by Anthea Duri
On Wednesday February 4th, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) awarded the Freedom Flame to YesPinoy Chairman Dingdong Dantes and Rapper Executive Editor and CEO, Maria Ressa for their outstanding commitment to freedom and good governance.
The work that both Dantas and Ressa do in promoting youth leadership for climate change is invaluable. Empowering the youth of today, and helping them see that their voices and actions matter, is an essential step in helping to shape the path towards positive change tomorrow. We are the next generation, and one day we will hold positions of power where we will have the capacity to change the way things are – but positive change will only happen if we have the knowledge, motivation, and belief that we actually can do something. It was incredibly motivating and refreshing to hear how these leaders for climate change are working to build these three things – knowledge, motivation, and self-efficacy – in the next generation, especially through harnessing popular social media platforms to connect to the youth in a language they understand.
As a 23 year old intern from Australia, I found the key messages of the night to be very relevant to all, regardless of country. Climate change is a hot topic all over the world, with many governments (including Australia’s) hesitant to act. After hearing the presentations of the night, it was clear to me how social media platforms have the ability to not only unite the voices of the youth within a country, but also globally, to elicit real life change. It was inspiring to see the speakers’ vision of social media as a platform that goes beyond sharing pictures of last night’s party, to being a platform that can provide a voice for the youth to pressure and inspire governments to improve their response to climate change and disasters.
Hearing about Ressa’s commitment to inspiring social change through the digital communication platforms Rappler and Project Argos was very exciting. By combining journalism, technology, and social media, Rappler’s stories promote community engagement in addressing issues such as disaster management and climate change. Innovatively, Project Agos combines top-down government action with bottom-up civic engagement – harnessing the wealth of information in social media to assist in disaster management. Unlike traditional news sources, both Rapper and Project Agos provide a platform where the youth can be actively involved in contributing and critiquing information about climate change and disaster management – empowering the youth to be more involved, especially in moments of disaster when often people feel powerless.
The panel discussion between Lesley Cordero (Office of the Presedential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery), Bulgan Bayasgalan ( CALD Youth Secretary-General), and Gang Badoy (RockEd Philippines), raised many important ideas – especially about the role that Twitter can play in spreading digestible, bite-sized pieces of information to generate preliminary seeds of interest in the youth, that can later flourish through further independent learning. The recognition that the government needs to find more innovative ways to disseminate information to citizens, especially the youth, was very refreshing – and I think that they could learn a lot from the event.
All in all, I really enjoyed the night, and it has really challenged me to think about how I, and the youth at large, can take up the challenge to be leaders for climate change.
Comments