The Tunza International Children and Youth Conference kicked off with a roar on Monday 17 August with 550 children from 110 countries around the world. The Opening Plenary saw the participants welcomed by Daejeon Mayor Park Seoung-Hyo, Dr Kim Jae Bum, the Secretary-General of the UNEP National Committee for Korea, and Dirk Frenzel representing global sponsor Bayer AG.
The first plenary session, which was on Climate Change and Children, saw several young participants present their original, bold and creative projects, including Cassandra Lin’s project to ‘TGIF’ (‘Turn Grease Into Fuel’) in Rhode Island (USA), Eleanor Sutcliffe’s beach clean-up initiative in Wales (UK) and a group of Korean children who make soap from waste oil.
Tunza Junior Board members also spoke out: Francesco Govender updated the participants on the Tunza African Regional Children’s Conference which took place on 7-10 August in Durban, and Yugratna Srivastava gave a rousing speech which ended with her call: “If not now, then when? If not us, then who?”
The children participants will be joined on 20 August by 250 youth aged 15-24. During the weeklong conference – the biggest-ever youth gathering on climate change – the 800 participants will agree on their message to world leaders on climate change just a few months before the key Copenhagen meeting.
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