Voices of Youth

This morning I caught sight of some headlines on a television about a proposed move by the Mayor of New York City to ban Styrofoam take-away containers in the city because they are impossible to recycle.

I do not want to dwell too much on this particular story as it is still developing; and the point I want to make is more about the ‘cost’ of convenience in our lives. Now, this is a very complex topic and there is much to be said about consumerist culture; the global economy and the actual environmental cost of certain products etc.; but I would like to focus on the individual and the choices we make in our lives and to ask you…

Everyday, in more than 30 conflicts worldwide, from Sierra Lione, Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Burma, and etc, more than 300.000 child soldiers (both boys and girls) are witnessing and undergo a very horrible situation, which is war. They have to face brutality within their own pair of eyes that will hurt them emotionally and brings a huge threat to their existence. They're just children or teenagers like us, but they have to experience a very different stories than the rest of us. When we usually get up from bed to go to school, they go to war. When we usually meet history, math, or english at class, they meet their enemy that they have to shoot or kill. And they don't…

When I first joined Twitter at the end of 2009 I didn’t really get the appeal, especially after the novelty of knowing my favourite musicians’ habits wore off and it seemed impossible to keep up with the pace. During 2010 I went back-and-forth in my relationships with Twitter, un-following the people I thought would have added value, and organically coming across new people who it seemed were interested in the same things I was, and were having engaging and intelligent discussions about them.

Over the past two years it is through these people on Twitter that I believe I have become a better person. They are not famous – at least not in the traditional sense; most of them are…

During my participation in the COP-16 (Mexico, 2010) I found the publication "The Little Climate Finance Book", that has been produced by the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), in collaboration with: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES) and Australian National University (ANU).

The first time I read it, I found it very interesting because the managing of all information in relation with financing options for forests and climate change worldwide, is very well oriented to some studies analysis in developed and developing countries.

In this article, I want to share some reflections about forests and climate change and almost of all, options for REDD+.

According to the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, "the…

In order to make indigenous adolescents knowledgeable on issues important to them and to support their active participation in decision-making processes to secure their rights, UNICEF has – in collaboration with the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus – developed an adolescent-friendly version of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that targets 13- to 18-year-old children.

The adoption of UNDRIP in 2007 was the result and highlight of many years of work, and for indigenous peoples – numbering more than 370 million in some 90 countries around the world, the Declaration is an expression of their rights and place in the global community. It is…