7 agosto 2006

Comunicato stampa dell'Unione degli Studenti, Coordinamento Provinciale - Ragusa sul Junior G8 2006, 7-18 luglio San Pietroburgo.

Nell’ambito del processo preparatorio del G8 di San Pietroburgo la presidenza Russa ha deciso di organizzare un Vertice Junior 8 come precedentemente in Gran Bretagna, vertice composto da un team di 8 studenti per ogni nazione. Le “squadre” nazionali hanno lavorato insieme in Russia al fine di elaborare un contributo che è stato illustrato ai leaders del G8.

Le quattro questioni in programma per il G8 erano istruzione, malattie infettive, energia e tolleranza, ci è stato chiesto di esprimere le nostre considerazioni in merito a queste tematiche; la permanenza delle delegazioni è stata di 10 giorni dei quali un tempo a dir poco ridotto, quattro mattinate ed un pomeriggio, è stato destinato alla elaborazione delle nostre riflessioni su materie di importanza mondiale, il resto del tempo è stato impiegato nella visita della città, nella visione di concerti e nelle attività ludiche. Uno dei principali ostacoli al regolare svolgimento dei lavori è stato lo scompenso dell’età tra i vari delegati, che variava dai 13 ai 17 anni, quattro anni che in realtà nell’adolescenza sono un abisso e che nel documento finale si sono trasformati in mancanza di pragmatismo. Il problema di fondo resta comunque che ci sia stato chiesto di entrare nel merito di questioni puramente economiche le quali noi sconosciamo, il metodo più corretto sarebbe stato aprire una discussione con gli stessi leaders e scrivere un documento assieme avendo il beneficio di conoscenza di ciò di cui si sta parlando.

Un altro handicap è stata la disparità di preparazione tra le varie delegazioni, credo che la delegazione Italiana fosse la più preparata in quanto il nostro governo ha deciso di selezionare i suoi delegati attraverso il “Forum Nazionale delle Associazioni Studentesche” del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, prendendo studenti che fanno parte delle associazioni, che fanno politica tutti i giorni, che conoscevano già le tematiche trattate e che soprattutto sono realmente rappresentativi degli studenti Italiani; le altre delegazioni sono state invece scelte in base alla conoscenza dell’inglese. Questa preparazione che distingueva noi Italiani, ci ha portato ad avere un voce unanime, nonostante fossimo, di diversi schieramenti politici, sul dire che questo summit non è stato caratterizzato da tutta quella libertà osannata, sia dall’UNICEF Italia durante la presentazione a Roma, che per tutta la permanenza a San Pietroburgo; i nostri lavori erano perennemente seguiti da funzionari del Governo Russo che avrebbero potuto influenzarci.

La conclusione dei 10 giorni è stato il documento che è stato presentato ai leaders G8, apparsi ben disposti benché Prodi abbia detto che forse il documento era un po’ riduttivo. Il documento è sicuramente pieno di forti e belle affermazioni, ma abbastanza scontate e di difficile attuazione; è diviso in sei parti: l’introduzione, i quattro paragrafi sulle specifiche tematiche e la conclusione.

Nella parte sull’Istruzione è presente un vero e proprio errore di fondo, l’Istruzione non viene vista come strumento di emancipazione dell’individuo, strumento di crescita personale e unica garanzia di libertà ma viene descritta solo come “la chiave per il successo”. Tra le iniziative c’è poi il progetto delle “Olimpiadi Mondiali dell’Industria”, rivolte alle multinazionali che si impegnano a versare una percentuale dei propri profitti in un fondo per l’istruzione la sanità e lo sviluppo economico del terzo mondo, ben venga che multinazionale che sia in passato che nel presente hanno inviato cibi scaduti in alcuni paesi in via di sviluppo, o sfruttano il lavoro minorile, possano riconvertirsi all’altruismo. Positive ed importanti sono alcune affermazioni come la distribuzione gratuita di profilattici sia nei paesi sviluppati sia in quelli in via di sviluppo, ciò esprime la preoccupazione di 64 studenti delle nazioni del G8, che hanno detto no al tabù sull’utilizzo di contraccettivi imposto da autorità che non sono ne sanitarie ne politiche. Si enuncia pure la necessità di insegnare a scuola nozioni sulla propria cultura e sulla propria etnia, garanzia per la diversità e l’emancipazione culturale. Nella conclusione da lodare una centrata autocritica che propone di “ampliare i prossimi summit a giovani del terzo mondo perché non è possibile prendere decisioni per gli altri”.

Ragusa, 25 luglio 2006

Tancredi Pluchino

Coordinatore Unione degli Studenti - Ragusa

INFO: 3339998326

JUNIOR J8 SUMMIT
St Petersburg 2006

Address the leaders

Introduction

We, the young people of the G8 nations, have gathered for the Junior 8 Summit 2006 in St. Petersburg.

Although our age prevents us from voting, this does not mean that we are not interested in the critical issues in our countries and the world.

Our goal is to express the ideas of the younger generation and to try to solve some of the world's problems.

We have prepared a common document that includes our proposals on the main topics: Education, Infectious Diseases, Tolerance and Energy Security. These issues, which are also discussed by the G8 leaders this year, are closely linked with the values of the younger generation and will affect us in the future.

We would like to live on a clean planet. We want to live in a peaceful world, free from drugs, diseases, and discrimination.

We are really able to influence the situation in the world. We are starting with ourselves.

We hope to put our ideas into action and to be an excellent example for children and young people from around the world.

We are going to present to you the result of difficult but interesting work, which included discussions, interaction with experts, and video conferences with children from developing countries.

We have taken into consideration different points of view.

Education

We strongly believe education is the foundation of everything, we want it to be accessible, equal for everyone and of high quality.
In order to accomplish equality of gender and ethnicity we must inform people of the importance of education by establishing radio programmes, which are already accessible to everyone. We must also motivate women and men into wanting a good education with the help of successful role models to whom they can relate. We want to create organisations focusing on education that will inform children that education is the key to success.
To make education more available we propose giving children incentives in schools such as free food, medical vouchers (for children and adults), immunisations, and also building water wells near schools. This would provide children with not only education but with nutrition and health as well.
For every child to receive a high quality and well-rounded education, we must implement "Learning without Borders", a programme where children would learn about academics, ethics, peace and life-skills. We should also establish a programme called "Teaching Teachers" where educators from the developed world would go to developing countries to pass on their teaching skills.
We need businesses to help money go towards education. We propose the Global Industry Olympics (GIO) which is a global fund focused on engaging businesses all over the world to get the Olympic spirit by giving a percentage of every sale to this fund which will help feed the poor, heal the sick, build education facilities, provide extra money for teachers salaries, provide education to children and create sustainable economic development projects.
When we worked on the G8 themes we found that education is the key solution to all of our world's problems.

Infectious Diseases

We know that infectious diseases is a huge problem for humanity, but we can fight them with education, prevention, treatment, and respect. The main goal is free basic treatment for everyone. There are two ways to achieve it: 1) development of scientific research and provision of free diagnostics, and 2) open borders for medicine by simplifying the visa process and enabling doctors around the world to exchange their experience.
All countries in collaboration with each other must protect people from the spread of infectious diseases through education. We must have HIV prevention programs with specialists at schools and we must develop links between hospitals and schools (hospitals have responsibility for local schools). We should also send people to rural areas to educate about prevention and mothers breast-feeding. We want free accessible male and female condoms especially in developing countries along with information.
We can solve the problems of stigmatization through educational information about infectious diseases. There is also a need for role models who are living with HIV or other infectious diseases to eliminate stigma. Through this people will understand that infected people are human beings and that everybody should respect each other.
Malaria is one of the top 3 killing infectious diseases, but it can be easily prevented by the distribution of free mosquito nets. Another big killer is Tuberculosis and we can solve this problem by distributing free vaccinations available for all.

Energy

We want energy to be accessible, reliable, safe and clean. By encouraging the recycling of resources, more energy can be saved. Knowing this, we as young people, must have a serious attitude about conserving energy.
We request that the Kyoto protocol should be expanded and updated, changing the focus to the diversification of energy supplies and the development of energy partnerships. All G8 countries should support this new protocol, in order to encourage other countries to sign.

We propose that an extra tax should be implemented on electricity and oil products that are being used in excess to discourage the over usage of energy resources and to help fund alternative energy resources.

We suggest setting up an independent organisation, which would coordinate energy trading, research and partnerships on a global scale. G8 countries would have to contribute a certain amount of money to fund the organisation.

We support the use of alternative energy resources such as wind power, solar power, nuclear energy, hydroelectric power and biomass fuels. We feel that utilising alternative resources will help alleviate the issue of global warming. However, the problems of nuclear terrorism and nuclear waste cannot be ignored. We propose tightened security for nuclear reactors and waste. We should encourage research for finding new environmentally friendly ways to dispose of nuclear waste.

We believe that the best way to support developing countries with energy issues is to help them by sharing technologies such as solar panels or wind farms, investing infrastructure, and also encouraging them to implement facilities on their own.

Violence and tolerance

We should never forget that every individual is a human being. Therefore everyone's religion, ethnicity, culture, social and physical condition must be respected.
Firstly, we need to prevent child abuse by the adults. In some countries children are mistreated by being forced to work or tortured. At first, we need the G8 countries to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) then to encourage the other countries to sign the CRC. After signing the CRC we need all the countries to set up a team to fight against Child Abuse and for countries that requires financial aid, the G8 countries should help them.

Secondly we need the children to develop interest towards other groups. Therefore we ask the government in all countries starting with the G8 countries to organise school for parents. We also ask the G8 countries to encourage the Media networks to speak against violence and for tolerance. It will be effective if a strong speaker spoke against violence and they also sent people to the countries without electricity to educate people on the subject.

Also for the people who have already developed hatred, we think we need more communication between the two different groups to familiarise themselves with different nations, traditions and religions. One of the ways is to give young people the opportunity to socialise with children from different places around the world. And to achieve this, we need schools to teach children about other nationalities and also to express their own identities better, we have to teach the children of their own cultures and traditions. And from this we would like to see the children to be tolerant and not to discriminate people with physical differences or disabilities.

Finally we think there is a strong barrier between the immigrants and the natives in a country. To break the barrier we should be encouraged to communicate with each other through meetings e.g. activity days between children of different ethnicities inside and outside school where they meet and work together.

Conclusion

In order to make these ideas feasible we need to disseminate them among young people in our own countries, as we are the adults of tomorrow. Our work must be done not only at the summit, but also in our daily lives, in our actions, and in our attitudes.

To find solutions objectively and effectively, we feel that young people of other nations, particularly from developing countries, must take part in future Summits. If we are trying to find solutions for global issues, then we need global views, because we can't decide for other people.

We are grateful to have this opportunity to give our views to the world leaders, and we sincerely hope that the leaders of the G8 will consider them for the future.

We see ourselves as global citizens, who have to care about everything that goes on in the world. We pledge that our passion will live on after the Summit and we call upon the youth of the world to join us. We believe in our ability to change the world.

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