt and banner-making workshops allowed young people to find new ways to express themselves. The Reading Youth Theatre worked with visitors all day to create a performance on labour and human

rights issues. The day ended with the fashion show of clothes made during the day plus fairly traded clothing.

Over the summer, they ran 4 workshops with the Coley Park Youth Centre. These focused on raising awareness about human rights, aid and fair trade issues in relation to the Banana Trade, Garment Factories, multinational companies, Chocolate production and the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child. Reactions from participants was positive: I now understand issues like aid and development and can talk about them with much more confidence." RISC is now well respected and is planning major events for the Reading One World Week touring Youth Clubs and Centres.

• The Island States: Pacific Flame Dance Company, Tonga Pacific Flame is a dance troop in Tonga. 15-year old Ebonie Fifita wanted to use her dance talent and friends to communicate her other passionate concern, about the conservation of her island s environment. With support from Be the Change! a budget was raised to tour the island s schools and community centres with a special performance. On 26th June, Ebonie wrote: “We have just done our first performance for at a primary school. It went really well and now we have been asked to perform in the town centre tomorrow for the launch of a project on coral reefs. Brilliant! A few days ago we were very frustrated. The Environment Day celebration was cancelled by the organisers at the last minute. They just couldn’t get it together. And they say youth are

unorganised! Today we are happy again as we had children come up and participate from the audience. Tomorrow will be fun as well. A much bigger audience and we might even get some TV coverage!!”

On July 7th, she wrote: “Today the tourist bureau asked us to perform in the town centre every fortnight. We are now working on getting all the island youth together for a dance festival. Then we will be working with a group of overseas naturalists who come each year to survey the local land crab. Not sure we will have a crab dance but we will use the dances we have about preserving natural treasures Generally the public is starting to notice what we are saying. Their comments inspire us: ‘That was fantastic… You should do it every Friday… Thank you so much! That was so uplifting... Please do it again next week....”

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Projects Seeking Funds Step reconstruction, Nigeria This project is about the rehabilitation of two badly dilapidated entrance steps leading to the Ibadan Water Front slum community in Port Harcourt. Not only has this constrained movement, their poor state has become a source of danger to women and children as they incur injuries while climbing the steps.

To rehabilitate the steps, a good engineering design is needed to combat the erosion which is responsible for the rapid deterioration of the steps. Port Harcourt City is surrounded by creeks whose flood plains are covered

with the poorest slums. The steep banks of the flood plains make entrance to the slums very difficult. Also, winter floods often wash away even the sturdiest wooden steps. This is why reinforced concrete ones are needed.

The Ibadan Water Front has four dilapidated entrances. This project will rebuild two of them. It is a top priority for the residents who are eager to contribute their labour and some materials towards it.

This project is proposed

by Ibadan Water Front Youth Volunteers in partnership with Development Action Networks (DAWN). Cost: $4,550

Regent Village Piggery, Freetown, Sierra Leone Sheku Selim Feika wants to be a pig-farmer. He likes pigs - and he knows that they bring valuable protein to his community s diet. So he built a shanty piggery from stakes and old corrugated iron at the back of his village, and started rearing pigs. The first litter is now nearing maturity, and he has found a ready market for the meat at the nearby British and Ghanaian garrisons. The economics are simple: it costs Le.150,000 to raise a pig to maturity.

The meat from a single pig can raise Le. 250,000. If he

can get to scale, Sheku knows that he can transform his community - provide jobs for several young people and help give the families food security by providing meat and money to buy other vegetables. He also plans to use the pig manure to fertilise the community vegetable garden to raise its productivity.

So he seeks funds from Be the Change! to expand his piggery from 9 to 50 pigs.

He also wants to improve security, veterinary care, water and drainage. He can do all this, and build a new piggery for for about $1,000.

Science Room, Centre for Non Formal Education, Argentina The students at the Centre for Non-Formal Education(CENF) want a computer room to store important files on new agriculture technology they are learning. They also want to open a photocopy facility so that they can earn some money to keep their centre going. They call the project, the Science Room - and they need $1,609 to open it.

CENF serves a remote area where there are few primary schools and the nearest secondary school is 75km away. The centre is designed to bridge the digital divide and also to build the self-esteem of young people in the

area - to make them want to stay and improve living conditions in the area. As well as providing access to stored heritage of agricultural techniques, it will allow teaching on water conservation, health issues, family matters and provide better community coordination and services.

The Science Room project has become a focus of community pride - drawing in adults and community leaders who support the children, willing them to find the money, and offering their help and building skills for free to lower the cost of the project, They are committed to ensuring the survival of the Science Room after the initial start-up.

Computer Classroom Project, Youth Canary Group Indonesia Young people in Perbaungan on the island of Sumatra face a miserable future. The only employment is on the Plantations where the owners treat their employees worse than mediaeval serfs! Youth of Canary brings together 117 youth of the area to plan and mobilise for a more positive future. They have done environmental clean-up, created school gardens etc. Now they want to break out and renovate an old house to be a computer classroom.

They know about computers - they ve read about them.

But in this remote part of Sumatra, none has ever seen

one! But they have found mentors and instructors from a nearby town to set up the centre and give them preliminary training. Thereafter, they will run it themselves with support from local tradesmen who have committed funding to ensure the sustainability of the classroom.

Nurahmad, the 22-year old proposer of the project and Bintoro, his mentor, sent perhaps the most detailed, best illustrated proposal we have ever had with photos of 106 young people who are waiting for Be the Change! to send the computers to release them from isolation and a future life in poverty on the plantations.Cost: $5,000

Be the Change!

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Dalit Empowerment Project, India Dalits are very low caste landless people with almost no rights. The Dalit empowerment project is located in Guddahatti village where almost no development has taken place. The project is in three parts: 1. Health and Hygiene: by building a water drainage canal to divert rainwater and sewage from houses in the villages, we shall bring down the incidence of cholera, typhoid and malaria in the village.

2. Education: the youth proposer and his team helped build a school with the villagers participation. They are now selecting children from the village to send them to a primary school and teachers are being recruited.

3. Human rights and alcohol abuse: the project will focus on the rehabilitation of alcoholics in the village as

those who become alcoholics also suffer human rights abuses. And there are a lot of them! Out of the adult male population of 7,000 in the village, 4,000 of them are serious alcoholics!!

Be the Change! India began their relationship with the Dalits by making a small grant to enable to the villagers to buy musical instruments to be used in the education and alcoholics rehabilitation. The Dalits were so empowered by this, when the Be the Change! office staff came to visit, they were greeted by a concert of revolutionary songs calling for Dalit people to look for relief from centuries of bondage and discrimination - all done on the instruments we had purchased for them. Now empowered, the team start all sorts of new cost-free initiatives almost daily: they have a recycling/composting scheme as part of the health and hygiene phase of the project. Funds needed: $500

Learning by Doing, Bulgaria Bulgaria has struggled during its transition from communism. Many youth in Vidin leave the town in the hopes of a better life, so the population has shrunk by 50% in ten years. That is why Daniel Vankov and his friends are eager to be the change & start the Learning by Doing project.

The object is to increase young people s ability to have an impact on their community by developing projects - starting micro-credit enterprises, opening shops, small factories etc. The centre will focus on local devel-

opment, and be a place where youth can come to receive training in writing business proposals. The centre will help young people find appropriate funding for implementing their ideas. It will be created and managed by young people and cater to all youth in the community.

There are several similar initiatives coming from youth in emerging economies. Daniel says, "We need youth activities and initiatives in the town to increase significantly. Learning by doing is the best way for youth to improve themselves."

Total Cost: $3,663 USD

Putting a smile on the faces of Displaced children, Eritrea Daniel Essayu was inspired to develop a project for internally displaced refugees in his country. He writes: “There are about 329,000 displaced children in Eritrea. They live without homes, schools and often without families. Seeing their sad faces on TV hurt me. Since I lead a talented group of actors working with puppets, I felt I can do something helpful for these children.

"Children living in these camps lost their childhood smiles during the war. Not only did they lose homes, loved ones and families, many lost parts of their bodies. Others suffer malnutrition and dis-

ease caused by poor sanitation. All of these children have a right to be happy and a bright future.

"Millions of children around the world learn positive things from puppet shows like ‘Sesame Street’. This programme has proved, again and again, that puppetry can unleash a child’s imagination as well as educating them in simple lessons of literacy, moral values and, vitally, hope! Yet there is no television in the camps. There is no entertainment in the camps. In most of the camps, there are no schools and children have nothing to do. I have developed a special puppet show which speaks to the condition of children in the camps, and shows them a bright future beyond it."

Cost: $4,605 for 4 month tour.

Kaimira Micro-lending, Kenya Each year in Kenya, 500,000 young people enter the labour market. Only 100,000 new jobs are created. The Kaimiri Youth Support Group has six male and four female members, aged 20 to 24 years old. The group wants to start incomegeneration through micro-lending and to train youth to use their skills and local resources to start enterprises.

There are massive legal and credit barriers to overcome to set up a small business. As soon as funds are available, the group will loan each member Ksh 35,000/= as a soft loan with an interest rate of five per cent a year

re-payable over 2 years with a grace period of six months. The interest will be payable immediately to meet the administrative costs of the group. The group also proposes that repaid loans will be used to assist other youth to start their own small-scale businesses.

Kaimiri members have skills in dressmaking, shoe making and poultry keeping. They will invest in enterprises in these areas to begin with. The project will be a success if it results in increased self-reliance, more youth employment, improved standards of living and increased awareness of HIV/AIDS.

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5. Adopt-a-project strategies One of the most successful development fund- Matching Funds: raising strategies of the last decades has been Some of the most valuable BTC projects cost Child Sponsorship Programmes.(CSP) $3000-$5000 - beyond the reach of However many development profesthe primary school bake sale or Mufti sionals argue CSPs are pernicious as day . So a major part of this strategy is they set children apart in communities, to raise pots of Matching Funds from and sometimes even in a family. Be governments and foundations so that the Change! projects benefit the schools and other project adopters will whole community rather than a single feel that every dollar they raise will be child within it. So schools, groups or doubled or tripled by others. Also, we corporations that adopt a BTC projhave a tradition that every dollar ect feel the same sense of ownership raised by project adopters goes to the without the pernicious social side project, not for overhead. And yet, a effects. Scrolling through the projects Adopt-a-Project Booklet scheme like BTC cannot run itself: awaiting funding is an education in itself. Taking therefore, our strategy is to raise $100,000 a action to raise funds for one and watching it take year to cover overhead and $250,000 a year to shape over the internet is an inspiration. provide matching funds for projects.

6. The Biennial Reviews Just as the UN Secretary General has set up milestones along the road to achieving the MDGs, so we have set up Biennial Reviews of progress to winning the argument on youth-led sustainable development, and the sharing of best practice on how it should be done.

AFRICA: Casablanca, Morocco 2003 The first will be held under the gracious patronage of His Majesty, King Mohammed VI in the Kingdom of Morocco, August 1628, 2003. 1,000 delegates are expected. They will spend the first days reviewing an exhibition of youth-led development projects and listening to papers delivered by development professionals, heads of funding agencies and young people themselves on the best practice on Youth-led Action for Sustainable Development. They will meet in regional groups to decide which approach works best for their region. They will then spend five days working on a development project in less-developed parts of Morocco so that they will not only talk about the core themes but take action on them as well. The Casablanca Declaration will draw together the major strands of the experience and point ways to mobilise young people to help us all achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

EUROPE: Glasgow, Scotland 2005 The 2nd review will be hosted by the Scottish Youth Parliament and the Scottish Assembly. Held on the 20th Anniversary of International Youth Year, the Congress will review progress on IYY themes as well as progress on youth action for sustainable development and the MDGs. It will be a similar mix of debate and action.

ASIA: Bangalore, India 2007: The 3rd Review will take place in a city where prosperity and poverty collide. The home of one of our first and most successful Field Offices and United Games Asia, they will bring to this review a strong Asian focus and outreach to the rich veins of experience of youth-led development that exists across the region.

OCEANIA & AMERICAS: Hawaii 2009: Ten years on, this 4th review will take us back to Hawaii. We hope, by then, to have mainstreamed youth partnership in sustainable development to the point where it will be a natural part of every young person s life. Also, halfway to 2015, it will be a time to review and redouble efforts to achieve the MDGs.

Be the Change!

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7. Millennium Development Goals ple can play in holding others’ feet to the fire in A framework for global action ensuring that these goals are met In the course of a rather less than satisfactory preparatory process for Johannesburg the MDGs Too many goals? have served as sheet anchors linking the process Some criticise that there are too many goals here One or two would be more practical But to agreed targets and milestones When we try the great virtue of the to impress young people Millennium Development Goals MDGs is that they are com with some new UN target prehensive and mutually Health for All Education for 1. Eradicate extreme poverty: All generally they roll their ¥ halve the number of people living on less than $1 a supportive You will not halve poverty until you sta eyes in disbelief Those who day bilise and reverse the spread ¥ halve the number who suffer from hunger care have seen them all of AIDs or until women are before They’ve watched 2. Achieve universal primary education for all empowered The goals distil their deadlines pass unmet 3.

Promote gender equality empower women and give focus to the and unlamented ¥ ensure equal enrolment of girls and boys at all levAgenda 34 process and So what is different about els of education - if possible by 2005. offer time bound targets the MDGs? First the 4.

Cut U5MR by two thirds: By improving nutriwhich that process lacked nature of their source The tion and primary health care, reduce by two thirds the However it is important genealogy from the OECD number of children who die before their fifth birthday. the goals are pursued in the DAC committee through the 5. Cut maternal death by 75%: By improving spirit of mutual consensus Millennium Summit has building and multi stake resulted in endorsement at pre-natal and primary health care, reduce by three quarters the number of mothers who die in childbirth holder ownership which the highest level of govern Agenda 34 pioneered 6. Halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDs ment Second the level of ¥ halt and reverse the number of cases of malaria and Perhaps the weakest thing UN buy in has been other major diseases about the goals from a extremely high: every agency has put the goals at 7. Integrate the principles of sustainability young person’s perspective is that they do not go far the heart of their strategies into all country policies ¥ reverse the loss of environmental resources enough So they will halve including the Bretton ¥ halve the number of people without access to safe the number of people living Woods institutions The drinking water in extreme poverty: when Secretary General himself ¥ achieve significant improvement in the lives of 100 will we eradicate the pover appears to have staked his million slum dwellers. ty of the other half? reputation upon them 8.

Create a global partnership for developHalting and reversing the Third a high level team led ment — ie. Make globalisation work to achieve susspread of AIDs is not the

by Mark Malloch Brown the tainability and the eradication of poverty same as discovering a vac Administrator of UNDP ¥ Create a trading and financial system that is cine and making it widely with the support of econo accountable, predictable and fair available in sub Saharan mist Jeffrey Sachs is carv ¥ Address the special needs of the least-developed countries Africa 455 million slum ing out a road map for how ¥ Create tariff and quota-free access to markets, and dwellers may be better off they are to be achieved and increase official aid but what about the remain the costs involved They ¥ Address the special needs of Small Island. ing 655 million? And what have already acknowledged Developing States about identifying some that youth are a major play ¥ Deal with the Debt — make debt sustainable in the funding process to ensure er in that team and seem long-term that the funds are available ¥ Develop decent and productive work for youth prepared to allow young ¥ Provide access to affordable drugs in developing perhaps via a Tobin tax? people a place at the plan countries So big questions remain but ning table All this suggests the MDGs are beacons on a to us that at the UN at 9. Share technology least people are interested ¥ bridge the digital divide and, in cooperation with big dark road and all agree to in the role that young peo companies, make sure that the benefits of new tech- them nologies are available in developing countries

Be the Change!

Youth led Action for Sustainable Development

Executive Summary Sustainable Development the great challenge entrepreneurs of the future There are five Be the Change! Field Offices in India Ghana of our generation! To improve our material prosperity and comfort while at the same time Kenya Sierra Leone and Peru Through them conserving and increasing the natural we are able to recruit projects that address resources from which that comfort is con directly the Millennium Development Goals structed Impossible? No! Factor We are opening a Bth Field Office Four Ten even Factor One Hundred here in South Africa during WSSD technologies point the way Re cycle and we want to open a great many repair re use faster growing hard more one in each LDC For we know woods faster growing hardier crops that young people =4> of the the plummeting cost of renewable world’s population can make a mas energy all demonstrate that sive contribution to meeting the humanity can rise to this challenge MDGs by 354= But currently less Young people must learn about than 5 54> of ODA comes to youth sustainable development internalise its disci led projects That’s why here at the WSSD we plines and make the concept the guiding prin are appealing for 35 million dollars over the ciple of their lives That is another huge chal next five years to demonstrate through us lenge in school curricula crowded with other and the other excellent youth led development disciplines All the evidence shows that youth organisations which have sprung up recently learn better from ‘doing’ than from lectures how vast how cost effective an impact wider Be the Change! is about ‘doing’ sustainable youth involvement in development can have development doing it globally via the Half that 35 million will we believe come Internet linking young people in the world’s from young people themselves Schools in the least developed countries with those in the UK raised D3E million last year Via the inter prosperous North In this way we can advance net we are inviting them to “adopt” projects together towards sustainability giving the devised and managed by their peers in LDCs South the leap frog technologies that will raise so that they can learn about and support sus them out of poverty quickly and with minimal tainable development projects at the same impact on the environment time But the other 45m must come from Reading through these pages you will see governments from international funding the enormous range and variety of youth agencies from foundations from business actions from teaching projects to health to Perhaps more than money we need their infra structure human rights promotion IT recognition that youth are vital partners in conflict resolution water and sanitation proj development We need them to join with us ects every aspect of sustainable development and the Government of Morocco at the con Youth led actions cost a fraction of adult led gress we are co hosting next year in Casablanca ones They empower and build the self esteem to discuss to join the debate about how best of the youth involved; they educate They get to engage those 6 billion members of our the job done( with the =5 projects we have human family under 3= in addressing the great funded we have 455> success rate!) And they challenge which is sustainable development The Trustees of Peace Child International seed the social activists and sustainability Peace Child Inter national

Youth-led action for Sustainable Development

The White House, BUNTINGFORD, Herts SG9 9AH, United Kingdom Phone: (+44)176 327 4459; Fax: (+44)176 327 4460; e-mail: david@peacechild.org; web: www.peacechild.org; www.bethechange.info

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