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gLOBAL IssUEs NETwORk (gIN) CONfERENCE:
AgE DOEs NOT mATTER
TO mAkE A DIffERENCE
Each generation faces
different challenges of
their era. During the war,
the youth were sent far
away from home and
many never came back. In the
‘60s, the remarkably violent years,
when President Kennedy was
assassinated, Reverent Martin
Luther King Jr. was shot, when
war erupted again in Southeast
Asia and when British Government
sent troops to Northern Ireland to
restore law and order in what was
said to be a “limited operation”,
the youth started making their
voices heard.
Today the world has changed so much
and now the young generation faces new
challenges. Not only global warming, but
also many other troubling issues such as
the uneven distribution of natural resources,
poverty and human trafficking among
others which, if not faced, would threaten
the survival of the now as well as the future
generation.
“We need a revolution. It’s time for
young people to stand up because we
matter...” –this is a piece of Alec Loorz’s
speech. Being a 16-year old American
teenager, Alec is celebrated as ‘the next Al
Gore’. He was presented on stage at the
4th Annual EARCOS Global Issues Network
(GIN) Conference 2011 which took place
at JIS central campus in Cilandak. His
moving speech earned standing ovation
from the young audience, who crowded JIS’
auditorium where Alec delivered his speech.
A new movement has risen, it seems, a
strong response to what have been the
source of the current generation’s fears.
And this movement is led by the youth.
As Thomas Jefferson once said, “Every
generation needs a new revolution”.
The 4 th Annual EARCOS
Global Issues Network (GIN)
Conference
The Global Issues Network was initiated
by a group of students and teachers in
Europe who were inspired by the 20 Global
Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, written
by former World Bank Vice President-
Europe Jean-François Rischard. The network
aims to empower the youth to develop
and to implement sustainable solutions for
humanitarian and environmental issues,
which has since spread to Asia, the Middle
East and the U.S..
JIS, a member of the East Asia Regional
Council of Schools (EARCOS), hosted the
4th Annual EARCOS GIN Conference. The
event was held from 8 to 10 April and
attracted 400 students - representatives
of the 42 attending schools which consist
of international schools in Indonesia and
from outside the country who came to learn
about global issues and how to combat
them, as well as to build networks with
students of other schools.
The three-day conference took a year
of preparation by a student committee
consisting of JIS’ high school students along
with their faculty advisors. The three days
were filled with various workshops, bazaar
and cultural entertainments. The conference
was also designed as an environmentally
responsible event, in which several
initiatives were implemented to achieve
this, and include using a digital conference
program to save trees. Nearly 100% of
the activities were conducted inside the
campus to reduce pollution generated
by transportation to and from the school.
Participants were also asked to bring their
own water bottles and refill on site, while
participating students who stayed at the
Hotel Kristal located near JIS walked to and
from the venue instead of using cars.
Participating students from other
schools did not just come to the GIN
Conference to merely watch and learn.
Many of them actively participated by
conducting workshops about global issues
for other students. “There were two
types of workshop and one of them was
student workshop”, said Jackie, JIS student
who acted as one of the GIN Conference
Ambassadors. “People choose the global
issue they feel they are least familliar
with and they can go to that workshop
presented by other attending schools so,
effectively, the youth learning from the
youth...”
Combating global problems may
sound so grandiose to be done by kids,
but that’s exactly what was about to be
proved through the GIN Conference, that
kids can actually do something about it.
“The major component of the workshops
is that students share ideas about
community service...”, said Priscilla, one
“GIN CONFERENCE IS TO EMPOWER YOUTh AGES 14 TO 18
REGARDLESS OF ThEIR SEx, BACKGROUND, GENDER. WE WANT TO
EMPOWER ThESE YOUTh TO CREATE A LARGE NETWORK OF PEOPLE
WhO EvENTUALLY WILL BE ABLE TO COMBAT GLOBAL ISSUES ON A
LOCAL LEvEL AND LEAD TO INTERNATIONAL GLOBAL ISSUES SOLvING”
of the JIS student spokespeople at the GIN
conference, “...so you’re not only learning
about the global issues, but you’re learning
more importantly about what you can do
to address at the local scope and that’s
one of the goals of GIN conference.” This
statement was agreed by Jose, JIS student
who acted as GIN Conference Ambassador.
“GIN conference is to empower youth
aged 14 to 18 regardless of their sex,
background, or gender. We want to
empower these youths to create a large
network of people who eventually will be
able to combat global issues on the local
level leading to international global issues
solving”, he said.
Aside from student workshop, there
were also the Core Workshops which
enabled its participants to engage in more
depth in interactive activities based on, or
related to a global issue. A core workshop
by Mr Scotty Graham, ‘Lens on Kampong
Life: 20/20’, which was held three times
–once at each day of the conference--
BY: FRANSISCA RESTIAWARDANI. PHOTOS: AGUNG NATANAEL.
took participants to explore Rischard’s 20
global issues through the lens of a camera.
Participants walked through a kampong
close to the JIS campus to take photos
of what they think have something to do
with the global issues. Upon return to JIS,
participants downloaded their photos and
selected their best set of photos for viewing
during the conference.
Also presented for the core workshops
were young speakers who were invited for
their well known commitment in making
the world a better place. Among the
speakers was Alec Loorz, who at his tender
age of 16 has spoken to more than 100,000
people worldwide and was awarded
the 2008 Earth Charter Award for Youth
Activist and the Environmental Defense
Center’s 2009 Young Environmental Hero
Award. Other speakers were Sheena
Matheiken who through her Uniform
Project (see www.theuniformproject.com)
provided for 287 underprivileged children
to receive education; Robert Burroughs,
the international director of the KICK-AIDS
campaign; 13-year old Zachary Bonner who
founded the Little Red Wagon Foundation
that aids 1.3 million homeless children in
the United States; and Maricel Macesar, a
social activist and entrepreneur.
Prithika, Amanda, Jose, Priscilla and Jackie
All workshops were designed to
give participants an idea for sustainable
solutions for global issues, at a level that
they can act upon. “We try to make them
more practical. More hands on to make
things, doing things...”, said Trish Davies,
JIS’ service learning coordinator whose task
was to assist JIS’ students organized the
conference.
To add to the children’ perspectives
on how to tackle global issues, Yayasan
and NGOs were also called in to present
discourses on various environmental and
social issues.
Even now when the GIN conference
has concluded, the GIN spirit remains.
“We don’t separate the GIN conference
as the service that we do. It’s what we
maintain throughout”, Jose said, “Because
even before the GIN conference we have
different service clubs --humanitarian &
environmental. So after the GIN conference
we continue with these clubs. It’s not as if
we take a step out of our lives and do some
service. We maintain it throughout.”
GINDO is the Global Issues
Network Indonesia
JIS students will continue to make positive
changes for the world. They have started
at the local level by establishing the
Global Issues Network Indonesia
(GINDO) in 2009, not long after several
of JIS students returned from the GIN
Conference 2008 held in Beijing. “After
(attending) the GIN conference in
Beijing, the students who represented
JIS came back”, Priscilla said, “They
were inspired and wanted to recreate
this conference at the local level,
because there wasn’t really a medium
for students who didn’t know about this
global issue, so we created a conference
called GINDO.”
Prithika, JIS student and co-founder
of the students’ group of GINDO now
serves as its President. She said, “The
main focus of GINDO is to take lessons
about global issue and to combat them
through simple ways and take that
to the local community.” At GINDO’s
first conference in 2009, 220 students
of national plus schools attended.
GINDO conference will continue to
be held every year by involving local
schools, so that they are aware of the
environmental as well as social issues
around them and know how to address
them.
92 | MAY 2011 www.nowjakarta.co.id www.nowjakarta.co.id MAY 2011 | 93