A contingent of young people from various parts of the world descended on the Quest University campus on the weekend, eager to build on their commitment to making the Earth a better place and to share success stories from around the world.
Held from May 6 to 8, the first-ever Canadian Global Issues Network (GIN) conference attracted more than 60 participants from North America and Europe, including students from Howe Sound Secondary.
According to the website, GIN's mission is "to help students realize they can make a difference by empowering them to work internationally with their peers to develop solutions for global issues."
Established by students from six international schools in Europe in 2007, the program is based on the book High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them by Jean-François Rischard, former World Bank vice-president for Europe.
Rischard describes issues that can only be solved through global co-operation. Among them are water shortages, global warming, environmental degradation, infectious diseases, poverty and the depletion of fisheries. The program's objective is to create networks of schools around the world made up of involved students and other global citizens.
One of the keynote presenters at the GIN conference was taken aback by the passion and initiative of the youth participants.
"They've been so inspiring," said Jen Rustemeyer, producer of the recent documentary film The Clean Bin Project. "The engagement I am seeing from these youth is far above anything I felt when I was their age and yeah, it really gives me hope for the future."
Rustemeyer was on hand to screen her documentary, which she produced with her partner Grant Baldwin, on a competition to see who could swear off consumerism and produce the least landfill garbage over the course of a year.
Rustemeyer explained the message she wished to deliver to the youth. "It's about finding your passion, taking some action and following it through - whether it's making a movie from scratch and touring the country or reducing your garbage or impacting some other environmental issue... that individuals can make a difference."
A highlight of the conference was a series of presentations from the youths. During the sessions, high school students touted their achievements at their schools - from students working with local farmers in Abbotsford to sell manure to raise money for a service trip to Ethiopia, to bringing a wind turbine, bird observatory and beehives to the International School of the Hague in The Netherlands.
Students from Howe Sound Secondary shared their idea to erect a sign for school agendas to reduce paper waste and to work with Squamish Climate Action Network (CAN) on converting a school bus to run on biodiesel. Another student from Holland suggested they form a Facebook group to allow conference attendees to stay connected and report on each group's successes.
Quest student Sophie Major helped organize the conference and said it was a good feeling to be involved with GIN. "There are so many great people here - it's been really exciting." Major attended a GIN conference in Jakarta last month, representing Canada, and was looking forward to implementing what she learned at this conference.
GIN participant Minhee Kang, a Grade 10 student from Highlands Secondary in Comox, shared her feelings on the weekend. "I thought GIN could help me a lot," she said. "I read that many different youth from different countries come over here and do presentations on what their school is doing. So I kind of got this feeling that we can learn different skills... we're here together and we learn lots of things."
The GIN conference concluded on Sunday with a local service project, where participants worked with Ana Santos, co-ordinator of Squamish CAN, and Edith Tobe of the Squamish River Watershed Society to paint fish on approximately 150 storm drains around town.
"This indicates to residents that whatever goes through the storm drains goes directly to our streams and rivers, not to a treatment plant," Santos said.
Conference organizer Keely Stott summed up the conference thusly: "On Friday, this group started out as mostly strangers, each wanting to make a difference in the world. On Sunday as they checked out, they hugged as lifelong friends with a shared purpose and support network..."
To learn more on the GIN, visit www.global-issues-network.org.
