INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS MEETING: AN EXPERIENCE OF BRAZILIAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION SYSTEM, BRASILIA, BRAZIL, SOUTH AMERICA

The Brazilian Ministry of Education organized an International Observers Meeting in conjunction with their national children and youth conference dubbed as “Let's Take Care of the Brazil” last April 3-8, 2009, which was held in Brasilia, Brazil.

It was held in order for them to get an overview on how to work with people around the world as Brazil will be hosting the International Children and Youth Conference on June 2009 where children and youth from all regions in the world will be invited to join. The upcoming international conference's theme next year will be “Let's Take Care of the Planet.”

I was one of the invited youth from Asia and the Pacific region to join the observers meeting in Brazil. The conference focused on the urgent topic to deal with, which is the issue of climate change, with some open perspective on how the Brazilian government, in its effort to address climate change, deal with children and youth in confronting the social environmental global changes.

The conference was in partnership with the Decade of Education for the Sustainable Development of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Education (UNESCO), one of the United Nation divisions that works with education, and Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for Human Progress.

Some of the invited participants for the conference were representatives of the Ministries of Education from different countries all over the world. The idea of holding this kind of observers meeting was to improve the international conference preparatory process as the Ministry of Eduation in Brazil wanted to experience how is it like working with diverse of people in one place.

We, the conferece participants, shared an open methodology on how to hold national conferences and international conferences in our countries and organizations. Aside from that, we drafted the international rules and regulations for national conferences and open conferencs, which will be adopted by the ministries of education by different countries after the Brazilian government will introduce the same to the heads of the ministries of education in different countries.

According to Rachel Trajber, the coordinator of the Environmental Education of the Ministry of Education of Brazil, she said that the meeting was a great opportunity for them as environmental educators and youth movements coordinators to improve their dialogues and knowledge within their local communities, building a web of care and protection where one generation learns with the other new ways and actions to reach the sustainability of life in our fragile planet.

Indeed, that was a great experience because aside from learning how Brazilian government works toward reversing the loss of our environment as well as adapting and mitigating climate change and how they deal with young people, I also learn how passionate Brazilian people are toward the international call for action to combat climate change.

While observing how the Ministry of Education of Brazil held a national conference, we, the international team also were given to chance to deal with children and youth and deliver to them our experiences regarding environmental education. It was a great experience because they were all listening to what we said eventhough it took long time for them to understand what we were saying
as most of them only speak Portuguese, and there was still a need to do some English translation. The communication barrier did not really affect the progress of learning process during the conference. After all, we all came there with knowledge with us already regarding what we were talking, and that is about issues sorrounding our planet. For feed backs, email me at marcellones_jl2003@yahoo.com.