Global Youth Rework the World
How can challenges such as poverty, youth unemployment and lack of social cohesion be turned into an opportunity for addressing environmental degradation and climate change? An answer was spelled out at the 5th Global YES Summit – Rework the World, which took place in Leksand in Sweden from 2-6 June 2010: Through youth-led social entrepreneurship for sustainability.
The Summit was organized as a joint effort by the Tällberg Foundation and the Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign, and brought together 1700 participants from around the globe from different sectors of society. Young entrepreneurs and project managers met with business leaders, scientists, professors, artists, local politicians, and global policy makers.
More than 130 successful projects from around the world were showcased in the summit as stories of inspiration for sustainable income-generating practices. All participants created their own conference programme by choosing between hundreds of parallell workshops, trainings and rethink sessions. A policy dialogue was held during the Summit, with the purpose to formulate the policy implications raised by the main challenge of the summit: how to take emerging initiatives into transformative forces of large scale change. A concrete policy recommendation was to launch a global fund to support youth entrepreneurship for sustainability.
Young entrepreneurs are already engaged in sustainability efforts from using new technology to create inexpensive solar-powered refrigerators, to making biodegradable toilet bags for sanitation and fertilizer solutions, creating new clothes and new jobs out of used quality textiles, and using sport and arts to inspire young people to become agents of change for a more sustainable world. Many participants returned home from the summit with new ideas for sustainable entrepreneurial projects to be implemented in their local communities. It’s time to rework the world!
A final report from the 5th Global YES Summit – Rework the World will be published on 25 August on the website.
Contribution by Sara Svensson, UNEP Major Groups Facilitating Committee, Global Representative for Children & Youth
