One World Youth Project …was founded in 2004 by then 18 year-old Jessica Rimington from Massachusetts, United States. She now attends Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington D.C. Her involvement in youth activism began when she was twelve and joined the Jane Goodall Institute’s global environmental and humanitarian program for youth, Roots & Shoots. In 2002 she was one of two U.S. students chosen to travel to South Africa to represent the Jane Goodall Institute and the U.S. at the Children’s Earth Summit (held in conjunction with the World Summit on Sustainable Development). As the Youth Correspondent for the Jane Goodall Institute she has also attended World Refugee Day where she interviewed UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, the Bioneers Conference in California, and the United Nation’s Peace Youth Summit. Jessica is a founding member of the Roots & Shoots Youth Leadership Council. And, in 2002, she founded a community organization called the Cape Youth Council on Sustainability, which now includes students from 11 different schools. Jessica was the recipient of the 2004 BRICK Award from Do Something as well as the Massachusetts Governor’s Points of Light Award. She is also a winner of the 2005 Brower Youth Awards and has spoken at various UN and activism events across the country.
Below is an excerpt from Jessica’s speech to the United Nations in New York City (August 2004) proposing the idea of One World Youth Project:
“I started to ask myself: how could we build a stronger global youth network? How could we better embody change? How could we facilitate cultural exchange? And, most importantly how could we sell this message, these actions, to the rest of the mainstream world effectively? And, I came up with an idea. And, because of this, I am standing before you at a crossroads in my life.
Up until 2 months ago I was fully intending to enroll in Georgetown University School of Foreign Service this fall where I was accepted. But, 2 months ago I was here at the UN, in a room similar to this one. It was filled with young people from all over the world. I was listening to everyone talk, and I realized what an amazing thing was happening. Young people from different cultures and countries were sitting next to each other, sharing ideas, coming up with new ideas, and building enthusiasm. Everyone was excited for the future. And it made me hopeful… If we want widespread change to happen, we have to spread this hope, and include others in the movement.
So, on my train ride home from New York two months ago I started to try to think of how this could be done. And I came up with an idea…an idea that has made me decide to delay my University education for one year…and to wait to attend Georgetown until fall 2005. It is called One World Youth Project. One World Youth Project is a pilot educational program that will link schools across the world together in a cultural exchange and leadership-building project.
I think now, more than ever, cultural exchange is extremely important. If we want to effect change, if we want to build a better future, we must first understand each other.
As Dr. Jane Goodall says, “Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, will we help. And, only if we help, shall all be saved.”
As young people we are not just the future. We are the present as well. We are the right here and right now! And, if we want to change the world, we have to not only take action ourselves but also inspire others to do the same.” [Emphasis added]
Millennium Development Goals
(UN Millennium Declaration Development Goals – 2015 Deadline)
“The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) summarize the objectives agreed upon at the 1990s international conferences and world summits. In September 2000, world leaders distilled the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration and from that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) worked to write a concise set of eight goals that the United Nations hopes to achieve by 2015.”
Mr. Ban says in the report. Falling short of the Goals “would be an unacceptable failure, moral and practical.” [Emphasis added] — Read the Secretary-General’s report
“…With less than a decade before the UN MDGs are supposed to be achieved, we at One World Youth Project believe it is very important to inspire youth to take positive action toward these goals.
We provide a year’s worth of free curriculum on each MDG to teachers and group leaders participating in One World Youth Project. This curriculum can also be accessed on our website free of cost.
Each Project Pair in our program is assigned a focus MDG in September. Project Pairs explore their MDG through curriculum, communication online and by letter, and ultimately take positive action on their assigned UN Millennium Development Goal through a collaborative community service project.”
 Click here for a examples of One World Youth Project service work Mongolian students clean up a hillside
Click here for the Declaration book written by participants for OWYP’s MDG Awareness Day! |
Source : http://www.oneworldyouthproject.org/millennium.html
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One World Youth Project
Millennium Development Goal resources
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| Educator’s Guide to the Millennium Development GoalsA collaboration between One World Youth Project and Taking IT Global | A Guide to MDG ActionA collaboration between One World Youth Project and Youth Service Americ |
Source: http://www.oneworldyouthproject.org/millennium.html
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News
Reuters|
24 July 2010 19:32
India develops world’s cheapest “laptop” at $35
The touchscreen gadget is packed with Internet browsers, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities.
India has come up with the world’s cheapest “laptop,” a touch-screen computing device that costs $35.
India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.
“We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything,” he told a news conference.
He said the touchscreen gadget was packed with Internet browsers, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient flexibility to incorporate new components according to user requirement.
Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to $20 and ultimately to $10.
The device was developed by research teams at India’s premier technological institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science.
India spends about three percent of its annual budget on school education and has improved its literacy rates to over 64 percent of its 1.2 billion population but studies have shown many students can barely read or write and most state-run schools have inadequate facilities. [Emphasis added]
source: http://www.moneyweb.com/mw/view/mw/en/page295022?oid=311634&sn=2009+Detail&pid=287226
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One Laptop per Child
Welcome: $35 tablet for education
July 29, 2010 at 6:53 am
Last week, India’s Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal spoke of the possibilities for a $35 tablet for Indian students. In response, Nicholas published the open letter below in the Times of India. You can read it also in Hindi, Spanish, French, and German.
One Laptop per Child applauds Minister Kapil Sibal for promoting a $35 tablet. Education is the primary solution to eliminating poverty, saving the environment and creating world peace. Access to a connected laptop or tablet is the fastest way to enable universal learning. We agree with you completely.
Please consider this open letter OLPC’s pledge to provide India with free and open access to all of our technology, and our experience with 2 million laptops, in over 40 countries, in over 25 languages. As a humanitarian and charitable organization, we do not compete. We collaborate, and invite you to do so, too.
In the meantime, let me offer the following six suggestions
1. Focus on children 6 to 12 years old. They are your nation’s most precious natural resource. For primary school children, the tablet is not about computing or school, it is about hope. It makes passion the primary tool for learning.
2. Your tablet should be the death of rote learning, not the tool of it. A creative society is built not on memorizing facts, but by learning learning itself. Drill and practice is a mechanism of the industrial age, when repetition and uniformity were systemic. The digital age is one of personalization, collaboration and appropriation. OLPC’s approach to learning is called constructionism. We hope you adopt it too.
3. Tablets are indeed the future. OLPC announced its own eight months ago. However, caution is needed with regard to one aspect of tablets: learning is not media consumption. It is about making things. The iPad is a consumptive tool by design. OLPC urges that you not make this mistake.
4. Hardware is simple. Less obvious is ruggedness, sunlight readability and low power. We use solar power because our laptop is by far the lowest power laptop on the planet. But do not overlook human power – hand cranking and other things that kids can do at night or when it rains. Just solar would be a mistake. Rugged means water resistant and droppable from 10 feet onto a stone floor.
5. Software is harder. Linux is obvious, but whatever you do, do not make it a special purpose device with only a handful of functions. It must be a general purpose computer upon which the whole world can build software, invent applications and do programming. We know that when children program they come the closest to thinking about thinking. When they debug, they are learning about learning. This is key.
6. More than anything, of all the unsolicited advice I have to offer, the most important and most likely to be overlooked is good industrial design. Make an inexpensive tablet, not a cheap one. Make it desirable, lovable and fun to own. Take a page from Apple on this, maybe from OLPC too. Throw the best design teams in India behind it.
India is so big that you risk being satisfied with your internal market. Don’t. The world needs your device and leadership. Your tablet is not an “answer” or “competitor” to OLPC’s XO laptop. It is a member of a family dedicated to creating peace and prosperity through the transformation of education. In closing, I repeat my offer: full access to all of our technology, cost free. I urge you to send a team to MIT and OLPC at your earliest convenience so we can share our results with you. [Emphasis added]
Nicholas Negroponte
Founder and Chairman
One Laptop per Child Foundation
Cambridge, Massachusetts
USA
http://blog.laptop.org/2010/07/29/welcoming-indias-tablet/
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CBC News
India unveils $35 computer
Tablet uses memory card, open-source software
Last Updated: Friday, July 23, 2010 | 11:33 AM ET
It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 US basic touchscreen tablet computer aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production in early 2011.
If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of “world’s cheapest” innovations out of India, home to the $2,100 Nano car, a $16 water purifier and $2,000 open-heart surgery.
India’s human resource development minister Kapil Sibal displays a low-cost $35 US tablet at its launch in New Delhi. (Associated Press)
The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video conferencing. It has a solar power option — important for India’s energy-starved hinterlands — though that costs extra.
“This is our answer to MIT’s $100 computer,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times as he unveiled the device Thursday.
In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on an effort to develop a cheaper option.
Negroponte’s laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his non-profit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99.
Sibal, meanwhile, turned to students and professors at India’s elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a “lukewarm” response from private-sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.
Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said falling hardware costs and intelligent design make the price tag plausible. The tablet doesn’t have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, she said, and the use of open-source software adds to savings. [Emphasis added]
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/23/india-computer-cheap.html#ixzz0wHm4Fk14
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/23/india-computer-cheap.html
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/23/india-computer-cheap.html#ixzz0wPK0sVOr
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ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT
ONE WORLD ECONOMY
ONE WORLD RELIGION
ONE WORLD EDUCATION
The youth will be the NWO’s biggest target as they are the new generation.
This is an interesting (and disturbing) read. Did you happen to notice that a 13 year-old boy from the US is traveling to North Korea to speak with government officials about designing a “peace forest” in the demilitarized zone? He is being accompanied by his parents! Obviously the parents have completely dropped the ball, having sold him out to the NWO change agents. What parent in their right mind would allow/encourage their child to go to North Korea to give a lecture on peace? Liberals! They think everyone is basically good and if we could just reason with these radicals, they would see the light and convert! Right! We all know there will be NO peace aside from Christ…But this little boy is the epitome of a UN change agent from the next generation. Be afraid, be very afraid! Maranatha! I think I had better go blog about this- it makes me angry!
Okay, I’m done venting…for today! http://www.mom4truth.com/the-united-nations-ib-global-peace-and-the-children/
mom4truth
That was fast… how many hands do you have there? some spare fingers to borrow me?
Big Brother spying on school kids – how big could this thing be?
Article causing a great deal of concern at its implications from this link
“Lawsuit: Lower Merion spied on student through district-provided webcam.
The Lower Merion School District spied on a student in his home, using the webcam in his school-supplied laptop, a federal lawsuit alleges.
The parents of Blake Robbins, a Harriton High student from Penn Valley, claimed the school never warned parents that the webcam in the Macintosh computer could be turned on remotely by school administrators. The laptops were issued to all Harriton students.
Two Harriton students reached today said they were shocked to learn of the allegations. Both said they leave the laptop on in their room most of the time. They said it would have been running when they were changing clothes or returning from the shower. They said they intended to cover the camera’s lens from now on.
The suit says the parents only found out about the remotely activated webcam when an assistant principal told them last November about something their son had allegedly done inside their home, and then produced a photo taken by the computer built-in camera.
In a statement, the district said the web cams are used only as a security feature, when a laptop is believed lost or stolen. On Thursday night, Superintendent Christopher W. McGinley posted a letter on its Web site explaining its use of the web cams. Following is an excerpt:
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:
Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy; including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.”
A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.
Apple began routinely putting webcams in its laptops in 2006. Every Macbook now has an integrated webcam. Webcams are stock equipment on most PC laptops as well.”
http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/big-brother-spying-on-school-kids-how-big-could-this-thing-be/
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* More teenagers embracing watered-down Christianity, author argues in new book
* Teenagers see God as “divine therapist,” author says
* Teenager: “They don’t want to make sacrifices”
* Who’s responsible for inspiring teens? Parents and pastors are, author says
Author: More teens becoming ‘fake’ Christians
By John Blake, CNN
August 27, 2010
(CNN) — If you’re the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning:
Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.
Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.
Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of “Almost Christian,” a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.
She says this “imposter” faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.
“If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,” Dean says. “Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.”
What traits passionate teens share
Dean drew her conclusions from what she calls one of the most depressing summers of her life. She interviewed teens about their faith after helping conduct research for a controversial study called the National Study of Youth and Religion.
The study, which included in-depth interviews with at least 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, found that most American teens who called themselves Christian were indifferent and inarticulate about their faith.
The study included Christians of all stripes — from Catholics to Protestants of both conservative and liberal denominations. Though three out of four American teenagers claim to be Christian, fewer than half practice their faith, only half deem it important, and most can’t talk coherently about their beliefs, the study found.
Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good — what the study’s researchers called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
Some critics told Dean that most teenagers can’t talk coherently about any deep subject, but Dean says abundant research shows that’s not true.
“They have a lot to say,” Dean says. “They can talk about money, sex and their family relationships with nuance. Most people who work with teenagers know that they are not naturally inarticulate.”
In “Almost Christian,” Dean talks to the teens who are articulate about their faith. Most come from Mormon and evangelical churches, which tend to do a better job of instilling religious passion in teens, she says.
No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.
“There are countless studies that show that religious teenagers do better in school, have better relationships with their parents and engage in less high-risk behavior,” she says. “They do a lot of things that parents pray for.”
Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their children’s faith, places the ultimate blame for teens’ religious apathy on adults.
Some adults don’t expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.
Others practice a “gospel of niceness,” where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says.
“If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation,” wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary.
More teens may be drifting away from conventional Christianity. But their desire to help others has not diminished, another author says.
Barbara A. Lewis, author of “The Teen Guide to Global Action,” says Dean is right — more teens are embracing a nebulous belief in God.
Yet there’s been an “explosion” in youth service since 1995 that Lewis attributes to more schools emphasizing community service.
Teens that are less religious aren’t automatically less compassionate, she says.
“I see an increase in youth passion to make the world a better place,” she says. “I see young people reaching out to solve problems. They’re not waiting for adults.”
What religious teens say about their peers
Elizabeth Corrie meets some of these idealistic teens every summer. She has taken on the book’s central challenge: instilling religious passion in teens.
Corrie, who once taught high school religion, now directs a program called YTI — the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University in Georgia.
YTI operates like a theological boot camp for teens. At least 36 rising high school juniors and seniors from across the country gather for three weeks of Christian training. They worship together, take pilgrimages to varying religious communities and participate in community projects.
Corrie says she sees no shortage of teenagers who want to be inspired and make the world better. But the Christianity some are taught doesn’t inspire them “to change anything that’s broken in the world.”
Teens want to be challenged; they want their tough questions taken on, she says.
“We think that they want cake, but they actually want steak and potatoes, and we keep giving them cake,” Corrie says.
David Wheaton, an Atlanta high school senior, says many of his peers aren’t excited about Christianity because they don’t see the payoff.
“If they can’t see benefits immediately, they stay away from it,” Wheaton says. “They don’t want to make sacrifices.”
How ‘radical’ parents instill religious passion in their children
Churches, not just parents, share some of the blame for teens’ religious apathy as well, says Corrie, the Emory professor.
She says pastors often preach a safe message that can bring in the largest number of congregants. The result: more people and yawning in the pews.
“If your church can’t survive without a certain number of members pledging, you might not want to preach a message that might make people mad,” Corrie says. “We can all agree that we should all be good and that God rewards those who are nice.”
Corrie, echoing the author of “Almost Christian,” says the gospel of niceness can’t teach teens how to confront tragedy.
“It can’t bear the weight of deeper questions: Why are my parents getting a divorce? Why did my best friend commit suicide? Why, in this economy, can’t I get the good job I was promised if I was a good kid?”
What can a parent do then?
Get “radical,” Dean says.
She says parents who perform one act of radical faith in front of their children convey more than a multitude of sermons and mission trips.
A parent’s radical act of faith could involve something as simple as spending a summer in Bolivia working on an agricultural renewal project or turning down a more lucrative job offer to stay at a struggling church, Dean says.
But it’s not enough to be radical — parents must explain “this is how Christians live,” she says.
“If you don’t say you’re doing it because of your faith, kids are going to say my parents are really nice people,” Dean says. “It doesn’t register that faith is supposed to make you live differently unless parents help their kids connect the dots.”
‘They called when all the cards stopped’
Anne Havard, an Atlanta teenager, might be considered radical. She’s a teen whose faith appears to be on fire.
Havard, who participated in the Emory program, bubbles over with energy when she talks about possibly teaching theology in the future and quotes heavy-duty scholars such as theologian Karl Barth.
She’s so fired up about her faith that after one question, Havard goes on a five-minute tear before stopping and chuckling: “Sorry, I just talked a long time.”
Havard says her faith has been nurtured by what Dean, the “Almost Christian” author, would call a significant faith community.
In 2006, Havard lost her father to a rare form of cancer. Then she lost one of her best friends — a young woman in the prime of life — to cancer as well. Her church and her pastor stepped in, she says.
“They called when all the cards stopped,” she says.
When asked how her faith held up after losing her father and friend, Havard didn’t fumble for words like some of the teens in “Almost Christian.”
She says God spoke the most to her when she felt alone — as Jesus must have felt on the cross.
“When Jesus was on the cross crying out, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus was part of God,” she says. “Then God knows what it means to doubt.
“It’s OK to be in a storm, to be in a doubt,” she says, “because God was there, too.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/index.html#fbid=OuG635KUzwI&wom=false