Intergenerational Forum On Peace, The Climate, Nuclear Disarmament And The Pandemic

The Youth Cafe in partnership with Basel Peace Office is cordially inviting you to join us for an Intergenerational forum on peace, the climate, nuclear disarmament and the pandemic on Tuesday, January 19, and the PACEY Plus Youth Prize 2021 voting and award ceremony which will take place as part of the forum.

“Young people in Europe and around the world are standing up to demand action on climate change, war and nuclear weapons. They clearly see the threats to current and future generations, and are calling on city leaders and governments to take action to avert a catastrophe. It’s time we heeded their warnings and listened to their ideas.

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— Prof Andreas Nidecker MD, founder of the PACEY Prize

One of The Youth Cafe's focus areas is peace and security. We aspire to strengthen stabilization efforts in the violence hotspots through a) enhanced coordination and accountability (enabling the mapping of key basic services and causal factors for peace) and b) stronger involvement of local youth as monitors.

The forum will bring together youth, experts, and policymakers to discuss actions and effective policies for peace, disarmament, the climate, and public health especially in times of pandemic. Speakers at the forum include:

1. Marzhan Nurzhan (Kazakhstan/Switzerland), Co-Convenor of Youth Fusion, the Abolition 2000 Youth Network for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

2.  Divina Maloum (Cameroon), Founder of Children for Peace. International Children’s Peace Prize Co-winner 2019 (with Greta Thunberg)

3.  Marie-Claire Graf (Switzerland). President of the Swiss Associations of Student Organizations for Sustainability. Leader of Swiss youth climate strikes. Representative of Youth Present;

4.  Prof. Dr Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Germany), Past Chairman of the German Bundestag Environment Committee, Honorary President of the Club of Rome;

5.  Maria Espinosa (Ecuador), Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of the UN General Assembly (2018-2019), Chair of the World Future Council Commission on the Rights of Children and Youth;

6.  Baroness Sue Miller (UK), Co-President of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Vice-Chair of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation.

The PACEY Plus Prize honors and supports innovative youth-led projects to address these issues. Two prizes of €5000 Euro each will be awarded – one for a project from Europe and one for a global youth project or from outside of Europe.

Six finalists projects that will be presented at the Forum are:

Europe project:

• Towards the enforcement of the right to peace, a project proposal from Platform for Peace and Humanity(Slovakia) to establish a Global Coalition of Youth Ambassadors for the Right to Peace, which would advocate in countries of the ambassadors as well as at the UN to strengthen the Right to Peace as a human and legal right;

• Enhance Peace, a project of Religions for Peace European Interfaith Youth Network to engage faith-based youth, women and religious leaders across Europe on peace, environmental peacebuilding, inter-faith understanding & cooperation, intergenerational dialogue and the UN Sustainable Development Goals;

• Mock parliamentary resolutions on nuclear disarmament, a project of Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire and "Le Parlement des Etudiants" to educate and train French youth in nuclear disarmament advocacy with a focus on advancing legislative initiatives in the French parliament.

Beyond Europe/global project:

• World's Youth for Climate Justice, a youth-led campaign to achieve an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations to reduce carbon emissions to protect future generations;

• Keep it in the Ground for Peace, a project of Youth for Environment and Sustainable Development advocating to keep fossil fuels in the ground to help reduce carbon emissions and to prevent fossil/fuel based conflicts;

• Nagasaki Youth Delegation, a nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament training program for youth from Nagasaki, one of the two Japanese cities attacked with nuclear bombs in 1945. Members of the program participate in key UN and civil society forums relating to nuclear disarmament.

Participants in the forum will vote on their choices for the two winning projects. Click here to register for this participatory online event.

The Youth Café is actively involved in peace-building activities and conversations in Africa and the globe. The Youth Café, as a youth-led and youth-serving organization committed to the goal of peace and security based on its work in various related topics, is delighted to be part of the Coalition.