The youth climate movement is bigger than ever! Masses of young people are taking the initiative and organizing conferences, and summits to inspire action. There are great events happening all over the country in the upcoming months. Take your pick from these exciting opportunities!
1. The SCASCC (South Carolina’s Student/Youth Environmental Action Conference) Fall 2008 Summit is approaching fast! Supported by the Southern Energy Network, this 3 day summit, taking place from September 26th-28th is a great opportunity to develop new relationships, conduct community service, attend workshops and lectures and have a blast with people that share the same passion for environmental justice!
To register:
http://www.climateaction.net/scsummit
2. In October, the Minnesota Power Shift is...
CS Monitor has a very interesting piece - on monks with guns - profiling a new model of dissent in Burma. As you may remember from protests last year, young monks were particularly proactive in calling for change in Burma (is it a coincidence that young monks were also a lot more vocal in Tibet earlier this year?). Now, dissatisfied with the slow pace of reforms,
they are calling for fresh tactics, from teaching human rights theory to stockpiling arms.
Its a dual approach full of contradictions. On the one hand, young monks are increasingly talking about using violence to stand up to oppression - something that goes against the very nature of Buddhism. On the other hand, they are also exploring new ways of reaching out to people, including education on the basics of political...
This time the evaluation comes from the U.S., and it finds that computers did help improve achievement in math. Authors Barrow, Markman, and Rouse in Technology's Edge conclude that:Our results suggest that [computer-assisted instruction] may increase student achievement in pre-algebra and algebra by at least 0.17 of a standard deviation, on average, with somewhat larger effects for students in larger classes. Put differently, students learning pre-algebra and algebra through [computer-assisted instruction] are 27% of a school year ahead of their classmates in traditional classrooms after one year.This previous post looks at an evaluation of computer use in classrooms in India. That evaluation found that computers were useful as a complement to the regular curriculum, not as a substitute...
This past week I was lucky enough to hang out with the Greenpeace Youth Network for a few days at their annual youth camp, Change It, in Seattle. I e-mailed some Greenpeace friends to ask if I could come help at the camp for a few reasons. 1) I went to the Greenpeace sponsored Direct Action Camp this past June and wanted to keep tabs on what Greenpeace is up to in my neck of the woods. 2) I’ll be a trainer at Oregon’s SPROG this upcoming week and I wanted to get a taste for what was to come. 3) I work for the Sierra Club now and I’m already seeing the debilitating effects of environmental infighting.
I went to the Greenpeace’s Change It camp as a personal attempt at abnormal environmental networking. I’m currently reading a book, Greenpeace, by Rex Weyler about the early...
The Doha trade talks failed this week...and Dani Rodrik asks so what? In his view, the probable gains from this further trade liberalization were not significant. I would add that at least in some sectors, formal trade liberalization is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The internet has created the possiblity for ever greater amounts of trade in services that are largely under the radar of the World Trade Organization and, to some extent, government tax collectors.
One example is that of outsourcing of tutors. India now supplies online tutoring help for many of America's struggling high school students. But tutoring may be just the tip of the iceberg. One estimate has it that gold farming - the practice of earning virtual currency in an online game and exchanging it for real currency -...
Over at the Economist, a debate is heating up over the following proposition: "There is an upside for humanity in the rise of food prices." I just checked, and right now the votes stand at 59 percent "pro" and 41 percent "con." It seems to me that the result is a bit skewed, however, given of the wording of the question - I can imagine few things in the world that don't have at least some upside. In support of the proposition is Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre of the Brookings Institution. Here is his take: The good news is that higher food prices are exactly what is required to restore balance in the market. With rising demand and constrained supply the iron law of economics permits no other response. In a market economy,...
Earlier this week I had a chance to hear six recent college graduates/graduate students (see bios here) present brief summaries of policy recommendations formed at youth conferences in Rabat (Morocco), Cairo (Egypt), and Amman (Jordan). The event was organized by Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) and The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).
Why young people’s views on reform? Youth constitute a majority of the Middle East population and, leaving universities, many young people find themselves at the crossroads - unable to get jobs in the public or private sectors.
One issue that people consistently highlighted was the idea of cultural exchange. Two representatives spoke from the experience of each conference, all three of which included cultural exchange as a...
Communism failed to do it - can capitalism do any better? So far, the answer is not clear. I'm referring to the integration of the Romani minority into the mainstream of eastern Europe's transition countries. For those not familiar with this topic, 'Roma' is the polite term used in place of the more common 'Gypsy'. (The words themselves are laden with baggage - in English, Gypsy is tied to the pejorative verb "to gyp", while the Slovak version 'cigan' is tied to the verb 'ciganit', which means "to lie.") The approach of the authorities in most communist countries in the 1950s was to forcibly sedentarize the population, a nice term for shooting their horses and burning their wagons and most of their possessions. Many Roma were then forced into new industrial settings -...
Annotated Bibliography of New Zealand Literature on Migrant and Refugee Youth (NZ Department of Labour, 2008) [text]
Housing, New Migration and Community Relations: A review of the evidence base (ICAR, 2008) [access]
Multiculturalism, Citizenship and Identity: A policy and literature review prepared as part of ICAR’s Refugee Rights and Responsibilities project, funded by the Sigrid Rausing...
Some of my previous posts (see here and here) raised doubts about the value of spending gobs of money to introduce computers into classrooms in the developing world. A new study from the Poverty Action Lab at MIT provides some additional insight exactly this question. Leigh Linden, the author of Complement or Substitute? The Effect of Technology on Student Achievement in India, offers up some truly useful information by asking a better question than others have asked - namely, not whether computers improve learning on average but rather in what context and for whom they improve learning.
Employing a pair of randomized evaluations of computer use in classrooms in Gujarat, India, Linden found that computers improve learning outcomes when they are used as a complement to the normal...
I decided to follow up on an earlier posting that cast some doubts on the value of the XO laptop for students in developing countries. Two commentors pointed out that even if the XO laptop does not produce direct improvements in classroom learning, there still may be other kinds of benefits. Serena had this to say:I personally believe that games–& interactive media–foster the 'soft' competency skills that contribute to learning development. The likes of Internet Relay Chat helped a generation of kids develop fast typing and response skills. Games that provide mental stimulation and can be scalable (to increase the level of challenge) similarly contribute to learning skills development.I don't dispute this argument, but I also don't think it necessarily means that governments...
You probably have not yet heard of Fundaci??n Paraguaya, but I have a hunch you'll be hearing a lot about them in the next few years. They are an impressive organization focused on alleviating poverty through the promotion of entrepreneurship. Fundaci??n Paraguaya combines an impressive number of functions under one roof. It consists of a self-sufficient agricultural high school that is combined with a microfinance facility.
Students at the school are taught basic business skills, and they apply these skills by working on farms, which in turn provide the income that funds the school. And the students don???t simply work on the farm for the sake of their labor???they have to make decisions about how best to make a profit from their labor, e.g. how many eggs must these chickens produce...
What should be included in Pakistan’s National Youth Policy? And who should have input into how the policy is written? The answer to the second question is easy – young people themselves should have the opportunity to make recommendations for incorporation into such a policy before it is passed. But, that almost did not happen – a draft National Youth Policy for Pakistan was written by the previous government and was set to be passed without any input from stakeholders.
However, the outgoing government ran out of time to approve the policy, which presented a unique opportunity to facilitate dialogue between the new government and youth. Earlier this week, CIPE, the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), and the Ministry of Youth Affairs held a conference in Islamabad on...
I recently debated with a colleague about whether or not young people still believe in the right to private property as a core democratic value. I argued that this all depends on how deeply an individual is willing to follow the philosophical logic.
If the first thing that comes to one’s mind is a sign, which reads, “private property: no trespassing” in the middle of a pristine wilderness, thereby declaring the fact that the land is off limits of hikers, that individual probably develops a negative first impression about the meaning of property rights.
As an environmentalist and an outdoors enthusiast, I’ve been faced with this frustratingly misguided and litigious mentality before, and naturally it momentarily blinded me to the wisdom and logic of the right to private property....
Assessment on Returns to Iraq Amongst the Iraqi Refugee Population in Syria (UNHCR Syria, April 2008) [text]
Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2008. Special Focus: In the Shadow of War (Plan International, May 2008) [text]
Beyond the School Gates: Supporting Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Secondary School (Refugee Council, May 2008) [text]
Hidden Cork: Perspectives of...
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Nicholas Negroponte???s longtime MIT colleague Walter Bender has recently left the One Laptop per Child program. Bender was responsible for software and content for "XO" laptops including its innovative Sugar operating system. This all happened amidst OLPC???s move to change its open-source approach as it welcomes Microsoft???s Windows operating system. Bender will now try to further the development of the XOs' Sugar, and get it to run on Linux computers other than XOs.
Bender's departure is the second big executive loss to be added to OLPC's setbacks and reportedly Negroponte wants OLPC to operate more efficiently. An executive-search firm has been trying to hire a chief executive for the group for more than a year ??? anyone needs a job?...
In Tunisia recently for a workshop with business journalists on corporate governance issues, I witnessed a generational divide that gives me hope. The key moment in the training came in a debate between an older journalist writing for a state-owned newspaper and younger journalists writing for web-based economic journals about the role of the media in investigative reporting on corporate behavior. The state-owned newspaper journalist challenged why reporters should dig their noses in private businesses if there is nothing wrong. The others protested, saying they must be active in their reporting in order to uncover failures before they become scandals. The split in their views was clear, and I was encouraged by the younger clan who want to shape a new culture that values good...
Anuario 2008 de procesos de paz (Escola de cultura de paz, April 2008) [Spanish text]
Country at a Crossroads: Challenges Facing Young People in Sierra Leone (Women's Commission, April 2008) [text]
Denied Status, Denied Education: Children of North Korean Women in China (Human Rights Watch, April 2008) [text via Refworld]
A Gamble with the Right to Asylum in Europe: Greek Asylum Policy and...
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I recently had the pleasure of shepherding a group of elementary school children around a Water Festival. The day’s myriad events focused on everything from salmon habitats to sea kayaking lessons. It was great to watch little kids get excited about nature in its most basic forms. I think it’s something that I, and maybe others, forget when we’re working on globe spanning issues like climate change. Remember that we were once little kids too, our minds being blown by the simplest joys nature could offer. To watch a room full of a hundred kids all imitating the sounds of a Killer Whale is pretty awesome.
The day made me realize/remember how important it is to reach kids at this young age when a love of nature is still embedded deep within their inherent nature. Kids...
Zimbabwe’s economy is experiencing the worst inflation rate in the world (50,000%, according to BBC) and basic goods are often unavailable at stores. As Alex Shkolnikov blogged a few weeks ago, Zimbabwe has started printing a 10,000,000 dollar bill, and it’s currently worth just under 4 U.S. dollars at the black market exchange rate. It’s difficult to imagine how people manage to survive when a banana today costs 15 times what a four bedroom house did 7 years ago. Many rely on foreign remittances, but there are also local solutions, many of which are led by young people.
As Thandazile Mpofu discusses in “In Spite of the Odds: Young Entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe” – an honorable mention winner in CIPE’s 2007 Youth Essay Competition – many young people in Zimbabwe see...
Can information and communication technologies (ICT) foster critical and entrepreneurial thinking at the bottom of the pyramid? This was one of the key themes that emerged from the GK3 conference last month.
Take for example the One Laptop for Child initiative. Interestingly, the debate did not center around the long-term sustainability of the project, but whether it can help move education systems in emerging markets away from the hierarchical, rule-memorizing approach.
Once you start seeing users of ICT in developing countries as creative contributors, a whole new world of opportunities emerges. Backed by InfoDev, the Equinox project allows teachers, trainers and companies in emerging markets to build and share e-learning curricula. The Locus Project, that targets marginalized...
Earlier this week IBM and Nokia let go of 31 "eco-patents" and released them to the public. By doing so, the technology giants hope to tap into the wisdom of the crowds. This very web 2.0 move is a sign of their recognition that when it comes to complex issues, such as spurring innovation or identify new business opportunities in the area of clean technologies, the best knowledge may well reside outside their organizational boundaries.
Also recently McKinsey added its voice to the choir of the wikinomics prophets and included "distributing cocreation" and "using consumers as innovators" among the eight emerging trends to watch in business technology. The global consulting firm predicted that "in the US economy alone roughly 12 percent of all labor...