YPD 2008
Young People for Development 2008
and
Green World Youth Day
Melbourne, Bendigo, Bright, Canberra and Sydney, Australia
5 – 20 July 2008
YPD 2008 was organised in conjunction with a Green World Youth Day program held in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
We focused on Water for Life because it is such a key issue for environment and sustainable development in the world today.
As the world’s driest continent Australia faces many water challenges – the recent long drought has made people even more aware of the importance of water as an issue.
In Bangladesh, arsenic in wells is a problem creating health problems for millions of people. In Sudan, conflict over resources has been blamed as a cause for the Darfur tragedy. In the Mekong river region of Asia, water is also a vital concern. For all these reasons, the United Nations have declared an International decade for action on “Water for Life”.
Water also has a powerful dimension that is present in all the world’s major religions as a symbol of life, of cleansing, or renewal.
It is a great theme on which we can an need to develop concerted action with young people from around the globe.
The objectives were:
- To bring together young people from different countries, cultures and faiths to get to know one another and to share their experiences of life and the world
- To raise awareness of environment and development, particularly in water issues facing the world
- To create a forum in which young people can share their ideas about development
- To built international partnerships between young people
- To identify small-scale actions for individuals and groups to take up once they go home.