More than 500 young participants from over 150 countries gathered at UNESCO headquarters in Paris from October 29-31, 2013, on the occasion of the 8th UNESCO Youth Forum to exchange views, share experiences, and identify common preoccupations and problems related to the Forum theme, “Youth and Social Inclusion: Civic Engagement, Dialogue and Skills Development.” Once again, at the invitation of UNESCO, the Goi Peace Foundation contributed to the Youth Forum by hosting a cultural event in the evening of October 30 as part of the official program.
The event entitled “Cultural evening: Drumming for Youth Civic Engagement” took place in the prestigious Room 1 at UNESCO Fontenoy building. The objective of the program was to further empower young people to put innovative ideas into action and demonstrate civic engagement in service of their communities.
The evening began with powerful Japanese Taiko drumming performed by the members of the Tsunagari Taiko Center based in Paris.
After the welcome remarks delivered by Mr. Patrick Petit of the Goi Peace Foundation, Ms. Pilar Alvarez-Laso, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, offered her greetings. She lauded the important contribution of the Goi Peace Foundation to the 8th UNESCO Youth Forum and the continued fruitful cooperation between UNESCO and the Foundation.
Youth Civic Engagement: Presentations by Young Social Innovators
In the first part of the program, three young social innovators took stage to present their innovative projects and speak about their personal trajectory of how their life has brought them to where they are now, and offered inspirational message for the youth participants to become agents of change.
Sofia Appelgren, 31, from Sweden, founded her first company at the age of 16. While studying communications at university, Sofia became a young parent. It was at this time that, after a transformative personal experience, she decided to focus her considerable entrepreneurial talents towards opening up the Swedish labor market to young women of an immigrant background, and founded Mitt Liv. Sofia explained that her social entreprise objective is to tackle the dual challenges of integration and joblessness among immigrant young women through for-profit mentoring programs, and increase cultural diversity in the labor market. In a personal message to the audience, Sofia stressed that everybody has the chance to give impact and change the future according to their dreams, and that young people should stick to their ideals and stay true to their values.
Anjali Sarker, 22, from Bangladesh, is a social innovator and the Co-Founder of Toilet Plus. The lack of sanitation is a big problem in Anjali’s homeland Bangladesh. The vision of Toilet Plus is to bring the rural poor of Bangladesh under safe sanitation coverage, thus saving millions of children from fatal diseases. The project introduces a safe toilet for the poor villagers that not only provides safe sanitation, but also an economic incentive to sell the waste for organic fertilizer production. Anjali is proud of being known in her community as “the toilet girl.” She explained that her relationship with toilets has become a true “love affair.” Just as she saw a problem and faced that problem, Anjali encouraged young people in the audience to face their own problems instead of running away from them, and to take them as an opportunity for changing the world.
Jeronimo Calderon, 28, from Switzerland, has always had great interest in reducing socioeconomic disparities around the globe. Through his organization, Euforia, Jeronimo is motivating young people to take action and become societal changemakers by branding citizen engagement as cool, trendy and attractive. He is impacting thousands of young people across Switzerland and beyond. Jeronimo called upon the youth to get engaged, walk their talk, and support replication of Euforia events he organizes across Switzerland and everywhere else on demand, so that young people everywhere stand up and take action to effect dynamic social change around the world.
Launching of the Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition
As the highlight of the program, Prof. Günter Faltin, founder of Stiftung Entrepreneurship and professor for entrepreneurship at Free University Berlin launched the Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition, which is a joint program of The Goi Peace Foundation, Stiftung Entrepreneurship and UNESCO. The competition fosters and honors young entrepreneurs (ages 15-30) from around the world who are creating positive change in their communities by helping solve some of the key challenges of today with their innovative ideas and leadership. A unique feature of the online competition is its interactive website where entries are posted for online voting and feedback from the public. Through the competition process, youth entrepreneurs have the opportunity to optimize their ideas and develop their enterprise by receiving comments and support from the global online community. By highlighting the best examples of youth entrepreneurship, the competition aims to empower the young generation to take the initiative in social innovation and become co-creators of sustainable communities around the world.
World Peace Flag Ceremony
To conclude the cultural event, a World Peace Flag Ceremony was conducted with the participation of all the youth audience holding the flags of the world, and accompanied by Taiko drums. Following the young voice leaders, the entire audience called out the names of all the countries of the world and raised their flags while voicing “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in unison. At the end of the ceremony, everyone walked up on stage and joyfully waved their flags celebrating their unity in diversity. The room was filled with jubilation and an unending call of “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” while many took photos together on stage around the UN flag.
All in all, the Goi Peace Foundation contributed for the second time to the great success of the UNESCO Youth Forum, making it another milestone event in our partnership with UNESCO.
Click here to view the video of the Cultural Event
Click here for more information about the 8th UNESCO Youth Forum