the mass dialogues 2009

You are invited to participate in the mass dialogues 2009 - a web-based global youth outreach initiative delivered LIVE from the COP15 climate negotiations.

Through  the mass dialogues 2009, we will create a series of web-based meetings to connect youth participants in the Copenhagen negotiations and online participants from around the world. This will be a truly global project. Last week, I announced the project through a couple of English-language list serves, and in just 48 hours, we received positive responses from young people from 20 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and all across Africa. This builds on the more than 20 French-speaking countries who have been organizing for the project over the last month. (our French world partner is a bit further ahead on organizing!)

This is a powerful way to share youth perspectives on what's happening at the negotiations, and to extend the learning and inspiration from the youth experience at the negotiations to groups of young people around the world.

The project is being initiated by Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and 2degreesC, and builds on the respective efforts of each organization in similar web-based outreach last year from the Poznan climate negotiations. Together, the two organizations did 15 web-based events from the Poznan negotiations. They were completed in 7 different languages, and to participants in at least 20 countries.

With this year's effort, we are hoping to directly engage at least 5,000 young people (and hopefully many, many more - see note * below) from 30+ countries in dialogues with youth participants and other experts at the Copenhagen climate negotiations.

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Note * One of the respondents to last week's announcement is from the Indian Youth Climate Network. Her words:
We have the capacity and plan to engage far more than 5,000 youth in India alone through these discussions at universities and other public spaces in India! Your technical support would allow us to reach these goals, too.
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For more info on the project, please see the attached in english.

We are looking for all sorts of partners on the project:
1. funding partners (still seeking ~US$20,000 cash)
2. outreach partners to promote the project to youth/educational networks around the world
3. event organizing partners to convene youth participants in 30+ countries around the world - e.g. principals and teachers, youth organizers, or others who can organize a group of young people to participate in the online events
4. event participants (in Copenhagen)

Assuming we are successful in fundraising for the project, there will be no cost to participate. Participants will need only access to a high speed internet connection with audio capability. If you have a microphone and video camera, you will be able to be two-way interactive; otherwise you will only be able to listen and see.

If we are not successful in fundraising, we will explore a very affordable (e.g. maybe ~$100) participation fee for schools and other groups that can afford it. We will cross that bridge only if need be.

We are still to work out the details, but we are likely to have ~5-7 english language events during the course of the COP15 negotiations (Dec 7-18). The events will be between 60-90 minutes in length. Since Copenhagen is in the 6 hours ahead of Toronto, we will almost certainly be looking at morning sessions in North America, with the possibly a few early afternoon sessions. We will be recording the sessions and making the recordings freely available. They may also make a useful resource.

If interested in participating in any capacity, please contact me or Moussa Sinon from La Francophonie ASAP.
    (English)  David Noble | noble@2degreesC.com or +1 519 341 1720
    (francais)  Moussa Sinon | Moussa.Sinon@gnb.ca or +1 506 856-7664

In the event you might consider a funding contribution, please contact us ASAP, as we need to finalize the scope of the project in the next week or so. As it stands, we have funding committed for delivering the project at a more limited scale. With more support, we will be able to deliver more online events in more languages, and provide more support to event organizers in countries around the world. This will increase participation overall and increase the quality of the online experiences.

Whatever you decide regarding your own participation, please consider forwarding this invitation on to your colleagues. The Copenhagen negotiations will be a truly historic occasion (hopefully a positive one!). Young people all over will appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it.

Many thanks and very best wishes to you all!

WHY mass?

Thomas Paine famously wrote that there exists in humankind a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. Despite the growing engagement on climate change amongst some segments of society, on the whole, this mass of sense remains conspicuously dormant. Youth from all around the world are assuming the essential responsibility to awaken this mass – to build a movement of young people on climate change that will offer an incredible mass of effective youth action that will help drive social change. This will be an essential contribution to the wider global collective effort to resolve the climate crisis.

We were drawn to Thomas Paine’s quote by our friend Peter MacLeod and his team at MASS LBP, whose incredible innovative work on public consultation is inspired by Paine.

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David Noble
Principal, 2degreesC