Youth for Eco-Justice Day 12

Today some friends and I left our lodgings early and headed to the Victoria markets to finish shopping for family and friends. We had heard that the markets could be a little dodgy so I was a bit wary, but we were early enough that there were few people there and it was lovely and cheap compared to other places. I had fun picking out a bunch of presents made from the beautiful beadwork and phone wire sculpting that they do in this area.

Then we headed down to the beach for 'Africa Roars'. This was a protest involving hundreds of school children making the shape of a roaring lion on the beach to protest the lack of action on Climate Change. A nice idea. In practice though, I soon had some qualms.

Durban gets hot. Really hot. Those poor kids had to sit on burning sand (it was making me yelp every time I had to walk somewhere) in the sun for something like 3 hours without enough water and apparently many hadn't eaten yet. My friends and I were taking refuge in the shade of what seemed to be an empty tent when suddenly fainting children started flooding in and we realised it was a medical tent. We hastily exited, watching the medic shake his head in frustration.

It made me really angry. These poor kids had to suffer (they kept being begged to be brave, but they are children, they shouldn't have to be brave!) because the stupid adults a few kms away in the big, fancy, airconditioned buildings didn't have the guts to do what needs to be done. I don't know what to feel but disgust.

PS. It does look really cool though doesn't it?

Day 11: Me explaining my new project (Churches for Conservation) to Njideka (26, Nigeria) and Tamar (24, Georgia)

Photo by Wolfgang Noack

Read about the Youth For Eco-Justice program from the perspective of Langa Lulanga (27, Malawi)

See:
http://yendizo.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/youth-for-eco-justice-in-durban/

Youth for Eco-Justice Day 11

Today we began to plan our projects for when we return home. We talked about goal setting and drafting our project plan.

Y4EJ participant Claire Barrett-Lennard (25, Perth) tells Bishop Geoff Davies (Executive Director of the South African Faith Communities' Environment Initiative) about the great work she does in Perth with the Anglican Eco-Care Commission

Photo by Wolfgang Noack

Kaitlin on Days 9 and 10

See:
http://kaitlinindurban.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/a-world-of-worship/

Youth for Eco-Justice Day 10

Today was the first of our 'immersion days' participating in the civil society events around COP17. So I headed to the Diakonia Centre with some friends for some events there.

The first event was a panel related to women and development. This was made exciting by the presence of Ghandi's granddaughter.

Notes:
- Many women are forced to marry men because they can't look after themselves (water drawing, keeping house etc.) so they force you girls to live with them.
- If women get sick or need help they encourage their husbands to take another woman - increased AIDs risk
- Ancient oak trees in Texas are collapsing from excessive heat.
- "After 2020 it won't matter anymore because we will all be burnt."


I snuck out of the meeting at 10:30 (getting within a metre of Ghandi's granddaughter who also had to leave to attend another event), and headed to another meeting hosted by the South African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI). Here I met Gleynis Goynes, one of the founding members of the group, and we had a wonderful chat about the organisation.

SAFCEI was launched in 2005 with a week long meeting of representatives from all the major faith groups in South Africa. They then formed a representative steering committee and had their first AGM. SAFCEI is driven by Bishop Geoff Davies and his wife Kate, who also heads up Eco-Congregation in South Africa and is doing a masters on environmental education in the faith structure. This program is based on the UK model but adapted to this context.

One challenge was that the poor illeterates in SA are often close to the earth byt they don't necessarily understand the significance of sustainable management. Eco-Congregation SA tried giving churches a handbook but found that most people couldn't read it and it gave a lot of power to whoever held the book, so instead they developed a poster for use by rural people which requires them to only read a sentance at a time maximum.

They have found that the grassroots work has not spread as well as they would like.

They have some urban clusters, each of which has grown around something that was contextually significant for them. For example the Jo'berg cluster is interested in consumerism.

They usually operate top down through advocacy and lobbying but next year plan to focus on bottom up and particularly Eco-Congregation which they want to spread from SA out into southern Africa.

They also have 14 Christian and Muslim Youth Ambassadors. These completed two training workshops and are working as volunteers to raise awareness in their local communities around COP17. They were also delegates to the negotiations and staff the SAFCEI stands.
This has been so successful they want to make the Youth Ambassadors a seperate permanent program.

I got to meet two of these ambassadors - Cindy from Durban and Patrick from a rural area. Cindy became interested in environmental issues when the community newsletter she was writing for asked her to do some articles about them and Patrick had been involved in environmental things since primary school and this was  a big part of his rural life. We discussed the difference between their two contexts, with urban congregations often having less youth and being less vibrant than their rural counterparts who are also more intrinsically involved in environmental issues.

There is a Muslim community in the Western Cape that is planting trees, recycling cooking oil and recycling waste.

We also discussed how a lot of indigenous knowledge has been lost in South Africa so it is necessary to learn what to plant where because Apartheid prevented the knowledge exchange that other African countries often had.


The final session I attended today related to why faith groups should get involved in negotiations like COP17.
Notes:
- Nations are currently challenged to defend self interest and think of the global good. Faiths are used to thinking about the global good.
- The Rio Declaration idea of sustainable development was developed by the Peace, Justice and Creation meeting in LA first.
- Otherwise the WCC doesn't have a lot to show for the last 30 years of engagement
- The majority of SA's 16 million Christians are impoverished.
- Conservative/prosperity/consumerist theology is creeping into faiths other than Christianity
- faith = librating the self from injust systems etc.
- Self interest is so powerful that the UN seems to be dying
- Indigenous and faith movements can join as moral movements for change
- Rio+20 is a blank slate we could use to bring about paradigm changes
- Rural people all know the effects of Climate Change, if not the science
- Faith communities have the opportunity to represent and mobilise faith communities because we are present in every town or village.
- Japan is the number 1 importer of ivory from endangered elephants in the Congo basin
- Lots of countries have good environmental legislation but they don't implement it.

This was a great day and I learned a lot.



To look up: Wangari Mathai, who won a nobel prize for environmental work in Kenya.

Day 9: Outside the Church

Photo by Wolfgang Noack

Kaitlin on Day 8

See:
http://kaitlinindurban.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/global-day-of-action-on-climate-change/

Youth for Eco-Justice Day 9

Today was Sunday, so we started the day by going to the local church of one of the South African members of our group. The singing was incredible - I wish I had understood more of the words. I was also intrigued to sit through an almost hour long lecture on HIV/AIDs and how to avoid it (the previous Thursday was World AIDs Day). I thought this was a nice example of how churches can be used to disseminate important information within their communities.

After lunch a smaller group of us went to the Botanic Gardens. We saw a host of animals and plants and I really enjoyed it. Stanislau even got chased by some monkeys when he got a bit too close. They also had these amazing little half fluro orange and half black finches I couldn't help wondering over and a display called the Beehive, which was a dome of recycled materials with plants inside and out - very cool.

Day 8: Photos from the Global Day of Action March

Photos by Wolfgang Noack

Read what Brian Konkol had to say about Youth for Eco-Justice after meeting us in Durban

See:
http://www.briankristenkonkol.blogspot.com/2011/12/youth-for-eco-justice-source-of-hope-at.html

Youth for Eco-Justice Day 8 : Global Day of Action March

Today's march was a pretty incredible experience. I have never been part of such a huge march, where even at high points you couldn't see anywhere near the end as we marched for k's through the city of Durban, past the ICC and to the beach. I also got to hold my first placard - pictures of an old lady and a younger man (one each side) with the text "Climate Change kills me". I also helped carry both the Youth for Eco-Justice and Polluters Pay banners at different points in the march.

One thing that made an impression on me was talking to a girl who came to help with our banner. She was from one of the African dictatorships and was quite excited to be protesting because if she tried the same at home she would be beaten up. This reminds me how lucky we are in Australia and makes me almost wish we had a bit more of a culture of protesting. For vitally important issues like Climate Change, perhaps we should all get off our couches a bit more often to show that we care.

Youth for Eco-Justice Day 7

Today we discussed theological and ethical perspectives on eco-nomy. Michael Schut, Environmental Officer for the Episcopal Church USA, was our guide.

We began by reviewing the Temptation of Jesus in the Desert (Matt 4: 1-10), and paring back the core of the three temptations to the following:
1. Turning stones to bread - the temptation to prove who you are by demonstrating your abilities.
2. Angels will bear you up - the temptation to prove who you are by how others react and respond to you.
3. All will be given to you - the temptation to prove who you are by what you have - your status, power and wealth.

As you can see, each of these temptations is part of the temptation to prove who we are, which is why the Devil taunts Jesus in each line by saying "If you are the Son of God", when clearly the Devil knew who he was.

This constant need to prove ourselves makes us slaves to sin by becoming an entrapping cycle and not allowing us to simply rest in our identities as the beloveds of God.

We can see the outworking of these temptations and our falling to them in the way our economy is currently set up. In contrast to this "God's interest is in building a world where all creatures can have abundant life" (Doug Metes, God's Economy).

You will note that advertising is usually based on one of these three temptations and triggering our need to prove ourselves in one of these areas.

We then discussed which of the temptations resonate the most with us and which communities in our lives help us to resist these temptations (hopefully our churches, but not always).

Next we discussed the circular nature of Nature's Economy, where "waste" becomes food, the system draws on local resources that have limits, the system is essentially closed (excepting solar energy) and unique communities of place are created. In contrast, the current dominant human economy is more like a line, where labour, resources and commodities go in, advertising is added and waste and negative externalities are created in the quest to make stuff. In this system communities are only valuable as sources of resources, consumers or somewhere to dump waste.

Question for thought: What are the theologies of these two economies?
This is really quite an interesting question as you delve into it deeply. Let me know what you think.

Thus, the aim for a more sustainable economy is to move towards a circle from the line. We can do this by bending the line (eg. Cradle to Cradle design) or by moving to support economies that are already circular.

In a circular system perhaps money has to be tied to something real.

And we might need to work towards something like a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) instead of the GDP. This would, for example, put a monetary value on parents caring for their children at home instead of this causing a reduction in GDP as opposed to someone else being paid for childcare.

We also discussed how we have turned faith into insurance policies on salvation and sources of entertainment. We have become goal minded about our faith instead of focusing on right relationships.

To look up:
Book -"Money and Faith: the search for enough"

During the afternoon session we developed our visions for what we want to achieve and shared these with each other.

Here is mine:

"So, we have finally done it. Every church in the country now has at least a Basic Certificate level Five Leaf Eco-Award (for more info on the program see the pages section of this blog). Five Leaf has become a large organisation with solid funding, many staff and a range of divisions. We hold national awards ceremonies for all faiths each year. Also, we have managed to green all Christian venues, theological colleges and Christian universities as well as all church organisations.

We have taught all churches in Australia to care about the environment and everyone is familiar with Creation Care Theoloogy and tries to love sustainably at home and church. We have new creation hymns, youth green groups, and big ecumenical outdoor festivals areound the Season of Creation. Everyone does their bit for social and environmental justice and the Australian church has become a credible and powerful advocate for environmental issues both nationally and internationally.

Especially exciting is that churches around Australia are now involved in species conservation and wildlife rescue. In addition, they regularly buy land containig important habitats to protect it. We have taught the people of Western Australia and all over the country to love their unique biodiversity and landscapes and to protect them. Finally, these actions have made the church once again relevant to our society and congregations are growing and expanding rapidly."

Amen

After dinner we had a panel discussion with some members of Ecumenical organisations about the progress at COP17.

Youth for Eco-Justice Quotes Day 7: "Our theology and worldview really do express themselves in the way we live in the world"

Michael Schut