The international peace movement for future met on the weekend of the global actions of Fridays for Future and the UN’s international day of peace to debate the transformation of our society towards peace, sustainability and justice.
The Youth Network is now publishing the recommendations participants developed and the photos taken at the conference. Just follow the link!
More than 100 participants from 28 countries – mainly university students – joined in the conference “Transform! #ChangeTheRules – Just transitions towards peace, social justice and environmental sustainability” of IPB, the IPB Youth Network and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) with support of ILO ACTRAV, DFG-VK, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung to exchange experience, knowledge and perspectives on paths towards a better future. The program included speakers from a diverse set of backgrounds – young and old, Global North and Global South, academics and practitioners, and men and women – and gave extensive room to non-formal education and building connections. Results – ideas for concrete steps towards transformation, identification of obstacles, visions to be reached – from the non-formal education sessions were written down and discussed in the final plenary.
Under the impression of and in solidarity with the massive protest actions on Friday, the Summit started with a public event on Friday featuring scholars on the Summit’s three themes of peace, sustainability and justice that analysed the urgency of quick and deep changes to our society. The main message – we urgently and extensively need to change on structural and individual levels – was discussed from the themes’ perspectives. Military was identified as a key player for environmental damage and injustices. On Saturday, the non-formal education sessions started in the morning and brought together the participants from diverse backgrounds in small groups to exchange, come up with ideas, and start developing recommendations. Afterwards, the topics of the Summit were deepened in thematic panels and subsequent working groups. On Sunday, both the non-formal education sessions as well as the final plenary discussed “what to do” by focusing on the recommendations developed in the morning non-formal education sessions.
Having started an IPB Youth Network in 2016, the aim of the congress was to bring together young people and engage them in the network. Young people of several member organizations of IPB were present at the congress and many new ones joined us for the weekend. We are certain that the Summit rejuvenated the IPB Youth Network’s drive to work more intensively with young people and sparked discussions on actions and activities around the NPT Review Conference 2020 and other events. We ask everybody to engage in the IPB Youth Network and to extend this invitation to peers or interested persons.