Over the coming months (and subject to funding), on five on-line conferences are planned with follow-up discussions both on this platform and the dedicated Facebook Page.
Media Links
An overview of the major impacts of the COVID-19 in a global context and the most exposed groups and related issues that may want us to influence our politicians to think differently and updates.
News from the UN, Emergency Agencies and News Channels
News Room of the United Nations Development Programme
UNDP supports countries in their efforts to successfully address diverse development challenges, framed around three broad settings which require different forms of support:
- Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions;
- Accelerating structural transformations for sustainable development; and
- Building resilience to crises and shocks
These three development challenges often coexist within the same country, requiring tailored solutions that can adequately address specific deficits and barriers. Underpinning all three development challenges is a set of core development needs, including the need to strengthen gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and to ensure the protection of human rights.
United Nations High Commissioner for RefugeesThe
MEDIA CENTRE
We work to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution, war or disaster at home.
Since 1950, we have faced multiple crises on multiple continents, and provided vital assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless people, many of whom have nobody left to turn to.
We help to save lives and build better futures for millions forced from home
The World Food Programme
International Rescue Committee
International Rescue Committee experts around the world and in our hubs in London, Brussels, New York and Washington are on-call to provide information and interviews about our global humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement programs as well as priority issues and policies that impact the people we assist.
International Red Cross
The work of the ICRC is based on the Geneva Conventions of 1949, their Additional Protocols, its Statutes – and those of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – and the resolutions of the International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The ICRC is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. It takes action in response to emergencies and at the same time promotes respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation in national law.
Medecins sans Frontieres
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) translates to Doctors without Borders. We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff – bound together by our charter. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence and neutrality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organisation.
Help the Aged
Food Banks USA
Food Banks UK
The European Federation of Food Banks
Al Jazeera News
Channel Four News
France 24 News
Italian National News Agency
Reuters International
BLOGS
Clean Clothes Campaign
Live-Blog: How the Coronavirus affects garment workers in supply chains
Clean Clothes Campaign is a global network dedicated to improving working conditions and empowering workers in the global garment and sportswear industries.
Since 1989, CCC has worked to ensure that the fundamental rights of workers are respected. We educate and mobilise consumers, lobby companies and governments, and offer direct solidarity support to workers as they fight for their rights and demand better working conditions.
Back history of key blog Issues can be found here
The King’s Fund
The King’s Fund is an independent charitable organisation working to improve health and care in England. Our vision is that the best possible health and care is available to all.
CARE
CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice.
OXFAM
BOND
Bond is the UK network for organisations working in international development.
A very interesting Media Centre
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Monkey Survey
The various comments will be analyzed to identify priority issues. However, this blog invites you to express priority issues that we can include in a survey that we will then publicize.
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Engaging and Empowering Communities to Create Change
Under construction
Engaging and Empowering Communities to Create Change and to Believe in their Futures
More than at any time in the past, it will be essential to mobilise at a local level, Millennials, Gen-Z can play an important role in mobilising local level communities and moreover to link them into others with similar interests. In the past mass movements such as the Suffragettes. Workers Movements, Environmental groups, Human Rights Movement in the USA, Anti-Apartheid in South Africa have been successful in mobilising mass engagement. To mitigate the massive problems of the CONVID-19 aftermath will require the mobilisation at a local level to then unite in a global common cause to ensure the solutions are for the many and not the few. Many approaches are available: among others, the Theatre of the Oppressed, for example
The Mandela Centre for Change
What they do and how they work
The Theatre of the Oppressed New York City
How they Work
Types of theatres of the oppressed similarities and differences
An Italian based international example
Water Democracy
Examples from South Africa and other countries
Food sovereignty and security
Eaxmaples internationally
International youth exchanges
The Barefoot College
Worker rights
Examples from global supply chains
Storytelling
Ideas for mobilising and to promote change
The fundamental idea is to find cohesion around a common cause to benefit the local community and eventually society at large. Here we would like to exchange ideas on empowering communities and groups to create change
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Cultural, socioeconomic and industrial heritage
Understand our past to collectively shape Europe’s future and its role in confronting the global issues of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Under construction
This relates to SDG 11 – 11.4 to strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. But also SDG 14 Life Below Water and Life on Land from the perspective of sustainability and biodiversity.
How do we define Culture?
UNESCO definition of cultural heritage
The term cultural heritage encompasses several main categories of heritage:
- Cultural heritage
- Tangible cultural heritage:
- movable cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, coins, manuscripts)
- immovable cultural heritage (monuments, archaeological sites, and so on)
- underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins, and cities)
- Intangible cultural heritage: oral traditions, performing arts, rituals
- Tangible cultural heritage:
- Natural heritage: natural sites with cultural aspects such as cultural landscapes, physical, biological or geological formations
- Heritage in the event of armed conflict
Cultural Heritage in Europe
More than 400 of the 1,121 UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located in Europe. The EU constitutes only 7% of the world’s population, 20% of global GDP almost 40% of global public spending on social protection. The principles of Europe’s ‘Social Model’ were laid down in the Treaty of the European Community. Of the 117 UN and Bretton Wood’s Institutions globally, 71 are located in Europe, of which 40 are in EU Member States and includes the International Court of Justice. A European, jointly with a Canadian, drafted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Europe is second largest contributor to the United Nations System, the World’s largest provider of development aid and was a major actor in shaping the Sustainable Development Goals and the principle driver of the Climate Change Agenda.
Cultural heritage from a humanism, tolerance, and democracy perspective
The European Parliament’s report argued that the road to creating a European Historical Memory requires a critical ‘culture of remembering’ to be developed. European history has overemphasized the dimension of the atrocities of two world wars, especially World War II, as the overriding rationale for creating the EU, the so-called world’s largest peace project. This approach is problematic in yet another respect since it reduces European history to a matter of the post-First- World-War period. Historical complexity is hence unduly reduced, obscuring broader (inter-)relations essential in the understanding of contemporary Europe, one that has evolved on the foundation of European core values such as humanism, tolerance, and democracy.
It is also these values of humanism, tolerance, and democracy that have to be drawn upon in this particular moment of COVID-19, building solidarity within the many European sub-cultures and cultures to join with humanity through the globe to debate common solutions. Primarily, the Millennium and Gen-Z generations and draw upon and expand upon the existing youth partnerships of those involved in this initiative.
Cultural Heritage in other regions
Movable cultural heritage
(paintings, sculptures, coins, manuscripts)
Immovable cultural heritage
Underwater cultural heritage
Intangible cultural heritage
oral traditions, performing arts, rituals
Natural heritage:
Industrial Heritage
Heritage in the event of armed conflict
How Storytelling relates to cultural heritage
Links
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Agriculture and Nutrition
Under construction
The place to discuss issues relating to SDG 1 No Poverty & SDG 2 Zero Hunger. Remember this is in a global context. There will also be regional perspectives.
Agriculture – A global overview
Nutrition – A Global overview
The water agriculture energy nexus
The role of women in agriculture
Food security and sovereignty
Threats to biodiversity
The rich starving the poor
Fair Trade
Sustainable Agriculture
Access to resources
Movements promoting change
International agencies
RSS News Feeds
Links
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Ideas for Entrpreneurship
Ander construction
Here is the place to discuss different forms of starting a business; SME, Micro-enterprise, networks cooperatives. Talk about your experiences, difficulties and success and what you would like to see a change to make it easier for you to “get going”
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Storytelling
The basic idea that we can learn from our own and collective histories. It could be impressions (at whatever age) of visiting a place of cultural interest, your family local traditions and folklore, socio-economic conditions, how you travelled to school or in general with your family. What did you do in your free time with friends as a child. Did you grow your own food, how and where. The list can go on. Post your short story or stories/experiences fr us to enjoy and draw some inspiration on what are values-traditions that could be used to inspire our idea of the world we want.
These can be short or longer posts with an attachment of necessary. The idea is that we will look at the feasibility of posting them on YouTube
Some thoughts on stories to tell
Childhood memories
Stories handed down from grandparents and parents
Access to resources
water
Environmental changes
Transport
Education
Technology – including appropriate low-cost technology
Stories relating to gender
Migration
Justice and safety
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News Updates
The place to comment on the news (under construction)
