Do you know what a blog is? Do you fancy the acronym WSC-SD? Are you secretly in need of climate change dance? Follow this way.

Engaging oneself to a student community such as WSC-SD at the COP 15 can be an educational, challenging, and surprising experience if you want it to be – in terms of practical experience as well as seeing many theories we all learned apply in reality. It’s easy to end up asking oneself new questions in the intersection between sharpening short-term priorities and clearing up long-term goals.

A simple thing such as obtaining a big world map and bringing it to cool people we partner with (Project Survival Media) can mean one has to think out of the box. The same holds true, seeing the practical challenges of the Conference of Youth due to the shear scale of the event (600+ youth), the number of events, and the obvious amount of discussions taking place.

Doing this simple activity turned out to result in other positive outcomes, e.g. bumping into a trusted and recent YES buddy (ACTIS Education) by chance or networking with a person I didn’t talk much with yet from a familiar a student-based coalition (Energy Crossroads Denmark) promoting clean, prosperous, and secure energy sources.

The YouNGO working groups (YouNGO Google Group) were many, the discussions captivating, and the sense of urgency certainly present. Not having accreditation it is at this time not possible for me to enter the Bella Center and follow the COP 15 daily sessions. However, that does not mean that one can not get involved, attend side events, and learn lots!

Here are just a couple of links:

1. Resources & Reading, YouNGO working groups as well as an Overview (unfcccyoungo)
2. Copenhagen Live 24/7 (OneClimate): Video shown live or continually
3. YouthClimate.org, itsgettinghotinhere.org, and
4. COP 15 webcast (live and on demand)
5. Real-time twitter search for “cop15″, “copenhagen”, “youthclimate”, and “iycm” to stay on top of on what is taking place (including rumors), being written, links (different filters for video, twitter, etc.
6. COP15 for journalists: a guide to the UN climate change summit
7. Guide for youth NGOs at United Nations meetings

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaineo/

Tags: cop15, education, engagement, Student Reflections, wscsd, YouNGO, youthclimate

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Student Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.