Wednesday At The Ccf

Climate youth 2 youth

The children are exchanging ideas about ’floatings chools’.  

re a t a h w ... doing t he y

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■ »Some of the people who have been here have been wearing shoes made of fabrics. Among others, people from Nepal and Kiribati have stopped by to pick up warm clothes,« Mette Post Riggelsen from the secretariat of The Children’s Climate Forum tells us. All participants have been offered warm winter clothes to withstand the cold Danish winter weather. »We have received 150 jackets and 80 pairs of boots,« she says, and in the corner behind her rises a big pile of boots donated by Ecco. ■ Throughout his week the citizens of Copenhagen can offer their right hand for a better climate. At the town hall there is an exhibition featuring a globe that is supposed to be covered with paper model of hands from people visiting the town hall. »The first few days lots of people have already attended the exhibition offering their hands to the project,« says the promoter of the exhibition AnneMarie Fiig and continues: »The message of the exhibition is that if we all lend a hand, the climate burden will be easier to bare for the individual.« ■ »We need to make the distance between harvest and sale more environmental«. That’s the message of Frank Mulwa, 16, Malawi, one of the delegates, who is placed at one of the stands in the main hall. He shows the other youth delegates how to reduce CO2-emission, by using renewable energy for transportation. This is shown on drawings made by Frank and some of his friends from the Children’s Climate Forum.



Photo: nikolai

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The future schools will be floating At Billedskolen in Copenhagen students from the Maldives and Denmark all came together to exchange ideas for alternative schools for the future. By Hannah Persson, Søren Ydemark, Frederik Majlergaard, Pernille Matz, Naja Bendorff, Katrine Guldhammer and Mikkel Dohn.

■ Aishath Shifaana, a 14-year-old girl from the Maldives is looking very sincere when saying this. Aishath Shifaana is sitting with three other delegates from the Maldives who have all come in the event of the Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark. Aishath Shifaanaand and her fellow delegates are at Billedskolen, a school for visual art in Copenhagen exchanging ideas with Danish students about ’floating schools’, an initiative made to bring the children together. »We are very exposed to future climate

changes, because of our low water levels, so it is important for us to bring forth some of our ideas,« says 15 years old Mohamed Axam Maumoon. The young ambassadors for the Maldives are hoping that the ideas of’floating schools’ can be a part of saving their future education.

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it’s like working with my best friends. mohamedaxam maumoon

Climate scientists have foreseen that the water level will rise about 59 centimeters before the year 2100 and thereby flood a massive part of the 1.200 corals in the Indian ocean. The students are working with materials like old bike wheels and tassel. The work is going just as fluently as the future schools. »It’s like working with my best friends,

it’s like we already know each other. Children can have really good ideas and we know what the schools need,« says Mohamed while looking back at his new friends. »Mohamed is the clever one,« says 14year-old Mike Zangenberg. Mike claims that Mohamed is the expert among them when speaking about the climate, but unlike Mohamed Mike thinks it should be the grown-ups doing the work, because of the huge importance of the subject. It isn’t long before the boys are back at work, cutting, gluing and building. There is no time wasted and here they are taking actionimmediately. At the girls’ workshop, things are a bit slower though. Things are being thought of for longer before cutting, and gluing. At the girls’ table the situation at the Maldives are not being taken quite as seriously. »If it all goes wrong, they can just come and live here,« suggests a Danish student. [email protected]

What do you do to reduce the effects of the climate changes?



Photos: Ricardo Pires

youth journalists cover children’s climate forum In the week prior to the COP15, 164 teenagers from 44 countries are participating in their own climate forum at Copenhagen City Hall, hoping to influence the decisions of the world leaders. But adults are prohibited. The Danish newspaper Urban has made an alliance with youth journalists from Oerestad Gymnasium to join the fight in giving the children a voice in the international climate debate. This wallpaper has been made possible through the partnerships of Urban, the City of Copenhagen, UNiCEF Denmark and Oerestad Gymnasium. Sanne Nyland Christensen, [email protected]

Lorenzo Monteforte, 17 years old, Italy

Vanessa Njovu, 17 years old, Zambia

Graeme McGhee, 14 years old, UK

»Myself, at home, I take off the charger of the phone when it’s done charging, switch off the lights, and turn off the water while brushing my teeth. I think that you have to increase the youth’s knowledge by using the media. I also think that you have to inform in the schools about the climate problems, so they know what to do to prevent the big problem. You have to start by taking little actions to solve the big problem.«

»My family and I have stopped using fuel for cooking and liquid gas. Instead we create flammable things such as trees, plants and other environmentally correct energy sources which is relatively CO2-neutral. Once there was no place to put all the garbage, so it was everywhere in the streets. Now we have a specific place where we can throw our garbage and where the government gets rid of it and sorts it.«

»I turn off the light, and recycle. My country passed a law that says we have to reduce the carbon by 43% in the next 11 years and getting rid of 80% of the carbon, by the year of 2050. We also donated 50 million pounds to the developing countries. I think it’s good that we do something about it, but it’s not enough.«