international youth day - Global Education Magazine

Transcripción

Con el apoyo de la
Oficina de
Santiago
Nº 12
ISSN 2255-033X
INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY
AUGUST 12, 2015
© Jorge Alberto Ramos Guerrero
Organización
de las Naciones Unidas
para la Educación,
la Ciencia y la Cultura
THIS EDITION AIMS TO GIVE YOUTH A PROPER ENVIRONMENT
“A youth is to be regarded with
respect. How do we know that
his future will not be equal to our
present?”
© GEM
Confucius
1
Sustainable Development Goals for 2030: The Land Beyond Borders for our Planetary Youth
A
round the world, young people of both sexes look to the future, and ques-
tion current socio-economic models that are based on the irrational exploitation of
natural resources. While it is true that capitalist systems have brought enormous material benefits, their functionalist view subordinates everything to the maximum
economic profit; promoting indiscriminate consumption at the expense of nature. The
urgent commitment to comply with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for
2030 implies the emergence of a new paradigmatic scenario; one that is
characterized by transnational co-evolution between the peoples of the Earth. A
planetary consciousness whereby all cultural worldviews live together in peace and
harmony with the environment.
SDGs pursue an ecological sustainability that requires deep and paradigmatic
changes in the interdependent relationships that humans have with natural
ecosystems. We need a global insight to awaken our consciences; and to cause a
metamorphosis in the DNA intrinsic in the epistemological meta- paradigm of the
current global civilization. There is an urgent need to strengthen transnational
cooperation and intergenerational solidarity with the youth of the world, to go beyond
the SDGs. Our actions have to walk in unison towards a new horizon, a sustainable
civilization at one with the environment: the land beyond the borders. The current
economic and ecological crises are a historic opportunity to reshape our value
systems towards a true culture of peace, and one that results in sustainable
development processes.
The World We Want requires youth civic engagement to develop an overview of the interconnectivity of the ecological problems affecting global citizenship.
For the first time since the emergence of mankind on Earth, we have the opportunity
to be informed of everything that happens in other parts of the world through the
Internet. This makes us conscious and responsible; we cannot look away. The cyberspace-time continuum is considered the propitious level of reality in which to
gradually participate in making decisions that affect us as a species on our planet.
Global Citizenship Education (GCED) as proposed by UNESCO needs to use this
virtual world to promote understanding of our human identity/condition in its
planetary and cosmic context.
Knowing that the emergence of life on our planet is a cosmic miracle, is
critical to transgressing the epistemic paradigm box that sees nature as a mere
object to be exploited. It is important to include the transdisciplinary perspective of
Big History in the SDGs and GCED because it integrates the origins of the
universe, the emergence of life on Earth and the birth of mankind. This is an
indivisible and coherent perspective of all the processes of co-evolution that are
establishing networks of living and non-living organisms in Gaia over the last 4.6
billion years. Life has spent about 3.8 billion years on Earth, and its ecosystems are
organized through strategies based on constant trial and error, hence we can learn
many lessons for the building of a new human evolutionary phase capable of ending
poverty, hunger, inequality between countries, gender inequality, irresponsible
consumption, unsustainable industrialization, pollution of the seas and oceans, and
so on.
To avoid an ecological disaster that we, as a global society are heading
towards, requires a ‘civilization metamorphosis,’ one that reinvents the relationships
between production and consumption, and their effects on the ecosystems of nature.
As is well known to be the spiritual belief of many ancient, native and indigenous
peoples, nature is a civilizational meeting-point that serves as model, measure, and
mentor for the creation of new civilizational horizons, whose socio-economic systems
are in harmony with natural ecosystems and therefore sustainable. Biomimicry is a
strategy of harmonious reinsertion of human systems into natural systems, integrating the technosphere into the biosphere as it were. It is urgent that today’s youth reinvent democracy and promote the art of co-evolving as an individual society/species
in a common and sacred natural space. We must restate our civilizational values in
the short term: just one generation. The political framework for action of the SDGs
are the last chance to ease the effects of a climate change that is already underway
and could cost the lives of millions of young people, the future basis of humanity.
Youth that are not just numbers or statistical data, but people with their own names:
Paula, Elena, Irene, Benjamin, Damianos, Pyrros, Maximos, Alkmini...
Javier Collado Ruano
Director of Edition
3
Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de 2030: una tierra
más allá de las fronteras para nuestra juventud planetaria
En todo el mundo, los jóvenes de ambos sexos miramos hacia el
futuro y nos cuestionamos los modelos socio-económicos actuales que se
basan en la explotación irracional de recursos naturales. Si bien es cierto que
el sistema capitalista ha traído enormes beneficios materiales, su visión
funcionalista subordina todo al máximo beneficio económico y al consumo indiscriminado en detrimento de la naturaleza. El inaplazable compromiso de
cumplir con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) para 2030
conlleva la emergencia de un nuevo escenario paradigmático que se caracterice por la co-evolución transnacional entre los pueblos de la Tierra a través
de una consciencia planetaria donde todas las cosmovisiones culturales convivan en paz y armonía con el medio ambiente.
La sostenibilidad ecológica que persiguen los ODS nos exige cambios
profundos y paradigmáticos en las relaciones interdependientes que los
humanos tenemos con los ecosistemas naturales. Necesitamos un insight
global que despierte nuestras consciencias y provoque una metamorfosis en
el ADN intrínseco del meta-paradigma epistémico de la civilización planetaria
actual. Es urgente consolidar la cooperación transnacional y la solidaridad
intergeneracional con los jóvenes de todo el mundo para ir más allá de los
ODS. Nuestras acciones tienen que caminar juntas hacia un nuevo horizonte
civilizatorio sostenible con el medio ambiente: la tierra más allá de las
fronteras. La crisis económica y ecológica actual es una oportunidad histórica
para reformular nuestros sistemas de valores en una auténtica cultura de paz
que origine procesos de desarrollo sostenible.
El Mundo que Queremos requiere un compromiso cívico juvenil que
desarrolle una visión global sobre la interconectividad de los problemas
ecológicos que afectan a la ciudadanía mundial. Por primera vez desde la
emergencia del ser humano en la Tierra tenemos la oportunidad de estar
informados de todo lo que ocurre en otras partes del planeta a través de
internet. Esto nos hace conscientes y responsables. No podemos mirar para
otro lado. El espacio-tiempo-cibernético se constituye como el nivel de
realidad propicio para intervenir gradualmente en la toma de decisiones que
nos afectan como especie en nuestro planeta Tierra. La Educación para la
ciudadanía mundial (ECM) propuesta por la UNESCO tiene que usar este
medio virtual para promover la comprensión de nuestra identidad/condición
humana en su contexto planetario y cósmico.
Conocer el milagro cósmico que representa la emergencia de la vida en
nuestro planeta es fundamental para transgredir el cuadro epistémico
paradigmático que concibe a la naturaleza como un mero objeto de explotación. Es importante incluir la perspectiva transdisciplinar de la Gran Historia
en los ODS y la ECM para integrar el origen del universo, la aparición de la
vida en la Tierra y la emergencia del género humano de un modo indisociable
y coherente con todos los procesos de co-evolución que vienen estableciendo
las redes de organismos vivos y no vivos de Gaia durante los últimos 4.600
millones de años. La vida tiene unos 3.800 millones de años en nuestro
planeta y sus ecosistemas se organizan a través de estrategias fundadas en
constante ensayo y error, de ahí que podamos aprender muchas lecciones de
ella para construir una nueva fase evolutiva humana que consiga acabar con
la pobreza, el hambre, la desigualdad entre países, la desigualdad de género,
el consumo irresponsable, la industrialización insostenible, la contaminación
de los mares y océanos, etc.
Evitar el desastre ecológico al que vamos encaminados como sociedadmundo requiere una metamorfosis civilizatoria que reinvente las relaciones de
producción y consumo que los sistemas culturales humanos ejercemos sobre
los ecosistemas de la naturaleza. Como bien es sabido por las creencias espirituales milenarias de los pueblos originarios e indígenas, la naturaleza es
un meta-punto de encuentro civilizatorio que nos sirve como modelo, medida
y mentor para la creación de nuevos horizontes civilizatorios cuyos sistemas
socio-económicos sean sostenibles con los ecosistemas naturales. La
biomímesis es una estrategia de reinserción armónica de los sistemas
humanos dentro de los sistemas naturales para reintegrar la tecnoesfera en la
biosfera. Es urgente que la juventud actual reinvente la democracia y
promueva el arte de co-evolucionar como individuo-sociedad-especie en un
espacio natural común y sagrado. Debemos reformular nuestros valores civilizatorios en un espacio corto de tiempo: en apenas una generación. El marco
político de acción de los ODS constituyen la última oportunidad para apaciguar los efectos de un cambio climático que ya está en marcha y que
podrían costarle la vida a millones de jóvenes, la base futura de la humanidad.
Una juventud que no son apenas unos datos estadísticos, sino que tienen
nombre propio: Paula, Elena, Irene, Benjamin, Damianos, Pyrros, Maximos,
Alkmini…
Javier Collado Ruano
Director de Edición
4
Ms. Akke M. Draijer-de Jong
6.- International Youth
Day
2015
– Youth
Civic
Engagement
10. Interview with K ailash
Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Price
18. Interview with Aya Chebbi,
African Youth Movement Founder
Research Papers:
25.Millennium Development
Goals
45. Global Citizenship Education
68. Transversal Studies
Editada en
Almansa,
España, por
ONGD Educar
para Vivir
83. Letters to the Editor
15.World
Education
Forum 2015
23. Justicia en
Ayotzinapa, México
Incheon
Declaration
Jorge Alberto Ramos
Guerrero
e com a parceria do DMMDC
(Salvador, BA, Brasil)
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5
Nº 12
International Youth Day
International Youth
Day 2015 – Youth
Civic Engagement
The International Youth Day 2015 is focused on stimulating and encouraging young
people around the world to be involved in local and international public offices. This
article reviews the IYD events and agenda over the past five years of activities and
topics that the UN resolution A/RES/64/134 was committed to support the ongoing
development and education of young people around the globe, in order to raise
awareness to unite. From 2010 the topics seemed to concentrate on bridging gaps
in terms of economic inequalitities, religious biases and war affected peoples,
cultures and countries. The main concern this article tries to reveal is to what extent
modern technology can assist in raising this awareness, promote access to eduction
and information and what needs to be instilled in people's minds to ensure the ongoing process and progress to realise the aims the various topics have suggested.
Ms. Akke M. Draijer-de Jong is initiator and co-founder of the
Foundation Kebon Sepatu Indonesia-Netherlands. She leads a
team of experts in the field of Educational Projects in Indonesia and
is the liaison officer and spokesperson for the Team of Directors in
the Netherlands.
[email protected] http://www.socialpsychology.org/member/draijer-de-jong
www.globaleducationmagazine.com
In 1999 the UN general assembly determined that the 12th of August should focus its
attention on the needs and experiences of young people all over the world. Like any
resolution made by the UN – specifically those promoting cooperation amongst
youth organisations – all stands or falls with the theme chosen for this group, and
presently it seems that very little attention is given to what youngsters feel to be
given priority in terms of counteracting the present globally acknowledged
challenges. I have taken the last five years to give closer attention to all the themes
that have been taken on board to see to what extent the Voice of the Young is actually heard and understood.
From 2010 the list below show the focal points and its subsequent summaries:
By resolution A/RES/64/134 it was decided
that also 2010 was the International Year of
Youth; a very special event indeed, and
proclaimed that the theme should be
“Dialogue and Mutual Understanding”. The
need to stimulate a greater effort to
familiarize young people worldwide with
each other’s culture, believes, attitudes and
social backgrounds was acknowledged by the International Community, but is
just as important today, as it was five years ago. The events included a photo
exhibition with the title “Visual Voices – Youth perspectives on Global Issues”,
which was a great achievement. However, can we ensure that the dialogue in is
continuing, and how can we reach out to those youngsters who are at risk in
drowning in a sea of madness in war-striken countries like Syria and Libya? How
can we stimulate the dialogue when so much noise is being made in focusing on
the terrors of extreme religion activists?
In 2011 the theme “Change our World”, was meant to be a call to inspire youth
initiatives at all levels…. The social awareness in showing that by means of small
and individual initiatives possibilities are created to change – on local level – attitudes that can eventually lead to major changes in communities all over the globe
has been proven. The long term effects will need to be monitored, and even though
these initiatives may seem like a single drop on a hotplate, eventually they will prove
their worth. Sustainability is however predominantly seen in educational projects;
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves?langua
ge=en
It should be noted that we need to continue our combined efforts to offer our support
to enable youngsters to provide their input in setting up these projects. It is one of
my major concerns that in the various educational projects our Foundation1 needs to
be constantly aware of when we set up our yearly reports to integrate the trends that
young people feel that they want to develop in determining their own future. IT and
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Nº 12
computer sciences are way behind in areas of the world, where it is so important to
open up information and innovation. On the other hand there should also be openness and awareness in what areas certain knowledge should be made accessible
and available. Another angle is to be aware what talents are available, and integrate
those in the way certain educational projects can be established; i.e. the professional
group on the island Cemara (Indonesia), consists predominantly out of Fishermen.
Subsequently the ability to maneuver sailing boats (prows), is a given attribute as
fishing is a continuum in the generations. Building, maintaining and designing boats
is therefore a tangible progress to an already established and familiar way of life and
livelihood.
It was an astute statement that the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, sent
out to the community, expressing his hope for the younger generation; “Far too many
of the world’s more than one billion young people lack the education, freedom and
opportunities they deserve. Yet despite these constraints – and in some cases
because of them – young people are mobilizing in growing numbers to build a better
future.
Over the past year, they have achieved stunning results, overturning
dictatorships and sending waves of hope across regions and around the world.
Young people are gifted with open minds and a keen awareness of emerging trends,
and are bringing their energy, ideas and courage to some of the most complex and
important challenges facing the human family. They often understand better than
older generations that we can transcend our religious and cultural differences in
order to reach our shared goals…..”
The major concern here, in conclusion of this specific theme, deserves our constant
attention and efforts to eradicate: make education accessible for everyone around
the world!
International Youth Day 2012 tended to continue the theme
of 2011 from another perspective and carried the subtitle:
“Building a better world, partnering with Youth”. To be quite
frank, I would not be able to foresee the option of even an
attempt to build a better world without the participation, input, inspiration of the young generation… For the first time
the UN organizational body of the International Youth Day
made use of Social Media and Google Hang-outs to involve and stimulate discussions, brainstorming sessions etc. on an interactive scale.
The theme included “Employment; Entrepreneurship; Education, including items on
sexual and reproductive health; Political Inclusion; Citizenship and Protection of
Rights. It is important to involve the future generation in these areas of attention.
However, it should be understood that those who can participate in these
discussions are those who have access to computers, internet etc. and we need to
be aware that these are not the vast majority of the world; concentrated access to
internet and ownership of IT equipment are generally located in China, The US and
Europe2 (2013-2014), by which I would like to remark that these overview entail the
world population and China (included in Asia in this overview) have a population of
1.369 billion estimated in 2014, and is the largest in the world. The hang-outs were
the basis of a survey by which the continued development of these topics would be
reviewed and integrated in a five-year Agenda, requested by the Secretary General
of the UN.
Although the IYD 2013 found a promising title to concentrate their awareness
program on, it seemed somewhat cynical to see that its commemoration did not
achieve and fulfill its promise: “Youth Migration; Moving Development Forward”.
When examining this premise, what is exactly meant by Youth Migration… The summary on the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs3, notes that the focal
point was the platform offered to the youthful participants to voice their opinions on
issues related to youth migration and development. The event was co-organised with
the International Labour Organisation with support from the Millennium Development
Goals Achievement Funds. Again, we should consider carefully, who would take
place in this forum of young and upcoming promising candidates, who were acting
as representatives of the future of this planet? They were, of course joined by State
representatives and experts, but the interactive panel discussion formed the basis on
which young migrants and activists could share experiences.
“….The panel featured distinguished …” (read educated and privileged) “youth
speakers, including a young refugee, an undocumented young migrant”. Voices of
Youth formed a specific segment of the event and showed videos of stories of youth
migration, showed “Akhter’s Story”4, dealing with a refugee girl from Afghanistan, the
winning video of the International Labour Organisation’s context on youth labour
migration.
Very few of those, privileged to live in the safety of NorthWestern Europe, who never experienced the horrors of
war, persecution and exile, will never understand the
trauma, migrants have to go through…. It is quite obvious
from the documentary that won an award during the IYD
event “Akhter’s Story” that some of the EU countries,
faced with these problems (i.e. Greece) are unable to
cope with the incredible diversity of problems forced
migration imposes on resources, intelligence and flexibility.
Whilst writing this article the fugitives from Syria and Libya
pose a myriad of issues for France and the UK, and requires the member states of
the EU to act diligently to assist in order to prevent a further escalation for the
countries involved, but also to prosecute those who see fit to make a huge profit out
of the fugitive’s miserable circumstances.
Having worked for an organisation that dealt with integration of non-nationals and
disadvantaged5 children in Dutch society and the educational system for primary
school children specifically, there was heartbreaking evidence and examples that
those who needed to assess the environmental conditions young children were catapulted into, could not – and will never – understand the extent of trauma these
7
Nº 12
children and their parents had been exposed to; subsequently, unable to realistically
assess the cause of underachievement and trauma, nor adequate measures could
be taken to equip fugitives with sufficient resources to overcome this disadvantaged
position. Certain migrants of nationalities would overcome the “settlement” problems
quite easily; Iran, Turkish, and Egyptian nationals somehow adapted well to their new
environments, whilst children and youngsters from Moroccan background would not
adapt to the school system and consequently chose the path of least resistance, resorting to gang-like behaviour and petty crime. The situation is being taken as a
negative issue for some Dutch politicians, who would like to accentuate the “dangers
and threats” of the Islam in Europe and will go to the limit in order to antagonize and
intentionally offend a specific ethnic group.
International Youth Day 2014 moved its theme to a topic that needs our immediate
attention, as it is evident that the loud and clear signal of our society simply screams
out for action; Major Depression and Mental Health Condition is a direct result of the
frightening course our modern way of life takes its toll on the younger generation specifically. Research and my own studies have lead to a staggering amount of data to
why young people find it so very difficult to find and maintain a harmonious way of life
in our present day society; to stay focused, to entertain good relationships and find
and have a worthwhile career or even a steady job. One of the main reasons they
seem unable to deal with the demands of our society and the way life seem to dictate
and direct them in a certain harness could be found in the predictability in which the
older generation has managed or ordered their lives, whilst it has become clearer
that the “regular” way of planning one’s life – go to school, attend church, listen to
your elders; get you diploma/degree, find a job, take the career ladder, find a partner,
get married and have children, go through the paces and if you are lucky you can retire by the age of 65…. – is definitely not the way young people envisage their future.
Through the blundering and unreliable economic system resulting in the World’s
economic recession these past years - caused by the unsavory role played by the
banks - it has also become blatantly obvious that this way of planning one’s life is definitely not going to work for the young generation. They will need to find or make their
own set of guiding principles to see a way through this jungle of surviving the
challenges that life will throw at them. When young people have set their example to
how the older generation has tried to create assurances that are based on illusions,
then it is not surprising that they stand powerless in this new development of nonguaranteed guidelines to life….. As the poster states; 20% of youngsters between the
age of 15-24 suffer from mental health disorders. In my small personal environment,
being familiar with the circle of friends of my children two youngsters have recently
experienced Burn-Outs, and at least three in my direct working environment suffer
from Major Depression Syndrome. The people I refer to are under 35 years of age.
It should not be forgotten that the majority from these
disorder stem from stress, in fact research has shown
that stressful living conditions also trigger Diabetes2
and auto-immune diseases. During my final studies
relating to personality and social psychology6 I sug-
gested that where there hardly seems to be a need for a Survival of the Fittest-mode,
we now are confronted within the conditions of Western society by a change to Psychological Survival, and our brain attributes and functions need to be adjusted as
such. It is a daunting prospect when we need the input and energy that the younger
generation can offer, is curtailed by a huge amount of what appears to be an epidemic outbreak of Mental Health impairments.
What will hopefully give them another scope of creative tools, is their ability to take
advantage of the progressing technology and a broader access to information like
the Social Media and other means to gain knowledge like MOOC’s (Massive Open
Online Courses). The awareness and deeper understanding by which other cultures
can be identified and appreciated, must come with a greater tolerance and a nonbias attitude in order to live in a relative equilibrium of peace. In a growing sense of
being manipulated by those who pull the strings of economic power7 - apparently the
entire World’s capital is in possession of less than 1% of the World’s population, this
means that our actual input in any democratic system, is almost negligible. I can
assure you that my generation has only recently woken up – probably rudely shaken
to reality by the fact that our struggles to plan for a carefree “after work” life, has not
and will not materialize, and most of us finding that the efforts to ensure a good pension plan, has largely been based on illusions, dished out by the insurance
companies, which ultimately are not much better than the banks that have brought on
the economic demise, but for their part will still continue their self-enriching bonus
system. Even though young people nowadays are aware of their limited locus of
control, moving forward caught up in a dubious and uncertain interim phase, they realise that this planet has given them ample scope for work, but very few jobs are
offered. Their conclusion is that they will take the opportunities to create those jobs
themselves, and an increase of budding entrepreneurs emerge; exploiting,
developing and enhancing their talents. By the same token they find that the political
manipulations where it concerns the stimulation of racial, religious and gender biases, are not matters they choose to be overly concerned with and more inter-racial,
and inter-religious partnerships/marriages are being embarked on. Division of home
related tasks, including parenting, may still be more accepted in Western society, but
will progressively be commonly seen in various levels of different cultures as well.
A greater awareness regarding world food and energy resources is being instilled by
and for young people; it is good to see that there are organisations driven by young
innovative minds, that will embark on environmental stimulus in sustainable
agriculture, green energy and bio-dynamic building resources; making us all aware
that if we do not stop and treat our planet with respect, we will ultimately kill
everything worthwhile preserving.
International Youth Day 2015 has chosen the theme
“Youth Civic Engagement”, and I would like to stress
the importance of such a premise. At the same time, I
also feel that it isn’t only up to them to pick up the
gauntlet and watch them struggle with the mess that
we, the older generations, have created for them. Too
8
Nº 12
often we face the indifference of powers that be when issues are discussed relating
to a “better” environment; the awareness is still lacking that we – all of us – constitute
the environment; the human race is an integral part of it!
To ask and call for the engagement and participation of youth and stipulate that they
should pick up the tab where sustainable human development is concerned, seems a
bit off; we need to live the right example and show that it takes effort and commitment
in making sure that we work together; young and older, to make this work. Active
involvement in political and public life means that young people will not be constantly
dealing with bad-mouthed politicians and newspaper headlines denouncing the
credibility of our Prime Ministers, being caught either with their hand in the till, or in
some ridiculous bedroom farce. It will also mean a closer and more critical look at the
media, like TV and newspapers; reporters and journalists. Who pays their salaries
and what are the interests that they serve….
Leading by example takes me to the essence of our responsibility as adults toward
our fellow human beings and youngster in particular; offering and creating
opportunities to enhance and discover strengths and talents, already naturally
present in an individual – nurture, shelter and encourage what be an asset and one’s
unique contribution to society at a later stage. Foremost we must consider that “…
we have not just inherited this great planet from our fore-fathers, but we have only
borrowed it from our children…”
Bibliography
1. Observations and reports of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the
U N http://undesadspd.org/Youth/OurWork/HistoryofUNPY.aspx
2. TedTalk of Sugata Mitra : https://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra
Biography
Akke Myrielle Draijer-de Jong was born in Indonesia8, a former colony of the Dutch
East Indies, in 1956. She was raised in the Netherlands and completed her studies
in Dramatic Arts in London. Presently, working in an International judicial
environment, she has focused her professional life on International Criminal Law,
European Law and International Human Rights, combining her favourite field of
interests of Social- and Forensic Psychology, and Neuro-pharmacology and Neurobiology. She has raised three children by herself and enjoys the input from her
three stepsons of her husband; they share an adopted son in Indonesia.
NOTES
Photomaterials used in this article : http://undesadspd.org/Youth.aspx
[1]Yayasan Kebon Septau – Netherlands/Indonesia: http://sks-yks.webs.com/
[ 2 ] h t t p : / / w w w. i n t e r n e t l i v e s t a t s . c o m / i n t e r n e t - u s e r s / # b y r e g i o n a n d
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
[3]http://undesadspd.org/
[4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OQpTk6fQjA
[5]GOA-Gemeentelijk Onderwijs Achterstanden beleid (Municipal Educational
Policy Executive Board) – these children in the primary school age-group, deal with
foreign and Dutch national children who – through circumstance, i.e. fugitive status,
or children whose parents were from specific educational backward milieus, could
be eligible to receive educational program support and schools received extra funds
in order to get expert assistance in order to diminish the gap in educational impairment.
3. A Broader Horizon: Yayasan Kebon Septau – Netherlands/Indonesia:
[6]https://www.academia.edu/6766186/The_Human_Spark_and_overruling_feature
s_of_self-deception_as_part_of_our_evolutionary_development
4. C o m p a r a t i v e S t a t i s t i c s t a k e n f r o m :
[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU
http://sks-yks.webs.com/
h t t p : / / w w w. i n t e r n e t l i v e s t a t s . c o m / i n t e r n e t - u s e r s / # b y r e g i o n
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
5. “Akther’s Story”, a documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OQpTk6fQjA
[8]https://nl.linkedin.com/in/amdraijerdejong
http://www.socialpsychology.org/member/draijer-de-jong
6. W. Boskiljon - 2004: Educational organisations in the Netherlands – GOA Delft :
Major changes in organizational structure to stimulate programs for primary
education on municipality level:
http://raad.delft.nl/commissies/werk_zorg_onderwijs/2004/nota/w_2004_004_n.html
7. Akke M. Draijer-de Jong – The Human Spark and overruling features of Self-
deception as part of our evolutionary development:
https://www.academia.edu/6766186/The_Human_Spark_and_overruling_features_of
_self-deception_as_part_of_our_evolutionary_development
8. Renegade Economist – 2013 ; “The four Horsemen” documentary in view of the misleading and fraudulent role of our banking system :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU
9
INTERVIEW'WITH'KAILASH'SAT YARTHI'
2014'NOBEL'PEACE'PRIZE
AUGUST'12'—INTERNATIONAL'YOUTH'DAY
“YOUNG'PEOPLE,'AND'THE'YOUNG'
PEOPLE'LIKE'YOU'AND'THE'OFFICER,'
CAN'BUILD'HOPE.”
10
Nº 12
© GEM
Before the open ceremony of the World
Education Forum with all participants,
UNESCO Director-General Irina
Bokova and Peace Nobel Award
Kailash Satyarthi demanded efforts to
achieve global partnership to all civil
society in the NGO Forum.
The 2015 NGO Forum finished with
the Declaration “Towards the Righy
to Inclusive Quality Education and
Lifelong Learning Beyond 2015.”
From left to right: Refaat Sabbah, Irina
Bokova, Monique Fouilhoux, Kailash
Satyarthi, and Qian Tang.
Javier Collado Ruano: Dear Kailash Satyarthi, my name is Javier ColladoRuano. I am working in Brazil as a professor in the University, and we have
followed an approach with the nattier, indigenous people, and with poor
people living in the favelas. I think there are different kinds and levels of
poverty. There is not the same poverty that there is in Bolivia, that in Brazil,
that in India. Also if there are no magical solutions of course, they all are
interconnected. What has to be done as professor, as researcher, and as journalist to show this kind of child labor programs and poverty?
Kailash Satyarthi: Absolutely. One thing is very clear that the Eastern
education cannot be solved in isolation; it is interconnected with the human
rights and development. And that means that it is interconnected with the
poverty and other sort of problems, including the money like this, on our
children and so on. So, what I have been propagating to many is this triangu-
lar pattern, you understand, poverty, child labor, and literacy are
interconnected. So we have to find solutions and holistic windows, not just
opening up schools and hiring teachers – that is important – but also we have
to withdraw the children from exploitism, exploitive labor, we have to see that
how it can link with the poverty and literacy programs and the different
programs. So that’s one area. But everybody now has some sort of connectivity with the Internet or with young people in schools, colleges, universities,
and the professors, activists, everybody has some sort of connectivity with the
ultimate knowledge to Internet. We live in a cyber-world. We have to see how
the power of cyber works, how the power of information technology, how the
power of social media, could be generalized for good, for making this world
better – especially for children. So when we come to any area where there are
exploitation, then I love education, then I love childhood, child abuse, child
rape, and things like that, we can get to respond to it, be the partner in
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Nº 12
change, through the social media. We can also encourage some of the good
practices, which are coming from, which is coming from, the civil society, from
the government, from the international organizations, corporate world, and
from anywhere.
KS: Good. I understood your question, that’s why I said that Korea and
countries who are much well off have to build more child friendly education
where the children should feel less pressurized and more interested, interest
for education. Let me underline one principle, which satisfaction does not lie
only in value and prosperity. Satisfaction does not lie only in knowledge.
We have to promote them through social media to generate
Satisfaction lies in something else. Happiness and satisfaction does not lie
in what we gain, it lies in what we
hope, because hope is the
give. Not just in Korea, the Korean
spark. Hope is the fire; hope is
businesses, the Korean corporations,
the power to change the world.
© GEM
are clearly from all across the world.
Frustration and hopelessness is
May it be automobiles, may it be teleno answer. Young people, and
phones, may it be other kinds of electhe young people like you and
tronic goods, or electric goods, Korea is
the officer, can build hope.
a brand. Everybody is using it. But the
more important thing is that how you
JCR: I believe this is also the theme of
these gains to the rest of the world. And
World Education Forum, however to
when you start giving it back to the rest
countries like Korea where the
of the world, then it will make you much
economic development has already
more satisfied and happy. One thing,
been reached to its own level, if we left
that no society in the world whatever
more on children’s education, then there
rich they are, they must not feel that
will be a lot of side effects caused by it.
they can live in isolation. They cannot
There have been numerous reports saylive in the island of prosperity. The world
ing that Korean students are the unhapis so interconnected, that all the
piest students in the world. Their
problems, all the tricks, all the
satisfaction level on education is very
challenges, and the solutions are
low. So I believe UNESCO and all the
interconnected. Our vision has to be
other related international organizations
globalized. Our action has to be globalshould find a way to maybe redistribute
ized. I offer all of my support to the
education, or investment on education,
young people of Korea. I want to be
just like how they do with economies. In
their friends. And I want to make them
that sense, how do you think this should
friends to raise their level of happiness.
be and what kind of rules or
And I call upon them to connect with the
responsibilities do you think the other
rest of the world’s children. To learn
developed countries that should on the
more about their issues, and to respond
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova along Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize
distribution of education?
how they can. Then they will feel
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Nº 12
connected. They will also feel, the young
people in Korea then feel connected with the
rest of the world, and also feel happy that at
least they are supporting some good cause.
At least they are raising some motions
against something that’s going on in the
world, so they should not remain confined to
themselves. They should open and break
the cells of individualism. Go out. You are
hopes for the world. Identify yourself and
really play your role. Hatred, frustration, ostracized, are no answers. Answer lies in discovering your inner power: your economic
power, your knowledge power. And help
others in the world. And then your
satisfaction level will go severely high.
Nepal who has been facing so much
problems and poverty, the many
© GEM
countries in the world, also in south
Asia, where the happiness level is high,
I think the social fabrics, connectivity
among the people, brings them more
sense of security, more sense of
cooperation, and eventually leads to
the level of happiness. The people are
much more open. They can cry. They
can fight. They can love. Freely. And
that brings them much more closer and
open, in a way. Closer in the sense that
close to each other, open advantage.
So that is, some of those things are
very vital. Some of those very poor
people. They can laugh; they can
JCR: And what do you think should be the
dance together every evening, or every
fundamental goal of education for children?
morning. Even in the schools they can
Javier Collado Ruano along Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize
make fun, they can make noise, they
KS: The objective of education is basically to
are naughty children, but their level of happiness is high. Some sort of mental
discover the human qualities and potential of every single human being, every
openness and freedom, some sort of connectivity and social fabrics, and
single community, and in the world. Eventually this potential should be transsocial connect makes them happy. Then one can learn from them.
lated for the betterment of the world, for creating a world where everybody is
happy and helping each other. So education is a connector, education is not
JCR: During your speech you have considered Korean economy and Korean
only for economic return. Education is for empowerment. Education is for
education as a good example case. What are the factors that you’ve
exploration of inner strength and inner humanity, and then uses it for the betconsidered to call Korea the good education example? I was wondering if you
terment of the world. So education has many objectives like one has to
think there should be any principles, or any conscious factors that we should
become more rational through education. Education helps in reasoning,
consider when utilizing Information Technology on education?
increasing reasoning of individuals. It helps in social gestures, equality in
society, and so many things. But the most important is education should evenKS: In Korea, one can definitely learn that how education has advanced, the
tually explore the humanity from inside and multiply, translating it into society.
new developments and technology, information technology is one of them, but
all kind of technology, and translated into the massive industry ligation. So it
JCR: What is the role of happiness here?
helped in getting rid of poverty, and build the prosperity, brought the prosperity
to the nation, that one can learn, that how to translate the power of knowledge
KS: Good. In many of those countries which are comparatively poor, but the
into the economy.
happiness level is high, Bhutan is one of them, Sweden, Bangladesh, even
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Nº 12
A kind of double-edged sword. It is very important to connect the world. It is
very important to advance the searches and development and technology, and
for the progress. In solving many of the social and humanitarian problems,
including health issues, including hunger issues, including ecological issues,
ITT is very important. But ITT is also being misused, for pornographic, for
different kind of sexual abuse, for violence, spreading violence, almost all terror
groups in the world are very advanced in ITT. They are misusing the power of
ITT. So these are dangers involved in it.
something, an element, which is inside each one of us. And if we try to
connect through compassion, we will be happier. We will make this world more
simpler and better.
JCR: Do you think we could promote peacebuilding by reducing competiveness?
KS: Best quality education and child friendly education are the more important
challenges. There’s no clear data involved how many children are working with
child laborers, but there are children that will be not in school and some of them
must be working somewhere and they’re able to feed or somewhere, but it’s not
such a big problem in comparison to starvation, for instance. That education
systems everywhere have to be more conducive for children, more child
friendly for children, and young people, so that the children and young people
should not feel too much pressure off education. It should be easy and friendly.
KS: I think these two things should be complimentary. Competitions should go
for better achievement and being more creative in finding solution to the
problem. But if the competition becomes to go alone and push back others,
then it is wrong.
JCR: In the group in which I am working in Brazil, we have many contacts with
Indian professors, as for example the theosophist Professor P. Krishna, a wellknown researcher for his work in the Rajghat Education Center and the Krishnamurti Foundations in India. In harmony with the interconnectivity you were
talking about before, he told me “global violence is an individual responsibility.”
So what is the role of arts, indigenous knowledge, spiritual approach, culture
and science to build a global citizenship education to achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals?
KS: It is a proven fact and I can reiterate our culture, music, dance, all forms of
ours are very powerful in spreading messages, in building awareness,
increasing consciousness and inner conscience. So they have to blame either
role and while achieving Sustainable Development Goals or the fight to educate
all children, all people in the world, these modes of communication and the
power of art, must be used, utilized properly.
One thing I would say about the connectedness, as you have asked about it, it
is that we are living in the world of high-speed Internet, connectivity, but
unfortunately every day we are losing the connect of our souls. And the most
important connect in the world is the connect to compassion. Compassion is
JCR: Also if child laborers have been reduced in the last years, and millions of
child deaths have been prevented, great challenges are still remaining. In abstract, what are the main challenges to face the situations of children and
young labor?
JCR: Finally, what message would you like to send to all our readers in the
celebration of the International Youth Day? How could we motivate them to
improve our common planet?
KS: So I call for three things. And the last word is that, and
that is my call also, three things that really going to make
this world better: the first thing is democratize knowledge.
Knowledge should not remain in a few hands, it should be
democratized. The second call is universalize justice,
everybody must have justice in the world. And the third and
most important thing is globalize compassion. We are
globalizing markets and economies, we are globalizing
knowledge and technology, we are globalizing information,
but this is a time when we should globalize compassion.
JCR: Thank you very much for your time and inspiring words, dear Kailash. I
am looking forward to see you again in India to learn more about your rich
experiences.
14
Nº 12
Incheon Declaration
Education 2030:
Towards inclusive and
equitable quality
education and lifelong
learning for all
PREAMBLE
1. We, Ministers, heads and members of delegations, heads of agencies and officials of
multilateral and bilateral organizations, and representatives of civil society, the teaching
profession, youth and the private sector, have gathered in May 2015 at the invitation of
the Director-General of UNESCO in Incheon, Republic of Korea, for the World Education
Forum 2015 (WEF 2015). We thank the Government and the people of the Republic of
Korea for having hosted this important event as well as UNICEF, the World Bank,
UNFPA, UNDP, UN Women and UNHCR, as the co-convenors of this meeting, for their
contributions. We express our sincere appreciation to UNESCO for having initiated and
led the convening of this milestone event for Education 2030.
2. On this historic occasion, we reaffirm the vision of the worldwide movement for
Education for All initiated in Jomtien in 1990 and reiterated in Dakar in 2000 — the most
important commitment to education in recent decades and which has helped drive
significant progress in education. We also reaffirm the vision and political will reflected in
numerous international and regional human rights treaties that stipulate the right to
education and its interrelation with other human rights. We acknowledge the efforts made;
however, we recognize with great concern that we are far from having reached education
for all.
3. We recall the Muscat Agreement developed through broad consultations and adopted at
the Global Education for All (EFA) Meeting 2014, and which successfully informed the
proposed education targets of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). We further recall the outcomes of the regional ministerial conferences on
education post-2015 and take note of the findings of the 2015 EFA Global Monitoring
Report and the Regional EFA Synthesis Reports. We recognize the important contribution
of the Global Education First Initiative as well as the role of governments and regional,
intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations in galvanizing political
commitment for education.
4. Having taken stock of progress made towards the EFA goals since 2000 and the educationrelated Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the lessons learned, and having
examined the remaining challenges and deliberated on the proposed 2030 education
agenda and the Framework for Action as well as on future priorities and strategies for its
achievement, we adopt this Declaration.
TOWARDS 2030: A NEW VISION FOR EDUCATION
5. Our vision is to transform lives through education, recognizing the important role of
education as a main driver of development and in achieving the other proposed SDGs. We
commit with a sense of urgency to a single, renewed education agenda that is holistic,
ambitious and aspirational, leaving no one behind. This new vision is fully captured by the
proposed SDG 4_“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and its corresponding targets. It is transformative and
universal, attends to the ‘unfinished_business‘ of the EF agenda and the education-related
MDGs, and addresses global and national education challenges. It is inspired by a
humanistic vision of education and development based on human rights and dignity; social
justice; inclusion; protection; cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity; and shared
responsibility and accountability. We reaffirm that education is a public good, a
fundamental human right and a basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights. It is
essential for peace, tolerance, human fulfilment and sustainable development. We
recognize education as key to achieving full employment and poverty eradication. We will
focus our efforts on access, equity and inclusion, quality and learning outcomes, within a
lifelong learning approach.
6. Motivated by our significant achievements in expanding access to education over the last
15 years, we will ensure the provision of 12 years of free, publicly funded, equitable
quality primary and secondary education, of which at least nine years are compulsory,
leading to relevant learning outcomes. We also encourage the provision of at least one year
of free and compulsory quality pre-primary education and that all children have access to
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Nº 12
quality early childhood development, care and education. We also commit to providing
meaningful education and training opportunities for the large population of out-of-school
children and adolescents, who require immediate, targeted and sustained action ensuring
that all children are in school and are learning.
7. Inclusion and equity in and through education is the cornerstone of a transformative
education agenda, and we therefore commit to addressing all forms of exclusion and
marginalization, disparities and inequalities in access, participation and learning outcomes.
No education target should be considered met unless met by all. We therefore commit to
making the necessary changes in education policies and focusing our efforts on the most
disadvantaged, especially those with disabilities, to ensure that no one is left behind.
8. We recognize the importance of gender equality in achieving the right to education for
all. We are therefore committed to supporting gender-sensitive policies, planning and
learning environments; mainstreaming gender issues in teacher training and curricula; and
eliminating gender-based discrimination and violence in schools.
9. We commit to quality education and to improving learning outcomes, which requires
strengthening inputs, processes and evaluation of outcomes and mechanisms to measure
progress. We will ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited,
well-trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced,
efficient and effectively governed systems. Quality education fosters creativity and
knowledge, and ensures the acquisition of the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy
as well as analytical, problem-solving and other high-level cognitive, interpersonal and
social skills. It also develops the skills, values and attitudes that enable citizens to lead
healthy and fulfilled lives, make informed decisions, and respond to local and global
challenges through education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship
education (GCED). In this regard, we strongly support the implementation of the Global
Action Programme on ESD launched at the UNESCO World Conference on ESD in AichiNagoya in 2014. We also stress the importance of human rights education and training in
order to achieve the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.
10. We commit to promoting quality lifelong learning opportunities for all, in all settings and
at all levels of education. This includes equitable and increased access to quality technical
and vocational education and training and higher education and research, with due
attention to quality assurance. In addition, the provision of flexible learning pathways, as
well as the recognition, validation and accreditation of the knowledge, skills and
competencies acquired through non-formal and informal education, is important. We
further commit to ensuring that all youth and adults, especially girls and women, achieve
relevant and recognized functional literacy and numeracy proficiency levels and acquire
life skills, and that they are provided with adult learning, education and training
opportunities. We are also committed to strengthening science, technology and innovation.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) must be harnessed to strengthen
education systems, knowledge dissemination, information access, quality and effective
learning, and more effective service provision.
11. Furthermore, we note with serious concern that, today, a large proportion of the world’s
out-of-school population lives in conflict-affected areas, and that crises, violence and
attacks on education institutions, natural disasters and pandemics continue to disrupt
education and development globally. We commit to developing more inclusive, responsive
and resilient education systems to meet the needs of children, youth and adults in these
contexts, including internally displaced persons and refugees. We highlight the need for
education to be delivered in safe, supportive and secure learning environments free from
violence. We recommend a sufficient crisis response, from emergency response through to
recovery and rebuilding; better coordinated national, regional and global responses; and
capacity development for comprehensive risk reduction and mitigation to ensure that
education is maintained during situations of conflict, emergency, post-conflict and early
recovery.
IMPLEMENTING OUR COMMON AGENDA
12. We reaffirm that the fundamental responsibility for successfully implementing this agenda
lies with governments. We are determined to establish legal and policy frameworks that
promote accountability and transparency as well as participatory governance and
coordinated partnerships at all levels and across sectors, and to uphold the right to
participation of all stakeholders.
13. We call for strong global and regional collaboration, cooperation, coordination and
monitoring of the implementation of the education agenda based on data collection,
analysis and reporting at the country level, within the framework of regional entities,
mechanisms and strategies.
14. We recognize that the success of the 2030 education agenda requires sound policies and
planning as well as efficient implementation arrangements. It is also clear that the
aspirations encompassed in the proposed SDG 4 cannot be realized without a significant
and well-targeted increase in financing, particularly in those countries furthest from
achieving quality education for all at all levels. We therefore are determined to increase
16
Nº 12
public spending on education in accordance with country context, and urge adherence to
the international and regional benchmarks of allocating efficiently at least 4 - 6% of Gross
Domestic Product and/or at least 15 - 20% of total public expenditure to education.
15. Noting the importance of development cooperation in complementing investments by
governments, we call upon developed countries, traditional and emerging donors, middle
income countries and international financing mechanisms to increase funding to education
and to support the implementation of the agenda according to countries’_needs and
priorities. We recognize that the fulfilment of all commitments related to official
development assistance (ODA) is crucial, including the commitments by many developed
countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) for ODA to
developing countries. In accordance with their commitments, we urge those developed
countries that have not yet done so to make additional concrete efforts towards the target
of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA to developing countries. We also commit to increase our
support to the least developed countries. We further recognize the importance of
unlocking all potential resources to support the right to education. We recommend
improving aid effectiveness through better coordination and harmonization, and
prioritizing financing and aid to neglected sub-sectors and low income countries. We also
recommend significantly increasing support for education in humanitarian and protracted
crises. We welcome the Oslo Summit on Education for Development (July 2015) and call
on the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa to support the proposed
SDG 4.
16. We call on the WEF 2015 co-convenors, and in particular UNESCO, as well as on all
partners, to individually and collectively support countries in implementing the 2030
education agenda, by providing technical advice, national capacity development and
financial support based on their respective mandates and comparative advantages, and
building on complementarity. To this end, we entrust UNESCO, in consultation with
Member States, the WEF 2015 co-convenors and other partners, to develop an appropriate
global coordination mechanism. Recognizing the Global Partnership for Education as a
multi-stakeholder financing platform for education to support the implementation of the
agenda according to the needs and priorities of the countries, we recommend that it be
part of this future global coordination mechanism.
17. We further entrust UNESCO, as the United Nations’ specialized agency for education, to
continue its mandated role to lead and coordinate the 2030 education agenda, in particular
by: undertaking advocacy to sustain political commitment; facilitating policy dialogue,
knowledge sharing and standard setting; monitoring progress towards the education
targets; convening global, regional and national stakeholders to guide the implementation
of the agenda; and functioning as a focal point for education within the overall SDG
coordination architecture.
18. We resolve to develop comprehensive national monitoring and evaluation systems in
order to generate sound evidence for policy formulation and the management of education
systems as well as to ensure accountability. We further request the WEF 2015 coconvenors and partners to support capacity development in data collection, analysis and
reporting at the country level. Countries should seek to improve the quality, levels of
disaggregation and timeliness of reporting to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. We also
request that the Education for All Global Monitoring Report be continued as an
independent Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR), hosted and published by
UNESCO, as the mechanism for monitoring and reporting on the proposed SDG 4 and on
education in the other proposed SDGs, within the mechanism to be established to monitor
and review the implementation of the proposed SDGs.
19. We have discussed and agreed upon the essential elements of the Education 2030
Framework for Action. Taking into account the United Nations summit for the adoption of
the post-2015 development agenda (New York, September 2015) and the outcomes of the
Third International Conference on Financing for Development (Addis Ababa, July 2015),
a final version will be presented for adoption and launched at a special high-level meeting
to be organized alongside the 38th session of the General Conference of UNESCO in
November 2015. We are fully committed to its implementation after its adoption, to
inspire and guide countries and partners to ensure that our agenda is achieved.
20. Building on the legacy of Jomtien and Dakar, this Incheon Declaration is an historic
commitment by all of us to transform lives through a new vision for education, with bold
and innovative actions, to reach our ambitious goal by 2030.
2015 NGO Forum Declaration: Towards the Right to
Inclusive Quality Public Education and Lifelong Learning
Beyond 2015
17
INTERVIEW WITH AYA CHEBBI
AFRIC AN YOU TH MOVEMENT FOUNDER
AUGUST 12 —INTERNATIONAL YOU TH DAY
18
Global Power Shift community
Nº 12
Javier Collado Ruano: Dear readers, it is a pleasure for me to introduce my friend
Aya Chebbi, a well-known Pan-African Tunisian blogger and activist. I met her
during the Global Citizens Movement of CIVICUS World Alliance, which took
place in Johannesburg late in the year 2013, and I am still impressed with all her
achievements. She is the founder and chair of the African Youth Movement and the
co-founder of the Voice of Women Initiative. She was named as one of Africa´s most
Outstanding Young Women leaders in 2013 and she has recently won the Young
Achiever of the Year Award of the African Achievers Awards recognized by the
Forbes. She previously worked at the refugee camps during Libya’s civil war, at
Bureau de Cooperation Tunisie-Denmark on youth development projects in Tunis,
and at the Carter Center monitoring 2012 Egyptian Presidential Elections, in Cairo.
However, she was unfortunately blacklisted and banned from entering Egypt since
March 2014. Ma chère amie, merci beaucoup pour partager votre temps et
expérience à la Journée Internationale de la Jeunesse.
Aya Chebbi: I think my inspiration is my commitment to change the narrative about
Tunisia, Africa and the Middle East through people’s stories… to challenge the
misrepresentation and misinformation on the mainstream media that eventually
shape the incomplete perceptions of others about these regions…to challenge that
simply with real stories by offering another definition, logic, image or narrative...
My first question is obvious: Where does all your transformative energy come from?
What is the secret to become a world-renowned blogger?
AC: As a Tunisian traveling around the continent, I am usually perceived as an
outsider of the continent’s common struggles and history. My mission has become
I use my blog Proudly Tunisian as a medium. Blogging for me is thinking out loud,
telling the other missing side of the story and exercising one’s freedom of
expression.
JCR: I am in Salvador de Bahía finishing my PhD research focused on Global
Citizenship Education and I have to confess you I am a big fan of the African
philosophy “Ubuntu” because it inspires me to understand better the co-evolution
between living beings and our environment. How has Pan-Africanism encouraged
you to become an international socio-political activist?
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Nº 12
to re-define Pan-Africanism through bridging North Africa with the rest of the
continent beyond colonialism and post- colonialism. I want to bring together and
connect African youth who will be taking over the leadership of their nations in few
years, and restore indeed our values of African humanism Ubuntu and togetherness
so that together we can develop Africa as a continent and not as separate nations.
JCR: When and why was the idea of African Youth Movement (AYM) born?
AC: I started the AYM about two years ago just as a
Facebook Group that brought together all the
inspiring Africans I met in different parts of the world,
inside and outside the continent from all walks of life.
After I attended the Intergenerational Dialogue with
African Heads of states, which was an event
organized within the auspices of the 50th Anniversary
of the African Union, I discovered that youth
marginalization in Africa is a real issue.
I have had this vision that, in our shared
marginalization as young Africans, we
could develop a sense of common identity
and a critical consciousness that would
enable us to challenge the status quo. That
is how AYM was born.
A few months ago, I decided to take AYM to the next
level and nurture a movement that would grow this
common identity with strategic collective response to
our problems. The first step was to come together as
Africans instead of working in silos, express our
concerns and discuss viable solutions. The idea was
not to create something new but rather "to connect
the dots", to connect all the existing movements,
formal and informal groups and networks around the continent and join forces in
creating a new action-oriented movement. I organized a series of Google Hangouts
through which we shaped together our shared vision, values and objectives. Many
inspiring young Africans availed themselves to working with me to make this vision a
concrete reality.
AYM has become a movement of young thinkers and visionaries, trying a different
approach towards the realization of Africa’s economic, social and political prosperity.
JCR: What kind of activities are you developing at AYM currently?
AC: 2015 for AYM is its foundation year to gather as many young Africans around its
vision. We are not an NGO that implements projects, we are a movement that
provides the support, mentorship, networks and empowerment of ideas and
solutions. We aspire to be the vision that connects the struggles and unites the
voices of African youth.
We have 7 committees at AYM centered around,
Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship,
G e n d e r, E n v i r o n m e n t a n d S u s t a i n a b l e
Development, Governance and Transparency,
A g r i c u l t u r e , P e a c e a n d S e c u r i t y. T h e s e
committees are opening critical conversational
spaces for African youth. We are also working on
establishing AYM Hubs in all the African
countries to connect more with young Africans at
the grassroots.
During this year’s Africa Day, we flagged off a
campaign dubbed #AfricaSmile which allowed
Africans to celebrate their diversity and positive
stories. The Campaign was very successful and
featured on various channels such as Kenya’s
Capital.
We will be soon launching another campaign with the
theme of anti- corruption in Africa. It will be very
unique and creative so watch out for it.
JCR: So, I guess those activities have many links
with the Voice of Women Initiative (VOW) programs,
right? How many people are involved at VOW
initiative?
AC: Indeed many of VOW supporters are AYMers. Both VOW and AYM work on
changing the narratives but VOW is more about changing the feminist narrative.
Beyond the clustering of gender identities as either poor, wealthy, widowed, healthy
or abused, we aspire to empower women to give their deep personal perspectives
no matter how unpopular.
We break the editorial gate-keeping for women to share stories that evoke selfunderstanding of the other, stories about what should be done to shape thought and
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action for women. VOW has become a platform to empower women and girls to tell
their own stories in their own words. We have 35 outstanding correspondents from
all around the world, passionate women about reporting under-reported issues in
their communities. This year we want to grow our project to reach 50 correspondents
and provide them with online and face-to-face trainings and mentorship in reporting
and digital storytelling.
In the quest to solidify the project and ensure that it is sustainable and able to meet
its objectives, we rebranded, under the immense support of the Digital Participation
Camp 2015. We will now have a secure website and better tools to promote this
mini-narrative about women and our personal identities.
JCR: I remember during your speech at the CIVICUS, Concord, DEEEP, and GCAP
Forum in South Africa you said, “the Arab Spring was a media construct. In
Tunisia we call it the Revolution of Dignity”. What is the role of the Internet in the
twenty first century to empower youth generations?
AC: I have been saying this since 2011, the “Arab Spring” is a Western narrative.
Tunisia’s revolution is different from Egypt, Libya, Syria and other countries. Putting
all countries under one basket called the “Arab Spring” is not innocent. It’s part of the
media propaganda to draw attention to a region where people’s lives started to
matter.
There was even a book called The Arab
Awakening. As if we were sleeping and
suddenly startled awake! undermining the entire
social justice struggle in Tunisia which started
with the revolt of the Gafsa Mining basin in 2008
and every other conscious political revolt in
North Africa and the Middle East.
The Western media wants to write and recreate
our own history in their own words creating a
false public memory. All these names don’t
represent us and what we call it is not featured
in the media. In Tunisia, we call it “The
Revolution of Dignity.”
JCR: I have read that you and your team have
received the support of the North-South Centre
of the Council of Europe and the European
Union to record the documentary “Kenya´s
conscious transformation”, where you gave visibility to African youth and women
leadership solving problems that mainstream media doesn´t feature. How long did it
take you to record it?
AC: “Africa Inspire” project was indeed supported by the North South Centre to
produce a long documentary called “Kenya’s Conscious Transformation,” which
highlights the role of women and young people in Kenya’s post election peace
process.
I ventured into an unforgettable journey in Kenya, where I recorded the footage for
one month with a great Kenyan team of two, Rose Wachuka who is also a VOW cofounder and on AYM’s Advisory Board and Joshua Ogure who is a UNAOC-EF
Summer School alumni and was recently selected to take part at the IREX
community Solution Program.
The project was inspired by an innate need to showcase positive attributes about the
continent, one country at a time. Kenya at that time had concluded its 2013 General
elections which though challenged before the Supreme Court, had been peaceful.
Mainstream, foreign Media however seemed fixated on the unfortunate 2007/2008
post-election violence and completely under reported the 2013 peaceful process.
My larger aspirations of which the
documentary has been the first step, is to
change the narrative about Africa… the Africa
I see from the lens of inspiration not
desperation.
Besides, coming from the region where we
have been going through a lot of hard times…
where everyone around me seems to have
lost hope in peace because of the rise of
terrorism on a precedential scale… where
young activists are falling into desperation,
breakdowns, and many times are completely
burned-out… It was not a surprise that some
of them turned to the usage of violence as the
only language that could be heard and
perhaps understood. And I thought that young
people need to see successful models and
positive stories to reflect on their
understanding of violence and its dreadful
impacts.
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JCR: Do you have in mind to record new ones in the
future?
written on papers. But how far they have gone in the
implementation of these commitments?
AC: Absolutely! Rose and I are thinking about shooting
other documentaries in Cameroon or DRC. Two
countries that we don’t hear much about their
inspirational success stories but we know of amazing
people doing extraordinary things there. I also see
Africa Inspire, as a project that is owned by African
youth across the continent to produce documentaries in
their own countries and tell their stories from their own
lenses.
I urge young people around the world to focus on
this phase.
JCR: After your long experience travelling over 20
African countries and many more others around the
world, what does global citizenship means to you?
AC: Traveling with a Tunisian passport is not
easy. Most of the time, the bureaucracies are
very humiliating. I used to say it’s sad that we
have these geographical boundaries. I think
now that it’s annoying and humiliating. It is
part of the world system of social injustice.
So I cannot associate global citizenship with borders
but I see it more as a belonging to a community of
global diversity from around the world without borders.
The more you meet and connect with people from other
parts of the world, the more you realize how similar you
are, how much in common you have, how many common struggles you share and
how much you can do together and learn from each other. Global citizenship for me
also comes with shared responsibility. If we are to belong to a global community, then
we need to act together for the protection and betterment of that community.
JCR: How do you think all youth leaders around the world could contribute to achieve
the Sustainable Development Goals lead by the United Nations in the post-2015
agenda?
AC: Young people are doing a great job in lobbying for priority issues to be on the
post-2015 development agenda. The next most important step for young people, I
think, is holding the world leaders accountable to their commitments. This is not the
first historical moment where world leaders gather to decide amazing things perfectly
JCR: “Achieve gender equality and empower all
women and girls” is the fifth goal of the post-2015
agenda. You were invited from UN Women to speak at
the commemorative event of the 20th anniversary of the
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Tell us more
about such experience, what kind of people did you
meet there? What were the greatest challenges
discussed to face gender inequalities by 2030?
AC: Unlike some of the events where I leave very
frustrated from the slow process of the UN, perfect
program for the perfect audience, and unsatisfying
outcomes, this was one where my voice was heard and
hopefully carried many of the concerns of my
generation especially of Africa and the Middle East.
I was inspired, agreed with some statements and
criticized others, met with Ban ki Moon, Hillary Clinton,
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and other influential figures. But
the one speaker whom I think stood out was Maysoon
Zayid. She was on the stage a few minutes after I
presented my speech and she said “don’t leave women
with disabilities behind”. I was so proud of her and the different image she represents
for Arabs and people living with disabilities.
JCR: What is your message to young people at the International Youth Day?
AC: We will be in those leadership positions sooner or later as those in
power will not last forever so let’s all get well prepared. Small or big,
make an impact in your community, while aware that we have the power
and duty to positively change our societies and advance our nations.
Let’s harness our energy, passion and creativity in bettering humanity not
destroying it.
JCR: Merci beaucoup. I am very happy to have shared your worldview with thousand
of our readers Chebbi. Your youth activism is a necessary energy to shift the
paradigm that global citizens are demanding to achieve the SDGs. I hope this
interview has inspired and motivated all of them.
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JUSTICIA EN AYOTZINAPA, MÉXICO
A los jóvenes normalistas de Ayotzinapa, a los sobrevivientes, a los desaparecidos, a los masacrados...
A sus familias y comunidades que hoy sufren incertidumbre
e impotencia.
Al pueblo hermano de México.
A todos los afectados por la violencia y la violación de los
derechos humanos.
A todas las personas de todas las naciones que creen y
construyen paz y justicia:
La vinculación de autoridades con grupos delincuentes, la
omisión, tardanza y la irresponsabilidad del aparato gubernamental para prevenir y resolver demandas sociales como
esta, los casi 50,000 desparecidos en los últimos años
según la presidencia mexicana y los cadáveres humanos
que se descubren constantemente en fosas... claman a gritos en busca de justicia.
En varias ciudades mexicanas la sociedad civil se moviliza.
Se leen y escuchan consignas que hablan de ello: !Vivos se
los llevaron, vivos los queremos!...; ¿Que cosecha un país
que siembra cuerpos?...; ¡Quisieron enterrarnos pero olvidaron que somos semillas!...; Pienso luego me desaparecen...;
¡Nos han quitado tanto, que nos quitaron el miedo!...; “¿Cuál
es el futuro de un país que mata a sus estudiantes?”
Un reclamo por Ayotzinapa se esparce por todo el mundo,
en Europa, América, Asia, África, y Oceanía, hay voces que
piden la aparición con vida de estos jóvenes, el respeto por
la dignidad humana y la construcción de un clima real de paz
y desarrollo.
Parafraseando a Elena Poniatowska:
“Queremos un mundo donde no haya asesinatos, donde
toda la gente tenga las mismas oportunidades. No
podemos seguir así, sentados sobre huesos, sobre fosas. Tenemos una causa común, la causa del amor que
le tenemos al ser humano y a nosotros mismos y el cuidado de los que vienen después, no sólo de los hijos
propios, sino de todos los niños del mundo: ¿Qué les
estamos dejando, qué les vamos a decir cuando nos
pregunten y tú qué estabas haciendo?”
Unidos a ellos, esta comunidad se solidariza. Por ello les invito a que nombremos a estos jóvenes que sufrieron una desaparición forzada, dejando un lugar en las aulas de clases,
un sitio que nada llena en sus familias, un hueco en el corazón de un pueblo lastimado como es México. Y les acompañemos en el deseo de que regresen pronto.
Jorge Alberto Ramos-Guerrero
© Jorge Alberto Ramos Guerrero
En la comunidad de Ayotzinapa, en el estado mexicano de
Guerrero, el 26 y 27 de Septiembre de 2014, estudiantes de
la Escuela Normal Rural “Raul Isidro Vargas” fueron atacados por la policía municipal y presuntos grupos criminales.
Tres normalistas y otras seis personas murieron. Cuarenta y
tres jóvenes fueron detenidos y transportados por patrullas y
hasta el momento se desconoce su condición y paradero. El
proceso de investigación iniciado ha sido lento, plagado de
omisiones, coacciones y silencios que atentan contra la transparencia y la confianza institucional.
Estas violaciones graves a los derechos humanos no se dan
en contexto aislado. Según evaluaciones de organismos
internacionales, en el país de México, es frecuente la vulneración de las garantías individuales y la violencia. El temor se
esparce, es sabida la crisis de seguridad y de credibilidad
institucional.
23
Con el apoyo de la
Oficina de
Santiago
Organización
para la Educación,
December'5
Submission Deadline November 1
24
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Millennium Development Goals Section
PAGE 26
Compromiso cívico de la juventud y centros de información juvenil
Gabriel Navarro Carretero
Licenciado en Psicología y Máster en Psicología de la Intervención Social. Jefe del Centro Informajoven del Servicio de Juventud del Ayuntamiento
de Murcia
[email protected] / www.gabrielnavarro.es
PAGE 31
GMB and YLI: The Real Contribution of Indonesian Young Leaders
Janu Muhammad is the initiator of Karung Goni Learning Center in Ngemplak, Caturharjo, Sleman, Indonesia. He was graduated from Yogyakarta
State University. He is a member of Gerakan Mari Berbagi (GMB) and Young Leaders for Indonesia (YLI) that supported by McKinsey&Company.
Email
: [email protected]
Web
: www.muhammadjanu.blogspot.com
http://uny.academia.edu/JanuMuhammad
PAGE 36
Juventude e tecnologias: Experiências de projetos sociais no Rio de Janeiro
Gianne Neves é Mestre em Ciências Sociais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, coordena projetos com jovens no CECIP – Centro
de Criação de Imagem Popular – Rio de Janeiro, Brasil e é pesquisadora na área de juventude.
E-mail: [email protected]
PAGE 40
El empleo juvenil como eje de desarrollo de los países: el sueño de la Fundación Novia Salcedo
Laura Simón Marón
Área de Innovación social en la Fundación Novia Salcedo
[email protected] / www.noviasalcedo.es
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Compromiso cívico de la juventud y centros de
información juvenil
Youth Civic Commitments and Youth Information
Centers
RESUMEN: A raíz del lema que se propone en 2015 para la celebración del Día
Internacional de la Juventud convocado por la ONU: "Compromiso Cívico de la
Juventud", se tratan los condicionantes principales que influyen en la participación
social de los jóvenes. Así mismo, trata los aspectos que facilitan o dificultan su
realización. Se expone las principales declaraciones de organismos internacionales
en favor del impulso de la participación real de los jóvenes en la sociedad. El papel
de los Centros de Información Juvenil es considerado fundamental en favor de la
participación juvenil. Se destaca las recomendaciones y medidas propuestas por la
Unión Europea vinculando las acciones desde los Centros de Información Juvenil y
la participación de los jóvenes en los procesos de difusión y de elaboración de la
información. En estos procesos de participación de los jóvenes en la elaboración y
difusión de información, son relevantes las experiencias de los corresponsales
juveniles, y la función de "conectores" en el escenario de las redes sociales y
Tecnologías de la Información.
ABSTRACT: Following the theme proposed in 2015 to celebrate the International
Youth Day organized by the UN, "Civic Engagement of Youth", the main factors
contributing to the social participation of young people are treated. It also discusses
the aspects that facilitate or hinder implementation. Major statements international
organizations in order to boost the effective participation of youth in society are
exposed. The role of Youth Information Centres is considered crucial for youth
participation. The recommendations and measures proposed by the European
Union by linking the actions from the Youth Information Centres and youth
participation in the processes of dissemination and processing of information
stands. In these processes of youth participation in the development and
dissemination of information, relevant experiences of the "youth correspondents"
and the role of "connectors" on the stage of social networks and Information
Technology.
Palabras clave: Juventud, Día Internacional de la Juventud, redes sociales, centros
de información juvenil, Unión Europea, Naciones Unidas.
Keywords: Youth, International Youth Day, social networks, Youth Information
Centres, European Union, United Nations,
Gabriel Navarro Carretero es Licenciado en Psicología y Máster
en Psicología de la Intervención Social. Jefe del Centro Informajoven
del Servicio de Juventud del Ayuntamiento de Murcia. Desarrolla su
actividad en los Servicios públicos de Juventud desde 1982, ha sido
miembro del Grupo de Trabajo de Juventud de la Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias y colaborador habitual del INJUVE.
Ha participado en diversos proyectos y como formador en materia de
servicios y políticas de juventud con varias administraciones públicas
y en colaboración con organismos de Francia, Bélgica, Italia, Finlandia, Chile, Bolivia y Uruguay
[email protected] / www.gabrielnavarro.es
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El lema del Día Internacional de la Juventud 2015 es "Compromiso Cívico de la
Juventud", pues se considera un componente esencial de toda la sociedad para
lograr el desarrollo humano sostenible. Y este tema aparece ante la evidencia de
que las oportunidades para los jóvenes para participar políticamente,
económicamente y socialmente son muy deficientes o nulas. Esta campaña tiene
como objetivo promover el compromiso y la participación de los jóvenes en la
política y la vida pública cívica, ya que los mismos jóvenes pueden llevar a cabo
una contribución plena a la sociedad, el desarrollo y la paz.
La participación emerge como un nuevo paradigma pedagógico y de intervención
social derivado de estudios científicos, informes y, entre otros, de grandes acuerdos
internacionales como la Convención sobre los derechos del niño, aprobada por la
Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas el 20 de noviembre de 1989. En este nuevo
paradigma se destaca el hecho de que los niños y jóvenes son ciudadanos que
necesitan respeto, compromiso, y que detentan derechos y deberes. Protagonizan
un nuevo rol como agentes sociales, capaces de expresar necesidades, opiniones y
soluciones, que necesitan a los adultos no para pensar o hacer por ellos, sino con
ellos, mediante el diálogo.
Y este paradigma se enfrenta, en la práctica diaria, con una concepción tradicional
de lo que se considera “ciudadanía”. La ciudadanía es aquél conjunto de prácticas
que definen a una persona como miembro de pleno derecho dentro de una
sociedad. La ciudadanía formal implica la posesión de un pasaporte, mientras que
la sustantiva define el conjunto de derechos y obligaciones que tienen los miembros
de una comunidad. La ciudadanía implica obligaciones a cargo de las instituciones
públicas para responder a los compromisos de participación de los derechos
conferidos (Giner, y ot. 1998).1
A lo largo de nuestra historia, esta idea generalizada de ciudadanía ha estado
circunscrita a un conjunto de derechos ejercidos fundamentalmente por los adultos.
Y aún hoy día es el modelo social imperante, a pesar de las grandes declaraciones
de los poderes públicos que intentan mostrar unos principios éticos de convivencia
distintos a los establecidos.
La participación de los jóvenes es un proceso en el que, niños y jóvenes tienen el
reto de aprender a tomar parte activa en el proceso de toma de decisiones dentro
del entorno que les rodea. Y este proceso, que también afecta al conjunto de
sectores de la sociedad, no resulta fácil de implementar.
a) No vamos a entrar en este artículo a describir las diversas formas y
mecanismos factibles de participación ciudadana (cuyas características
pueden variar sustancialmente de un continente a otro), pero si debemos
destacar cuatro elementos clave para garantizar la participación de cualquier
i n d i v i d u o o c o l e c t i v o d e c i u d a d a n o s : a) Información, sin la cual difícilmente podremos saber qué recursos tanto
físicos (infraestructuras, espacios, etc.) como virtuales y sociales (redes
sociales de colaboración, recursos de apoyo mutuo, herramientas de trabajo
o formación colaborativas, etc.) y cognitivas o de aprendizaje, existen en
nuestro entorno para desarrollar acciones participativas, o bien, conocer el
marco legal que articule las diversas vías de participación social y/o política;
b) Comunicación, vías de contacto, interlocución y experiencias prácticas
de interacción con otras personas y colectivos con necesidades e intereses
similares, que permitan la puesta en común de actuaciones colectivas en
beneficio de la comunidad;
c) Toma de decisiones, se trata de una conducta tanto individual, como
colectiva, que implica un aprendizaje, la puesta en práctica de habilidades
sociales y un contexto facilitador, la cual depende directamente de los dos
elementos anteriores;
d) Implicación y compromiso, una actitud y un comportamiento social de los
sujetos en relación a los otros que afectará el grado de continuidad y
consolidación de su participación ciudadana, y que están determinados por
el grado de motivación de los individuos, por el carácter de la necesidad
común que los convoque, y por las experiencias positivas de acción común
que refuercen su vinculación con la causa o asunto que defiendan.
Según la opinión de expertos, los jóvenes participan por diversas razones y motivos
diferentes que en ocasiones pueden coincidir entre sí y, en otras, apoyarse en
argumentos muy dispares y distintos en su sentido. Así pues, nos encontramos con
que la juventud puede participar por reconocimiento social, o por modas
momentáneas, para satisfacer necesidades personales o sociales, para conseguir
y/o compartir recursos y experiencias con expectativas satisfactorias. para formar
redes ciudadanas para afrontar un problema común, para expresar opiniones y
modos diferentes de ver las cosas, para tomar decisiones y poder ejercitar cuotas
de poder en su entorno, para ejercer presión ante las instituciones públicas, para
transformar la realidad, etc.
Entre los diferentes factores que dificultan o bien posibilitan la participación
ciudadana de los jóvenes, encontramos: El marco legal que regula los procesos de
participación ciudadana y política, la falta de educación y formación en y para la
participación, la motivación o desafección que se produce ante una falta de
credibilidad de la participación colectiva o ante bajas expectativas de cambio social,
la rigidez en el funcionamiento de las instituciones y en su marco de relaciones con
los ciudadanos, la falta de espacios disponibles y de tiempo para ejercitar la
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participación, la existencia de pocos instrumentos y vías de participación, o bien su
desconocimiento o su infrautilización, el tipo de uso y acceso a las Tecnologías de
la información y la comunicación, (Internet, redes sociales, nuevas vías de
comunicaciones móviles, etc.), la existencia o no por parte de las instituciones
públicas de políticas de fomento de la participación ciudadana, y el contexto de
valores sociales predominantes confrontados con la acción colectiva como:
individualismo, competitividad, consumismo, comodidad, conformismo, etc.
La participación y el compromiso cívico es difícil que se desempeñe por un sujeto si
no dispone de los mecanismos para ejercer la libertad de acción, lo que significa la
capacidad de aplicar un plan. Y para tal fin, informarse consiste en combinar la
visión poco definida que uno posea sobre algo con una atención continua y centrada
en objetos o asuntos delimitados al objeto de entender, situar, prever y saber dónde,
cuando y cómo actuar de acuerdo a sus propios intereses (Fayard, P. cit. por
Navarro, G. 1998). Esta definición, aparentemente compleja a primera vista,
comprende conductas ineludibles para poder participar adecuadamente, y su
consolidación exitosa dependerá de las oportunidades reales de participación y de
los procesos de aprendizaje participativo que consiga un individuo, además de una
información pertinente y eficaz.
Las referencias y declaraciones públicas respecto a la importancia y trascendencia
social que posee la participación y el compromiso cívico de la juventud con el
conjunto de la sociedad ha tenido varios hitos importantes. El más reciente lo
observamos en el documento: Empoderamiento de la Juventud para la participación
política, que se elaboró en la Novena Conferencia sobre Juventud de la Unión
Europea, organizada por el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia de la República de
Letonia, en marzo de 20152, en la cual se analizó el tema “Capacitar a los jóvenes
para la participación política en la vida democrática de Europa” y cuyas propuestas
se encuadran en los siguientes grandes apartados:
La vinculación tradicional entre los C.I.J. y los procesos de integración social del
joven siempre han estado presentes en el panorama español y en la práctica
totalidad de los países europeos, y este aspecto ha marcado significativamente el
sentido de nuestra labor social, elaborando y difundiendo información o
documentación que consideramos pertinente de cara a sus procesos de inserción4.
(Navarro, G. 2002)
! Crear una cultura de participación en la escuela
En la Resolución del Consejo de la Unión Europea de 25 de noviembre de 2003, en
materia de objetivos comunes relativos a la participación y la información de los
jóvenes (D.O.C.E. de 5 de diciembre de 2003), se comprende un Informe de Síntesis
elevado a la Unión Europea donde se recomienda a todos los países miembros lo
siguiente:
! Involucrar a los jóvenes en la toma de decisiones políticas
! Mejorar la implicación de los responsables políticos y el compromiso
con los jóvenes
!
Fortalecer el papel del trabajo juvenil para el empoderamiento político
de todos los jóvenes
1.- Mejorar el acceso de los jóvenes a los servicios de información juvenil.
2.- Ofrecer información de calidad
! Desarrollar instrumentos adaptados a los jóvenes para la participación
política
3.- Reforzar la Participación de los jóvenes en la elaboración y la difusión de la
información:
! Desarrollar la democracia local y directa
1) Involucrar a las organización juveniles en la elaboración y
aplicación de las estrategias de información de los jóvenes.
2) Implicar a los jóvenes en la puesta a disposición de la información
relativa a la juventud. Destinar la información a grupos
particulares de jóvenes, en particular a desfavorecidos.
3) Reforzar la participación de los jóvenes en la difusión de
información y en el asesoramiento de otros jóvenes, en particular
los que tienen dificultad para obtener información y consejos.
! Aumentar las sinergias y la cooperación entre los diferentes actores
A la hora de impulsar todas estas acciones de cara a favorecer la participación y el
compromiso social de los jóvenes, la información constituye una herramienta
primordial. Desde los Centros de Información Juvenil (C.I.J.), el sentido de nuestro
trabajo viene dado por la oportunidad de facilitar con la información que ofrecemos
el ejercicio de la toma de decisiones de cara a algún propósito que, en mayor o
menor medida, amplíe el horizonte de autonomía personal de un joven, o de un
colectivo de jóvenes3, afrontando los cambios que les exigen diferentes papeles e
identidades a desempeñar junto con el resto de jóvenes, y frente al resto de la
sociedad, y que les deben encaminar hacia sujetos adultos. (Navarro, G. 1998)
La necesaria implicación de los jóvenes, tal y como se expresa en la anterior
Resolución, viene determinada por el papel de “mediación social” que los jóvenes
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cumplen en su entorno. Uno de los mecanismos que se ha articulado en varios casos
(no con la continuidad deseable) ha sido la incorporación progresiva de las
asociaciones y colectivos juveniles en los procesos de difundir y generar información
de interés para ellos mismos y otros jóvenes de su entorno. Aquí el uso y expansión
de las Tecnologías de la Información, pueden y deben cumplir un rol esencial, al
agilizar y ampliar las potencialidades comunicativas de los propios colectivos
juveniles. (Navarro, G. 1998)
En la Carta Europea de Información Juvenil, aprobada en Bratislava (República
Eslovaca) el 19 de noviembre de 2004 por la 15ª Asamblea General de la Agencia
Europea de Información y Asesoramiento para los Jóvenes (ERYICA), documento
que enmarca la misión, los objetivos y las características que deben cumplir los CIJ
en Europa, se expresa esta misma directriz en los siguientes puntos:
12. Los centros y servicios de información juvenil se esforzarán por alcanzar al mayor
número posible de jóvenes, con procedimientos que resulten eficaces y adecuados
para los distintos grupos y necesidades, y serán creativos e innovadores a la hora de
elegir sus estrategias, métodos y herramientas.
13. Las y los jóvenes deberán tener la oportunidad de participar de modo apropiado
en las distintas etapas del trabajo de información juvenil, a nivel local, regional,
nacional e internacional. Dichas etapas podrán incluir, entre otras: la identificación de
la demanda de información, la elaboración y difusión de la misma, la gestión y
evaluación de los servicios y proyectos informativos, y las actividades de los grupos
paritarios.
15. Los centros y servicios de información juvenil ayudarán a las y los jóvenes, tanto
en el acceso a la información facilitada a través de las modernas tecnologías de
información y comunicación, como en el desarrollo de sus aptitudes de utilización de
las mismas.
En la Resolución del Consejo y de los Representantes de los Gobiernos de los
Estados miembros reunidos en Consejo, de 24 de mayo de 2005, relativa a la
aplicación de los objetivos comunes en materia de información de los jóvenes (DO C
141 de 10.6.2005, p. 5/6), se recuerda:
-
que la información de la juventud es importante para cada Estado miembro y
que la aplicación de objetivos comunes sólo puede realizarse en observancia
del principio de subsidiariedad;
-
que el fomento de servicios de información adaptados a las necesidades
particulares de los jóvenes desempeña un papel primordial en el acceso de los
jóvenes a la información;
-
que los jóvenes constituyen un grupo heterogéneo, de necesidades distintas
en función de la edad, el sexo y el contexto socioeconómico y geográfico;
-
que la información de la juventud constituye por su propia naturaleza un
ámbito muy diversificado que afecta a muchos jóvenes en contextos distintos;
-
que la participación de los jóvenes en la producción y divulgación de
información sigue siendo un elemento clave de una información adaptada a las
necesidades de los jóvenes;
-
que la aplicación del objeto común «información» ha hecho posible realizar el
portal de Internet creado por la Comisión en colaboración con las redes
Eurodesk, ERYICA (Agencia Europea de Información y Asesoramiento para
los Jóvenes) y EYCA (Asociación Europea de Carnet Joven).
Recientemente, en las Conclusiones del Consejo sobre el fomento del acceso a los
derechos por parte de los jóvenes, con el fin de propiciar su autonomía y su
participación en la sociedad civil (2015/C 18/01), se indica que la UE y los Estados
miembros, podrían promover medidas para abordar las siguientes cuestiones (cito
solamente algunas), en donde los C.I.J. desempeñamos una labor fundamental:
— promover la sensibilización de los jóvenes respecto a sus derechos y
al modo de ejercerlos,
— apoyar la participación de los jóvenes en el proceso de toma de
decisiones a todos los niveles, y también a través del reconocimiento
de las organizaciones juveniles como un importante canal para la
participación y el desarrollo de la ciudadanía activa,
— continuar el camino emprendido hacia el reconocimiento del trabajo
juvenil como instrumento para fomentar la participación y la
adquisición de destrezas y competencias importantes para lograr la
autonomía,
— impulsar las oportunidades de participación en la vida de la
comunidad y de contribución a la misma, también a través de los
medios de comunicación y la tecnología de la información, en
particular con respecto a decisiones que afectan a los jóvenes
directamente,
— apoyar el desarrollo de los medios de comunicación y de la
alfabetización digital como medio para convertir a los jóvenes en
ciudadanos críticos y activos,
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Nº 12
En este mismo documento, entre las medidas y actuaciones a las que se invita
realizar a los estados miembros, destacamos las siguientes:
17. Fomenten el trabajo en el ámbito de la juventud, teniendo en cuenta las
conclusiones del «estudio sobre el valor del trabajo en el ámbito de la juventud»,
como instrumento fundamental para permitir que los jóvenes desarrollen sus propias
iniciativas y apoyar su transición a la vida adulta.
20. Apoyen la creación de servicios de información juvenil que puedan ayudar a
informar a los jóvenes acerca de su acceso a los derechos.
Existen varias experiencias muy interesantes encuadradas en estas acciones de
mediación social y de implicación de los jóvenes en los procesos de difusión e
interacción de la información juvenil, entre las que podemos citar a los
Corresponsales Juveniles en los centros de Enseñanza Secundaria, un proyecto que
hemos venido desarrollando en el Informajoven de Murcia a lo largo de casi 15 años y
que, después de un periodo de impasse, se pretende retomar para este próximo
curso escolar. Esta experiencia ha tenido mucho éxito en varios municipios de
España, destacando, principalmente, la realizada en el CIPAJ de Zaragoza, donde se
denominan “Antenas Informativas”.
En este contexto, debemos afrontar, además varios retos ineludibles, pero que no son
fáciles de incorporar en nuestra labor cotidiana:
Por un lado, la necesidad de involucrar a los jóvenes en la elaboración de las
informaciones y las noticias. Ya sea contando con ellos como blogueros, escritores,
editores de contenidos, irradiando en nuestros sitios web y nuestras redes sociales
sus propios contenidos, como, colocando a los jóvenes como protagonistas de las
noticias que divulguemos en nuestros medios. Es sabido que los jóvenes dicen
sentirse incomprendidos o menospreciados por la mayoría de los medios de
comunicación en lo que respecta a ellos y sobre las cuestiones que les afectan. Y
nosotros, desde los servicios públicos, tenemos la obligación de otorgarles un rol
diferente y más activo de su imagen social habitualmente sesgada.
Por otra parte, debemos mejorar las funciones para compartir y ampliar el contenido
informativo que elaboramos desde los C.I.J., para potenciar la interacción, las
conversaciones y la difusión a través de las redes sociales y aplicaciones en
dispositivos móviles. El contenido informativo debe estar dotado de los elementos que
hagan fácil y sencilla su distribución más allá de la web del medio en cuestión,
ofreciendo otro papel a la audiencia, fomentando la conversación de dos vías y
estando abiertos y flexibles ante sus críticas y propuestas.5 (Navarro, G. 2010)
Hoy día tenemos la posibilidad de diseminar información hacia otros jóvenes
mediante la función intermediaria de usuarios que adoptan el rol de "conectores”
emergiendo, en el entorno de las redes sociales, nuevos comportamientos en el uso
de la información. La clave reside en identificar los comportamientos que los jóvenes
ejecutan en los procesos de acceso, uso e intercambio de la información. Y aquí
surge lo que denominamos "comportamiento informacional colaborativo" que se
refiere a la conducta manifiesta por las personas al trabajar conjuntamente para
identificar una necesidad de información, recuperar, buscar y compartir información,
evaluar, sintetizar y dar sentido a la información que se localiza, y luego utilizar la
información que se encuentra. Este es, probablemente, uno de los escenarios más
interesantes en los que debemos intervenir con nuestros jóvenes.6 (Navarro, G.
2014).
REFERENCIAS:
1
Salvador Giner, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa y Cristóbal Torres (eds.) Diccionario de
Sociología. (Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1998).
2
CONFERENCIA SOBRE JUVENTUD DE LA UNIÓN EUROPEA en RIGA.
Conclusiones sobre *“Empoderamiento de la Juventud para la participación política”* Riga, 23-26
marzo 2015. Accesible en: http://www.gabrielnavarro.es/2015/04/07/empoderamiento-de-lajuventud-para-la-participacion-politica/
3
Gabriel Navarro (1998) Juventud, Información e Imágenes Sociales. Elementos para un
debate desde los
Centros de Información Juvenil. En FORO JOVEN '98. "Medios de
Comunicación por y para los jóvenes" Salamanca. Noviembre 1998. INJUVE. MTAS. Accesible
e n : h t t p s : / / w w w. a c a d e m i a . e d u / 11 9 2 8 4 1 2 / J u v e n t u d _ I n f o r m a c i % C 3 % B 3 n _ e _ I m
%C3%A1genes_Sociales._Elementos_para_un_debate_desde_los_Centros_de_Informaci
%C3%B3n_Juvenil
4
Gabriel Navarro. (2002) Los centros de información juvenil en el medio urbano. Retos en
el ámbito local. En: II Jornadas sobre las Políticas de Juventud y las Corporaciones Locales.
B a r c e l o n a 2 0 0 2 . F E M P. A c c e s i b l e e n : h t t p s : / / w w w. a c a d e m i a . e d u / 11 9 2 9 0 8 7 /
Los_Centros_de_Informaci%C3%B3n_Juvenil_en_el_medio_urbano._Retos_en_el_
%C3%A1mbito_local
5
Gabriel Navarro (2010) Comunicación presentada en el Congreso Internacional “Jóvenes
Construyendo Mundos. Capacidades y Límites de una Acción Transformadora”. 14 y 15 octubre
2010 | Círculo de Bellas Artes. Madrid. Accesible en: http://www.gabrielnavarro.es/2011/04/13/
estrategias-para-acercar-a-los-jovenes-a-las-politicas-de-juventud/
Navarro, Gabriel (2014). “Tras el comportamiento informacional colaborativo”. Anuario
ThinkEPI, 2014, v. 8, pp. 173-182. Accesible en: https://www.academia.edu/11929147/
Tras_el_comportamiento_informacional_colaborativo
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Nº 12
GMB and YLI: The Real Contribution of Indonesian Young
Leaders
Abstract: This article reflect about an amazing experience on Gerakan Mari Berbagi
(GMB) and Young Leaders for Indonesia (YLI) during 2014-2015. The author would
like to express the magnitude of the potential of Indonesian youth due to
demographic bonus which led youth organizations to grow well. One of the
innovations in education is carried out after joining GMB and the YLI is the
establishment of Omah Baca Karung Goni which has developed into Karung Goni
Learning Center in Ngemplak, Caturharjo, Sleman. The main goal is to motivate the
children for reading books and pursue to college level. Also in generally, it would be
useful to foster the interest of Indonesia young leaders in setting up a library
community.
A Wonderful Indonesia
Indonesia, a wonderful country on the equator that holds many natural and
cultural resources. Volcanoes, white sandy beaches, coral reefs, until the karst hills
easily found in every corner of this country. There are 34 provinces that save a
million diversities, race, ethnicity, language, or culture. Indonesia is a heaven for
those who love adventure, for those who love travelling.
One of the provinces that has excellent tourism spots is Yogyakarta. Yes, Yogyakarta is a famous for its special regions. Inherent designation is City of Education,
City of Tourism, City of Culture, City of Culinary, and much more. Every corner is
make the newcomers will feel the longing and well memories. The people are
friendly and courteous to make tourists comfortable to visit Yogyakarta. People said
that a single visit to Jogja is never enough.(1) The list of things you can experience in
Jogja may seem overwhelming, ranging from natural splendors, art and tradition and
heritages to culinary adventure.
However, behind the natural beauty of Indonesia there are serious problems
about the poor quality of human resources. Human Development Index released
that Indonesia was ranked 108 in 2013.(2) This ranking is far below neighboring
countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. One factor is the low quality of education
in Indonesia. With a total population of 250 million, the government has sought to
improve educational services for every citizen, even for young generation.
Keywords: GMB, YLI, Indonesia, Young Leaders, Library, Omah Baca Karung Goni,
Youth
Janu Muhammad is the initiator of Karung Goni Learning
Center in Ngemplak, Caturharjo, Sleman, Indonesia. He was
graduated from Yogyakarta State University. He is a member of
Gerakan Mari Berbagi (GMB) and Young Leaders for Indonesia
(YLI) that supported by McKinsey&Company.
Email : [email protected]
Web : www.muhammadjanu.blogspot.com
http://uny.academia.edu/JanuMuhammad
Picture 1. Indonesia Age Structure 2014
Source : http://www.indexmundi.com/indonesia/age_structure.html
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This entry provides the distribution of the population according to age.
Information is included by sex and age group (0-14 years, 15-64 years, 65 years and
over). The age structure of a population affects a nation's key socioeconomic issues.
Countries with young populations (high percentage under age 15) need to invest
more in schools, while countries with older populations (high percentage ages 65
and over) need to invest more in the health sector. The age structure can also be
used to help predict potential political issues. For example, the rapid growth of a
young adult population unable to find employment can lead to unrest.
However, very unfortunate that remote areas are still difficult to access decent
education facilities. Including that also occurred in Yogyakarta, precisely in Ngemplak, Caturharjo, Sleman. The problem faced in this village is the limited economic
impact on the population's lack of interest in reading books. Low interest in reading
books result in low participation of children to learn and pursue college. As a result,
many of them which eventually went to work and got married. In fact, if they go to
college then there will be hope of getting a better job.
Seeing these conditions, I have an intention to change this situation by
empowering the youth in Ngemplak. At the end of 2014, I have a desire to establish
a community library. It is my dream since childhood along IRENG youth
organizations (Youth Association of Ngemplak). Through the library, I will learn with
children. I want once they have high dreams to go to college. Early 2015, there was
a meeting which I and some board of IRENG invited by Gadjah Mada University
students who would hold social events in Ngemplak. It was great, they will help us to
establish a community library. Exactly on January 19, 2015 stood "Omah Baca
Karung Goni" that become a home for reading, home to the public in improving the
literacy movement.(3) We call it OBKG, so simple. The public and local governments
gave a good appreciation. OBKG is became a new initiation to empower the youth
through activities in the library. The vision and mission of OBKG among others, as a
forum to learn and increase the interest in reading for the community and is
expected to contribute to enhancing education quality at Ngemplak in particular and
Indonesia in general. I am grateful for this extraordinary gift and being the young librarian.
Gerakan Mari Berbagi (GMB)
In February 2014, I participated in the Youth Adventure and Youth Leaders
Forum (YA & YLF) held by Gerakan Mari Berbagi (GMB) or Sharing Movement, an
NGO that focused on the formation of the youth to become future leaders.(4) This is
the first time I know GMB initiated by Azwar Hasan, a graduate of Harvard
University. YA & YLF 2014 which supported by Indonesian Ministry of Youth and
Sport held on 1 to 9 February 2014, with the route of Yogyakarta to Jakarta. There
are 47 participants were chosen after a competitive selection, ranging from administrative selection, interview and physical tests. They are 'youth above average' which
come from various backgrounds such as students, journalists, doctors, and soon.
We arrived in Yogyakarta and stayed for the night at the camp area. The next day,
we traveled as a team. A team of three people. I get a friend from Sulawesi and
Aceh. Each participant was given a 10 dollar to live for two nights. This money
should be enough to eat, transportation, and the need for the trip. We were forbidden to call a parent, a friend to borrow money, or using private money. We must
survive until Jakarta. What is unique, we have to stop in the two cities. The first city
has a mission 'hands on under' or we accept help from others. The second city is the
mission of 'hands on the top' or give help to others.
My team arrived in Magelang and finally stayed at home Mrs. Iyah, rice seller
in Magelang terminal. She was very kind and helped us, providing a place and food
for free. This was the challenge, we must continue to run for help. The people whom
we encountered many who give money. They appreciate this activity because to
prepare the next Indonesian leaders. We were taught to be independent, willing to
t a k e r i s k s , a n d r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s i n l e a d i n g t h e t e a m . The next day, we arrived in the second city that is Banjarnegara. There we were assisted by the police. We stayed at the police station because it was night. The
second city is our mission to share. It's very challenging, our mental test. During the
three-day trip was to make us understand that as a Indonesian young leaders should
be aware for the community. That form of togetherness and the meaning of "Unity in
Diversity" as our national motto. Finally, we have arrived safely in Jakarta. Pleasure
and pride is a certain satisfaction over this spiritual journey.
Furthermore, the participants attended leadership training at Cibubur Jakarta.
The speakers came from NGO activists, ministers, both from within and outside the
country. They are very inspiring and remarkable. There is great strength that I feel at
the GMB. Until finally, on February 10, 2014 we have returned to their respective
provinces. Then, I created a project that focused on education. I initiated GMB 1000
Books with the main aim to collect 1000 books that will be donated to OBKG.(5) Yes,
this is the project as a real dedication in the GMB. With the assistance of volunteers,
we managed to collect about 1100 books from donors in Indonesia. Their response
was very positive because it will be useful for the development OBKG.
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Nº 12
me a lesson, that tolerance exists.(7) As the youth should be productive in the work. It
was great when approaching home, I got a surprise as the best participant in writing
articles and the most productive participant.
After go home from Australia, I am trying to share the stories. I have a duty as
an ambassador of GMB to share kindness to everyone. I am more motivated to move
and continue Omah Baca Karung Goni.(8) Yes, I began to open up a lot of
cooperation to collaboration project. Beginning in 2015, the challenge for me more
and more. On the one hand, I should soon complete my studies and on the other
hand I am very busy to develop OBKG. In late January 2015, I attended the ASEAN
University Youth Summit at Universiti Utara Malaysia.(9) The activity aims to bring
together the youth in ASEAN to express ideas, as well as volunteerism activities of
their respective countries. Each country is entitled to delegate one participant to be
the speaker. I represent Indonesia to deliver activities in OBKG. I get a valuable
lesson from these activities.
Picture 2. Youth Adventure & Youth Leaders Forum 2014
Source : http://www.g-mb.org/gallery.html
A Young Librarian Goes to Australia
In July 2014, I and the alumni of GMB reported the results of our project in
front of the nine judges. After a fairly lengthy assessment, finally announced the
participants who received the prize for homestay in Australia and Japan. “Thank God,
I officially get the chance homestay in Australia along with eight other delegates,”
said me. For three weeks in November, I stayed at Elgata Street 22, Brisbane,
Queensland. This was my second experience abroad after the year 2013 I attended
Utrecht Summer School in the Netherlands. I get a new family, they are Gwenda,
Tom, and Alex. They welcome me with a pleasure. We talk to each other, about the
life of each country. I also took time to teach Indonesian language (Bahasa
Indonesia) in Ferny Grove State High School.(6) Since it was summer, I am very
happy to tour, even to New South Wales! Indeed, an unforgettable experience. I also
learned, how Australia can be a big country with rapid progress. I also learned, how
the role of young people in the organization and community. But, I am 100% still love
and proud to live in Indonesia, the homeland which is always missed. GMB has given
Picture 3. I and Omah Baca Karung Goni (OBKG)
Source : Author’s Documentation
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The Young Leaders for Indonesia (YLI)
On May 2015, I get a chance as 60 participants selected to join the Young
Leaders for Indonesia (YLI) 2015 organized by McKinsey & Company. To become a
participant at this program is not easy. At least there are more than 1,300 people who
signed up this year. Selected participants are those who have the ability above
average. The Young Leaders for Indonesia was Launched in 2008 and continues
today under the name of YLI National.(10) Since its inception, the National program has
developed a pool of 280 top talents. YLI National is an annual program conducted in
Jakarta with Indonesian top students Chosen to Participate through a rigorous selection process. The program's of participants are represented by 30 universities from
across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Over the course of the six-month program, the YLI National of participants attended the three forums with Lead Self, Team Lead and Lead Change as the
respective themes, and with the PLP and BLP assignments in between forums. Besides engaging of participants in the training modules and project development and
management experiences, we also invite prominent Indonesian leaders to share
leadership Reviews their personal paths. Speakers in the YLI National included: Mrs.
Tri Mumpuni (Director of IBEKA), Mr Anies Baswedan (President of Paramadina
University), Mr Alexander Rusli (President Director and CEO of Indosat), Mr. Handry
Satriago (CEO of GE Indonesia), Mr. Fuad Rahmany (Director General of Tax,
Ministry of Finance), Mr. Basuki T. Purnama (Vice Governor of DKI Jakarta), Mr Kuntoro (Head of UKP4), Mr Gita Wirjawan (Minister of Trade), Mrs. Martha Tilaar (Founder and Owner of Martha Tilaar Group) and others.
The YLI program is designed to enhance the of participants' leadership skills,
equip them with unique problem solving skills and build a network among the highperforming students across Indonesia. To achieve this, the work of participants
through three forums over 6 months; Them Reviews These provide the conceptual
framework and practical skills to lead self (Forum 1), leads others (Forum 2) and lead
change (Forum 3). During the program, the of participants are exposed to a network
of high-performing, inspirational leaders who are invited as speakers and facilitators.
Between forums, the of participants are required to work on real-life projects in order
to apply and practice the skills and frameworks learned during the forums.
The Young Leaders for Indonesia Foundation was established in 2010. The
Foundation is funded in part by McKinsey & Company, roomates also serves as the
knowledge partner, and Indonesian companies as program partners. All believe in the
values of the YLI program and share the vision of future leaders' development as a
critical component underlying supporting the growth of Indonesia. Indonesia is a
member of the G20, ranks as the 3rd reviews largest democracy in the world, with 240
million people and rich natural resources; it has increasingly played an important role
in the global stage. According to the report by the McKinsey Global Institute (The archipelago economy: Unleashing Indonesia's potential) Indonesia could Become the 7th
Reviews largest economy in the world by 2030. To realize Indonesia's economic
potential, the country has to address critical challenges Including the projected shortage of 60 million skilled and semi-skilled workers in its labor force. The YLI
Foundation Believes that to help Unleash Indonesia's potential will require a growing
cadre of world-class leaders with strong leadership skills, a global mindset, and
knowledge of local culture and traditions. The Foundation is fully committed to
address the need of talent and leadership development in Indonesia.
Picture 4. Attending the YLI Forum 1
The YLI Foundation has expanded the
program in order to deliver a scalable impact; it
offers 2 programs which are run in a parallel
annually: the YLI National Program and the YLI
Satellite Program. These programs support and
develop the participants’ personal and professional skills over the course of 6-months.
After graduating from the program, the participants become members of the YLI
Community as they launch their respective personal leadership paths. A key
component in the continued development of these young leaders arises from the
creation of a vibrant network across three generations of Indonesian leaders
encompassing the Foundation patrons, board members, established leaders and the
YLI program graduates. In addition, the Foundation has now initiated the YLI Faculty
Network enabling select program graduates to participate directly in program delivery.
This functions as a capacity building program for the alumni to be part of the YLI
faculty, enabling them to give back to future program participants, and creating another leadership development opportunity for them.
The YLI Forum 1 for 2015 was held on 23-24 May 2015 with full of leadership
training. For two days, all participants joined the discussion to train the critical thinking
as a youth and agent of change. After completion of the event, each participant is
obliged to do Personal leadership Project (PLP) for two monts. I just continued and
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developed Omah Baca Karung Goni to be Karung Goni Learning Center (KGLC).
It has three focuses such as Library Service, Non Formal Education, and Youth
Empowerment. We invited some organizations and local government (Sleman Regency) to make collaboration. I empower the youth from Ngemplak, also from
others partnership (Nanyang Technological University’s Students) who had a social
activities in the end of May 2015 in KGLC. On June 2015, I and KGLC received an
award as the 1st winner of Youth Initiator Competition in Sleman Regency held by
Ministry of Youth and Sport Republic Indonesia.(11)
Reflection : The Real Contribution of Indonesian Young Leaders
My reflection which I could do so far is about how to create a positive impact on
youth activities to create a better Indonesia. I am aware that Indonesia will become
a great country with the role of youth. From the GMB and YLI, I learned, that there
must be a real contribution made by the youth where they lived as a good step to
be Indonesian young leaders. There must be a dedication that should given before
working in company or somewhere else. I am convinced that the struggle of Indonesian youth today will bring positive change to Indonesia in the future. Through
my role and all volunteers in Karung Goni Learning Center, there will be concrete
results where children can reach of college level and achieve their dreams.
“Good Habits Formed at Youth Make All The Difference” by Aristotle
References :
(1) D . I . Y o g y a k a r t a . 2 0 1 5 .
http://www.indonesia.travel/en/discover-indonesia/region-detail/33/di-yogyakarta
accessed on 26 July 2015.
(2) H u m a n D e v e l o p m e n t I n d e x a n d i t s c o m p o n e n t s . 2 0 1 3 .
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components
(3) Mahasiswa Asrama UGM Dirikan ‘Omah Baca Karung Goni’. 2014.
https://ugm.ac.id/id/berita/8602-mahasiswa.asrama.ugm.dirikan.%E2%80%98omah.
baca .karung.goni%E2%80%99 accessed on 26 July 2015.
(4) Gerakan Mari Berbagi. 2014. http://www.g-mb.org/ accessed on 26 July 2015.
(5) G e r a k a n M a r i B e r b a g i 1 0 0 0 B u k u . 2 0 1 4 .
http://gmb1000buku.blogspot.com/2014/02/gmb-1000-buku-untuk-perpustakaan-dus
un.html accessed on 26 July 2015.
(6) P r o u d t o L e a r n B a h a s a I n d o n e s i a . 2 0 1 5 .
http://www.aiya.org.au/2015/06/proud-to-learn-bahasa-indonesia/ accessed on 26
July 2015.
(7) R e l i g i o n i s T h e H u m a n R i g h t : C h o o s e i t O r S k i p i t . 2 0 1 4 4 .
http://www.g-mb.org/homestay-stories/religion-is-the-human-right-choose-it-or-skip-it
(8) M a h a s i s w a U N Y I k u t i H o m e s t a y d i A u s t r a l i a . 2 0 1 4 .
http://uny.ac.id/berita/mahasiswa-pendidikan-geografi-uny-ikuti-homestay-di-australia
.html
(9) ASEAN University Youth Summit. 2015. http://aseanyouths.net/ accessed on 26 July
2015.
(10)Young Leaders for Indonesia. 2015. http://yli.or.id/programs/yli-national/ accessed on
26 July 2015.
(11) Seleksi Pemuda Pelopor: Dedikasi untuk Kabupaten Sleman. 2015.
http://muhammadjanu.blogspot.com/2015/06/seleksi-pemuda-pelopor-dedikasi-untuk
.html accessed on 26 July 2015.
Picture 5. A Collaboration With NTU Singapore
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Nº 12
Juventude e tecnologias: Experiências de projetos sociais
no Rio de Janeiro
Resumo: Este artigo é um relato de como jovens moradores da cidade do Rio de
Janeiro, Brasil, por meio de projetos sociais, estão fazendo uso das TIC´s – Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação e uma reflexão sobre como esses jovens estão
se apropriando das tecnologias produzindo cultura. Dois projetos sociais nas áreas
de educação e comunicação, realizados pelo CECIP – Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular1, são inspiração neste artigo.
Palavras chave: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, CECIP, crianças, juventude, tecnologias.
Youth and Technologies: Experiences of Social
Projects in Rio de Janeiro
Abstract: This article is an account of how young residents of the city of Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, through social projects, are making use of ICT - Information and
Communication Technologies and a reflection on how these young people are
grabbing technologies producing culture. Two social projects in education and
communication, conducted by CECIP - Creation of Popular Imaging Center, are
inspiration in this article.
Keywords: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, CECIP, children, youth, technologies.
Gianne Neves é Mestre em Ciências Sociais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, coordena projetos
com jovens no CECIP – Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular – Rio de Janeiro, Brasil e é pesquisadora na área de
juventude.
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No Brasil, são
aproximadamente 50
milhões de pessoas com idades entre 15 e 29 anos, o
que representa mais de 25%
da população total (2013).
Os estudos e a produção de
conhecimento no campo da
juventude são cada vez mais
crescentes e diversos, por
isso faz-se necessário uma
breve contextualização, apresentando como temas
relacionados à condição juvenil vêm sendo abordados em pesquisas acadêmicas.
Estudos da década de 1960 tendiam a ver os jovens como segmento de forte
participação nas práticas da vida cotidiana, fazendo uma associação entre a noção
de juventude e a condição de estudante, eram referência na realização ações culturais e considerados como um segmento crítico, ativo e organizado. Já na década de
70, muitos estudos consideraram que a juventude estava vivendo um vazio político
e cultural, como consequência da ditadura militar. Em 80, algumas pesquisas buscavam as razões pelas quais a juventude não tinha mais a mesma participação identificada na década de sessenta. Neste período o sentido da prática juvenil, assim
como a participação política, começavam a ser repensados.
Nos anos 90 buscou-se, entre tantas outras condições, identificar comportamentos e estilos juvenis, entender as resistências, valorizar as micropolíticas e
considerar a juventude no plural. Nos anos 2000, muitos trabalhos se concentraram
nas novas redes sociais, atuação cultural e micropolíticas cotidianas (Borelli, Rocha,
Oliveira, Rangel e Lara 2010).
Hoje a busca pelas singularidades da juventude brasileira está cada vez mais
presente nos estudos realizados por diversas áreas do conhecimento, assim como
o tema da interface juventude e tecnologia, onde seus usos e apropriações são
algumas das reflexões mais contemporâneas de pesquisa.
Em um contexto mais geral, vale destacar que, na década de 1990, quando a
juventude brasileira passou a ser vista com esta certa pluralidade, os jovens de periferia passaram a “existir”, geralmente associados a problemas sociais. Sob essa
perspectiva, para esse grupo de jovens, tornava-se necessário o desenvolvimento
de ações de controle social e que pudessem “prepará-los” para o mercado de trabalho. Tornaram-se um dos principais públicos de projetos e programas sociais de
diferentes naturezas.
Criadas nesse contexto, as iniciativas que envolviam organismos internacionais, ONGs, organizações empresariais, entre outros, consideraram os jovens como
criminalizados, como ameaçados ou ameaçadores e ou como objetos, públicos-alvo
de políticas puramente assistencialistas. Somente no final dos anos 1990, a juventude passa a ser uma questão social com mais relevância, como dito anteriormente.
O jovem começa a ser visto como sujeito de direitos, que necessita de políticas públicas que atendam às suas especificidades e que considerem seu desenvolvimento
e formação.
Os projetos de educação e comunicação: reflexões sobre tecnologia e cultura
Foi em 1994, na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro, que o CECIP iniciou
suas atividades voltadas para o público juvenil. O projeto Repórter de Bairro2 foi um
dos primeiros projetos realizados pela ONG, envolvendo jovens, adolescentes e tecnologias de informação e comunicação.
Em quase 30 anos de experiência o CECIP desenvolveu cerca de 30 projetos, envolvendo diretamente mais de 2500 jovens e adolescentes, com idades entre
13 e 21 anos, estudantes de escolas públicas do Rio de Janeiro e de outros estados. Nessas iniciativas, as TIC’s são vistas como aliadas, pois se transformam em
instrumentos de estímulo à participação no espaço escolar e na comunidade, onde
os jovens podem experimentar ser protagonistas de suas ideias e disseminá-las
para públicos mais amplos, assim como discutir temas como valores, identidade e o
seu lugar no mundo.
A experiência de trabalho com jovens
continua a ser desenvolvida.
Atualmente, nesta área, estão em curso, no CECIP, dois grandes projetos
envolvendo diretamente o público jovem:
A Oi Kabum! Escola de Arte e Tecnologia, programa do Instituto Oi
Futuro, coordenado pelo CECIP. A
Escola oferece, a cerca de 60
adolescentes e jovens de escolas públicas, no período de 9 meses, com aulas diárias, formação em áreas estratégicas
para o mercado da comunicação: fotografia, vídeo, design gráfico e motion design,
onde os jovens têm acesso à tecnologia de ponta.
Para complementar a formação, os jovens têm aulas de design sonoro, história da arte e tecnologia, oficina da palavra, web design e arte digital. A Escola tem
como objetivos preparar para o mercado de trabalho nas áreas de arte e tecnologia,
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Nº 12
assim como contribuir
para que os jovens
ampliem a capacidade de refletir e atuar
sobre o universo em
que vivem. Esse modelo de escola tem
sede em outros três
estados, Belo Horizonte, Recife e Salvador.
A Nave do
Conhecimento,
localizada em Nova
Brasília, no Complexo
3
do Alemão, é um projeto realizado pela Secretaria Especial de Ciência e Tecnologia
do Município do Rio de Janeiro, no qual o CECIP é responsável pela gestão do
espaço, que oferece cursos e atividades de formação em novas tecnologias, disponibilizando livre acesso à internet e a recursos de multimídia, além de investir na produção e difusão de conhecimento, cultura e arte. Essa política pública, da forma como
foi implementada em Nova Brasília, foi desenhada baseada na longa experiência do
CECIP no desenvolvimento de projetos nas áreas de educação e comunicação.
Nesses projetos realizados pelo CECIP, as TIC´s têm papel chave na formulação de novas demandas sociais. Na Oi Kabum, os jovens produzem diferentes peças de comunicação e campanhas, que se transformam em instrumentos para interferir em suas realidades, mobilizando coletivos culturais, disseminando
por meio da arte a sua visão sobre o mundo.
As formas de participação social e política estão sendo modificadas pelas
formas inovadoras de uso das tecnológicas, por um lado fazendo uma
descentralização radical, dotando grande parte dos indivíduos e os grupos de uma
capacidade de resposta, empurrando a interação e a possibilidade de intervir nas
tomadas de decisão, renovando a sociedade civil e a participação democrática; por
outro lado é uma forma mais sofisticada de centralização e de controle social, onde
os usos da virtualidade da tecnologia são acompanhados de “manuais de uso” que
servem para materializar hábitos e tendências da sociedade.
A cultura também é afetada pelas novas tecnologias. Na Nave do
Conhecimento de Nova Brasília, a cultura local tem sido contada e recontada por
meio da valorização da experiência de moradores antigos que contribuíram para a
construção e resistência do local. Suas histórias e memórias estão registradas em
vídeos e fotografias, feitas por jovens moradores, e são apresentadas para o público
mais amplo na própria comunidade criando novos espaços para reflexão sobre o lugar onde vivem.
Para compreender essa relação entre a tecnologia e a cultura, Edgar Morin
(1986) trás importantes contribuições. Segundo ele o capital de cultura não é dado
pela classe social; a cultura não está condicionada ao acesso aos bens materiais.
Cultura é uma projeção, concepção imaginária que é constituída pela vida real e não
de classe, e assim a cultura é concebida a partir da forma como as pessoas se apropriam de determinada dimensão cultural. Sendo a cultura uma concepção imaginária
constituída pela vida real, a tecnologia conseqüentemente impactará na cultura, porém a conseqüência será uma ampliação da comunicação entre os indivíduos.Nos
contextos desses projetos, a tecnologia não pode ser considerada somente
enquanto produto, ela ganha diferentes sentidos, um deles é a possibilidade de mediar a produção cultural de e por jovens e fazer com que eles se apropriem dessa
cultura. Pode ter também o sentido de possibilitar diferentes formas de comunicação
e intervenção no local onde vivem bem como na sociedade mais ampla.
Dona Sebastiana sendo entrevista ao lado de seu totem criado para umas das Exposições
de resul-tados montada na Nave do Conhecimento, localizada numa praça central do
Complexo do Alemão.
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Para finalizar...
De uma maneira geral, os projetos com jovens desenvolvidos pelo CECIP têm
como principal objetivo a formação do ser humano e sua preparação para a vida. O
conceito ensino educativo, de acordo com Morin (2011), expressa adequadamente
esse sentido, pois este tem a missão de transmitir não só o mero saber, mas uma
cultura que permita compreender nossa condição de ser humano e nos ajude a viver,
e que favoreça, ao mesmo tempo, um modo de pensar aberto e livre. A tecnologia e a
cultura fazem parte de um processo de aprendizagem, contribuindo para reflexão crítica da realidade, estimulando novas formas de inserção social dos jovens.
A maneira como os jovens estão utilizando a tecnologia nestes projetos, revela
como a identidade da juventude está sendo modificada. Em Martín-Barbero (1987), o
modo como os jovens se relacionam com as tecnologias, principalmente a internet,
não é como uma máquina, mas sim como uma mediação. Nesta relação considera-se
o papel político do jovem enquanto receptor e produtor de culturas, mobilizador e capaz de transformar sua realidade. A utilização da tecnologia tem potencializado e diferenciado as formas de participação juvenil.
De acordo com Morin, há uma mudança na ordem de expressão; não se escreve e não se lê da mesma forma que antes, assim como o ver e o ouvir são diferentes.
Para o autor, houve uma ruptura espacial e temporal, que transforma a sensibilidade,
a maneira de perceber o mundo e, consequentemente, a maneira de participar do
mundo. Mesmo considerando estas mudanças e o lugar da tecnologia quando se discute a condição juvenil, é preciso considerar que a juventude brasileira tem acessos à
tecnologia de modos muito diferenciados. As experiências nos projetos demonstram
que o acesso às tecnologias por si só não garante a inclusão social, não basta ser só
conectado, mas é preciso se conectar com um repertório cultural que dê condições
ao jovem de se incluir socialmente.
NOTAS
[1] O Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular – CECIP, fundado em 1986 no Rio de Janeiro/
Brasil, é uma organização da sociedade civil sem fins lucrativos, criada por um grupo de profissionais de diversas áreas, visando democratizar a informação para amplas camadas da população. Após 29 anos de existência e conhecimento acumulado, sua missão é contribuir para o
fortalecimento da cidadania, produzindo informações e metodologias que influenciem
políticas públicas promotoras de direitos fundamentais. www.cecip.org.br
[2]Os Repórteres de Bairro eram grupos de moradores de bairros da Baixada Fluminense que
criavam vídeos sobre temas de seus interesses e sobre os locais onde moravam. Essas produções eram exibidas em praça pública.
[3]Conjunto de treze favelas, localizadas na Zona Norte do Rio de Janeiro, considerada uma
das regiões mais violentas da cidade. Foi ocupada pelo Exército em 2011 e, em 2012, recebeu
a UPP – Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora, modelo de segurança pública adotado pelo Governo
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, desde 2008.
Referências Bibliográficas
• BORELLI, S. H. S.; LARA, M. R.; OLIVEIRA, R. A.; RANGEL, L. H. V.; ROCHA, R.
M. Jovens urbanos, ações estético-culturais e novas práticas políticas: estado da
arte (1960-2000). In: Jóvenes, cultura y política en América Latina: algunos trayectos de sus relaciones, experiencias y lecturas (1960-2000). Sara Victoria Alvarado
y Pablo A. Vommaro (org). Buenos Aires: Homo Sapiens/CLACSO-Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, 2010.
• MARTÍN-BARBERO, Jesús. Cultura, hegemonia e cotidianidade. Dos meios às
medições. Comunicação, cultura e hegemonia. Barcelona, Gustavo Gil, 1987.
• MARTÍN-BARBERO, Jesús. Tecnologias: inovações culturais e usos sociais. In:
Ofício do Cartógrafo. Travessias latino-americanas da comunicação na cultura.
São Paulo: Loyola, 2004.
• MORIN, Edgar. A cultura; In: Cultura de massa no século XX. Espírito do Tempo
2. Necrose. Rio de Janeiro. Forense Universitária, 1986.
• SECRETARIA NACIONAL DE JUVENTUDE. Políticas Públicas de Juventude. Secretaria geral da Presidência da República. Brasília, 2013.
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Nº 12
El empleo juvenil como eje de desarrollo de los países:
el sueño de la Fundación Novia Salcedo
Resumen: Durante más de tres décadas la Fundación Novia Salcedo (FNS) ha estado ayudando a los jóvenes a cerrar la brecha entre el mundo de la educación y el
mundo del trabajo a través de diferentes programas: orientación profesional, pasantías, el espíritu empresarial, la investigación, la innovación social, foros y seminarios
internacionales. Como resultado de todo este trabajo, y profundamente preocupados por la situación de empleo de los jóvenes de todo el mundo, hace ocho meses
hemos creado un nuevo proyecto en nuestra agenda: La Campaña Internacional
para el Decenio de Empleo Juvenil. Lo que proponemos en la Campaña
Internacional tiene como objetivo crear un movimiento internacional de pensamiento, el debate, la reflexión y la acción liderada por la sociedad civil, con la finalidad de
proporcionar contenidos, crear conciencia, definir las prioridades y líneas de acción,
las buenas prácticas y encontrar soluciones a estos puntos. En definitiva, el objetivo
es colocar el empleo juvenil en la AGENDA GLOBAL PARA EL DESARROLLO
HUMANO POST 2015 a través de la declaración de la Asamblea General de las
Naciones Unidas de la década EMPLEO JUVENIL 2016-2025.
Yo u t h E m p l o y m e n t a s a P i l l a r o f C o u n t r i e s
Development: The Novia Salcedo Foundation Dream.
Abstract: For over three decades Novia Salcedo Foundation (NSF) has been
helping young people to bridge the gap between the world of education and the
world of work through different programs: professional guidance, internships, entrepreneurship, social innovation research, international forums and seminars. As a
result of all this work, and deeply worried about young employment situation around
the world, eight months ago we set up a new project in our agenda: The
International Campaign for the Youth Employment Decade. What we propose in the
International Campaign aims to create an international movement of thought,
discussion, reflection, and action led by civil society, in order to provide contents,
raise awareness, define priorities and lines of action, good practices, and find solutions to those points. Definitely, the goal is to place Youth Employment on the
GLOBAL AGENDA FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT POST 2015 through the
declaration by the United Nations General Assembly of the YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
DECADE 2016-2025.
Keywords: employment, youth, labour market.
Palabras clave: empleo, jóvenes, mercado laboral.
Laura Simón Marón
Área de Innovación social en la Fundación Novia Salcedo
[email protected] / www.noviasalcedo.es
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Origen de nuestra historia
Fundación Novia Salcedo (NSF) somos una organización de 32 personas que llevamos 35 años trabajando en la integración socioprofesional de las personas jóvenes.
Nace en el año 1980 en el País Vasco (España) en un contexto similar al actual. En
aquél momento nuestro pequeño país atravesaba una crisis industrial muy fuerte y
compartía con el día de hoy dos características fundamentales: era y somos una de
las regiones europeas con una tasa más alta de titulados/as superiores en la
población, al mismo tiempo que tenemos una de las tasas más altas de desempleo
entre las personas jóvenes. En esta realidad un grupo de personas voluntarias
lideradas por el sacerdote diocesano Txomin Bereciartua, forman una asociación
con el objetivo de proveer de información sobre ofertas de empleo, becas y cursos
de formación para ayudar a las personas jóvenes a encontrar un camino profesional
en el difícil horizonte que planteaba la situación económica.
A medida que la actividad de la asociación fue creciendo y especializando se planteó la necesidad de profesionalización y es en la década de los noventa cuando pasa a transformarse en una Fundación con la misión (tal y como se recoge en los
objetivos fundacionales) de colaborar en la tarea de promoción de la juventud y dotar a la Sociedad de los recursos necesarios para ello a través de:
- Promover la convergencia de iniciativas de personas o entidades públicas o privadas cuyas actividades se relacionen con el fin social de la Fundación.
- Orientar a los jóvenes tanto en la vida profesional como universitaria. Formar seminarios, coloquios, programas de investigación, campañas, exposiciones, etc.
- Gestionar convocatorias de Becas y Ayudas, así como programas cuyo ámbito de
actuación sea la juventud.
- Realizar tareas de recopilación, documentación y catalogación de información en
materias de juventud.
- Editar y distribuir publicaciones y medios audiovisuales, y otras actividades de
información y divulgación, promoción y organización de intercambios y cooperaciones a nivel nacional e internacional.
Innovación Social y la concienciación en la sociedad tal y como se explica a continuación:
Con jóvenes y empresas: Nuestras actividades en este campo pretenden dar
respuesta a los cambios complejos de un mercado de trabajo en el que las
empresas necesitan cada vez más personas con capacidades, competencias,
valores y comportamientos, que el mundo académico sólo no puede proporcionar.
Así mismo las personas jóvenes además cuentan con sus propios problemas añadidos tal como ha sido definidos por la Organización Internacional del Trabajo: Desajuste de competencias técnicas y transversales, falta de experiencia laboral, falta de
acceso a redes y contactos, baja tasa de emprendimiento, deficiencias en los
servicios de intermediación y baja creación de empleo en la economía.
Tradicionalmente desde NSF hemos venido centrando nuestra atención en añadir
valor a la formación recibida por las personas jóvenes en entornos académicos, a
través de experiencia práctica de mano de las empresas. .
Sin embargo a pesar del éxito del camino trazado hasta el momento nuestros
programas están en constante revisión para adaptarnos a una sociedad cambiante.
Ello es debido a que estamos ante un cambio en el mercado laboral sin precedentes
que, si bien en nuestro contexto local (País Vasco) adquiere unas características
concretas, también compartimos con otras regiones del mundo. Y es que la escasez
del empleo digno se dibuja como uno de los grandes retos de la humanidad de los
próximos años.
En el actual contexto de globalización la economía se ha hiperacelerado y las demandas de las empresas a las y los trabajadores aumentado. Así mismo en el mundo que viene el empleo por cuenta ajena parece convertirse en un bien escaso que
pone a las personas en una suerte de carrera a contrarreloj por hacerse con un
puesto de trabajo.
Por todo ello estamos desarrollando programas que impactan no sólo en la falta de
experiencia profesional de las personas jóvenes sino impactando en todas las barreras de entrada al empleo de la OIT mencionadas. Vamos a ver dos ejemplos: el nuevo modelo de generación de empleo y Lanaldi.
Toda esta labor ha sido articulada en 3 campos de actividad: nuestros programas de
empleabilidad para jóvenes y el trabajo con las organizaciones, la Investigación en
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Nº 12
NMGE
LANALDI
Como hemos mencionado el empleo por cuenta ajena parece un bien escaso, lo que
lleva a explorar vías para movilizar todos los puestos de trabajo disponibles, aun si
estos ni siquiera han sido visualizados por las empresas
Fruto de nuestra actividad observábamos que las personas jóvenes que acababan
sus estudios superiores y acudían a nuestros servicios tenían un profundo desconocimiento de la realidad laboral del entorno, de los requerimientos de las
organizaciones y los nichos de empleo del futuro.
Hasta el momento, las organizaciones que trabajamos para lograr mejores
oportunidades para las personas jóvenes en el mercado laboral nos habíamos centrado en las cinco primeras barreras señaladas. Sin embargo, la situación de emergencia social que suponen las altas tasas de desempleo juvenil nos lleva a explorar
nuevas vías para movilizar todos los puestos de trabajo disponibles que aún ni
siquiera han sido visualizados por las propias empresas.
Así hemos ideado el Nuevo Modelo de Generación de Empleo con un doble objetivo:
por una parte movilizar a jóvenes con capacidades emprendedoras y ponerlas al
servicio de las empresas para que analicen las necesidades de las mismas y puedan
proponer proyectos de mejora que a la larga puedan convertirse en empleos. Por
otra parte, movilizar a organizaciones altamente comprometidas con su entorno a
acoger a equipos de jóvenes y dotarles de herramientas para realizar esta tarea. Todo ello con el objetivo de destapar oportunidades de emprendimiento de generación
de nueva actividad económica desde el corazón de las empresas.
¿Cómo funciona este programa para los/as jóvenes? por un lado su trabajo está tutelado por la empresa que les acoge en su seno favoreciendo los conocimientos de
gestión desde la vivencia práctica, mejorando su empleabilidad en la propia
organización o en futuras oportunidades laborales. El trabajo de exploración de
nuevas oportunidades se realiza en un equipo multidisciplinar, mucho menos árido
que el emprendimiento en solitario ya que favorece el intercambio de conocimiento
entre los/as participantes. Por otra parte la proximidad a una organización productiva, que a su vez se encuentra en relación directa con mercado y cliente, ayuda a destapar oportunidades más sólidas que la generación de ideas emprendedoras en
contextos aislados.
Las empresas también se ven beneficiadas de este programa: obtienen una visión
externa a la organización, y por tanto, unos ojos que pueden destapar oportunidades
allí donde la actividad diaria, para cumplir con los requerimientos del corto plazo que
nos marca la economía actual, no da opción a ver. De esta manera se mejora desde
las necesidades reales de las empresas, para fortalecerlas y hacerlas más competitivas.
Y vinos la necesidad de acudir “aguas arriba” en la orientación profesional de las
personas jóvenes con unos contenidos más actualizados a la realidad de lo que se
está produciendo en los mercados laborales, de la mano de los/as que saben: los/as
profesionales en activo.
Así Lanaldi es un programa orientado tanto a la participación de alumnado de
educación secundaria y centros educativos, como de profesionales, empresas y
organizaciones por medio del voluntariado corporativo.
Su misión es la de proveer de una orientación profesional innovadora al alumnado
de educación secundaria antes de la elección de sus estudios superiores, a través
de una serie de talleres y una experiencia práctica con un profesional en activo.
La segunda de las áreas de referencia de nuestra actividad se engloba en el
Laboratorio de Investigación en Innovación Social. NSF siempre ha sido
consciente de que el entorno en el que se desarrolla su actividad está en constante
cambio y que, para adaptarse a los retos y ser lo más innovador posible en el campo
de la inserción socioprofesional de las personas jóvenes, necesitaba dotarse de un
mecanismo que le permitiera estar alerta sobre los distintos factores que afectan a la
evolución de la juventud.
Por ello en 2000 creó la Comunidad Internacional de Expertos (CIE), un grupo de
expertos/as provenientes de diversos ámbitos del mundo académico, empresarial e
institucional, que definieron las variables y los indicadores a vigilar, con el objetivo de
contribuir a una NSF cada vez más preparada, no solamente para los retos del
presente sino también para los que se avecinan.
Durante 10 años la CIE y sus seminarios anuales (el primero realizado en el 2004)
sirvieron a este objetivo de ser fuente de conocimiento para los proyectos que NSF
realiza con las personas jóvenes. Tras los primeros años de andadura, conscientes
de la necesidad de revisar periódicamente la idoneidad de las variables a vigilar y el
compromiso de las personas jóvenes al proyecto, se trasformó la CIE en el Ícaro
Think Tank (2010) con el objetivo de trabajar un modelo propio de Innovación Social
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Nº 12
que respondiera a los retos del entorno. Así desde el Ícaro Think Tank se ha definido
la Innovación Social como nuevos modos de intercambio de valor entre personas,
organizaciones y sociedad.
Así hemos desarrollado Seminarios Ícaro anuales trayendo a figuras tan relevantes
como la filósofa Victoria Camps o el profesor García- Echevarría, que nos han ayudado a configurar las variables de nuestro modelo de Innovación Social y que ha cristalizado en la publicación de nuestros cuadernos Ícaro.
En la actualidad los Seminarios Ícaro han dado paso al Bilbao Youth Employment
Forum, ampliando nuestro radio de acción en el campo de la investigación- acción.
Nuestra tercera rama de acción gira en torno a acciones en el campo de la CONCIENCIACIÓN EN LA SOCIEDAD: Las acciones de concienciación de la Sociedad buscan
influir, provocar y movilizar a los/as miembros de la sociedad así como a los actores
relevantes del ámbito político, socioeconómico y cultural. Buscando la adhesión y la
colaboración activa a los programas y campañas de NSF para hacer realidad la innovación social.
De entre todas las acciones cabe destacar el Premio Internacional Novia Salcedo a la
Excelencia en la Integración Profesional del los Jóvenes. Su objetivo es premiar a
personas empresas (grandes y pequeñas) y organizaciones que más se han destacado en el campo de la inserción socioprofesional de las personas jóvenes.
El futuro de NSF: PEGASUS
Por ello el objetivo de esta Campaña Internacional, a la que hemos bautizado con el
inspirador nombre de Pegasus es crear un movimiento internacional de pensamiento,
discusión reflexión, acción,…, liderado por la sociedad civil, que provea de
contenidos, despierte el interés, defina políticas y líneas de acción, buenas prácticas
y encuentre soluciones a este problema. Definitivamente, situar el Empleo Joven en
la Agenda Global para el Desarrollo Humano Post 2015 a través de la declaración por
parte de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas de la Década del Empleo Juvenil
2016-2025.
Por supuesto para conseguir esta meta requerimos de muchos aliados/as, redes y
cooperación con otros/as. Por el momento, hemos mantenido reuniones con más de
20 Gobiernos, ILO, OIJ, SEGIB, OEDC, UNESCO, BM, BID,OEA, Partidos políticos,
sindicatos, organizaciones juveniles, instituciones educativas y académicas,
empresas y organizaciones de la sociedad civil.
Así mismo hemos recibido las adhesiones de 261 organizaciones en 55 países así
como más de 2250 firmas ciudadanas a través de la plataforma Change.org y apoyo
a través de los perfiles de Twitter, Facebook y LinkedIN.
Así mismo hemos logrado el hito del apoyo del Gobierno Vasco y del Gobierno de
España.
Por supuesto invitamos a todos/as los/as lectores/as a sumarse a esta ilusionante
iniciativa!
Vinculada a la tercera de las áreas de trabajo de la Fundación (la concienciación de
la sociedad), como resultado de nuestro trabajo de 35 años y profundamente preocupados/as por la situación del empleo juvenil a lo largo del mundo, hace casi 2 años
lanzamos un nuevo proyecto: La Campaña Internacional para la Declaración de la
Década del Empleo Juvenil.
¿Cuál es la situación de emergencia mundial de la que hablamos? En el mundo en la
actualidad hay 75 millones de jóvenes en el mundo según datos de la Organización
Internacional del Trabajo, y cada año 5 millones más salen al mercado laboral a la
búsqueda de una oportunidad. Esta situación nos hace pensar en una generación perdida, con importantes consecuencias sociales y económicas pero también humanas.
Por eso, la grave crisis del desempleo de los jóvenes hay que mirarla como una
oportunidad de transformación económica y social de las organizaciones y de los países.
43
Con el apoyo de la
Oficina de
Santiago
Organización
para la Educación,
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Nº 12
Global Citizenship Education Section
PAGE 46
EducaMoMo. Betting on Emotional Education for Social Change
Cristina Fernández Pérez
Laura Ciudad Aguadero
Psicóloga y educadora social. Monitora de ocio y tiempo libre con
larga experiencia en el campo de la infancia.
Psicóloga y futura educadora social. Monitora de ocio y tiempo
libre, fiel convencida de que la mejora social es posible, para que
todos seamos un poco más felices.
[email protected]/http://educamomo.weebly.com/
[email protected]/ http://educamomo.weebly.com/
PAGE 51
Youth, Stand up for Economic Citizenship!
Eva Lestant
Child and Youth Finance International
[email protected]
Jared Penner
[email protected] / web: www.childfinance.org
PAGE 55
LA COSMOVISIÓN MAYA EN LA INTERPRETACIÓN DEL FIN DE UNA ERA: OXLAJUJ B’AQTUN
Víctor Cristales
Colectivo de Educación para todas y todos de Guatemala. Directivo Campaña Latinoamericana por el Derecho a la Educación CLADE
[email protected]
PAGE 64
Youthful – The Mindful Natural Way for Each Life
Rashmi Chandran
Natural'Health'and'Environmental'Research
[email protected]/////h1p://drrashminaturallife.blogspot.in/
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Nº 12
EducaMoMo. Betting on Emotional Education for Social
Change
Abstract: In this article the EducaMoMo project is explained. EducaMoMo is the proposal
to bring the emotional education to the greatest number of people, without socioeconomic
distinction, through complementary workshops based on non-formal education methods. In
workshops we pretend to learn about our emotions and work on them, in order to have results
in life transversely, and trying to sculpt more human personalities, more adaptive, to generate
social change in builders and developers of the future. It shows in detail the methodology
and instruments used in the project, and theoretical reasons that lead to the conclusion that
investment in emotional education is a sure bet to ensure personal and social wellness of
people. A bet that claims to be driving a quality change in long-term. This article is a call to
action for every teacher or everyone interested in the topic, it invite to dump all efforts to
increase the quality of education paying special attention in not to forget any aspect of the
person. Education itself is emotional, because the human being is too: Why not learn from
this ability to feel?
Keywords: Education, emotional intelligence, emotions, future.
Laura Ciudad Aguadero
Psicóloga y educadora social. Monitora de ocio y tiempo libre con
larga experiencia en el campo de la infancia.
[email protected]/http://educamomo.weebly.com/
EducaMoMo. Apostar por la educación emocional para
el cambio social
Resumen: En el presente artículo se explica el proyecto EducaMoMo. EducaMoMo es la
propuesta de llevar la educación emocional al mayor número posible de personas, sin distinción socioeconómica, a través de talleres complementarios basados en métodos de educación
no formal; talleres donde aprender acerca de nuestras emociones y trabajar sobre ellas para
que tenga un resultado en la vida de manera transversal e intentemos esculpir personalidades
más humanas, más adaptativas, para poder generar un cambio social en los constructores y
constructoras del futuro. Se muestra con detenimiento la metodología e instrumentos que se
utilizan en el desarrollo del proyecto y las razones teóricas que nos llevan a concluir que la
inversión en educación emocional es un apuesta segura para garantizar el bienestar personal
y social de las personas. Una apuesta que pretende ser impulsora de un cambio de calidad a
largo plazo. Este artículo es una llamada a la acción a todo educador o persona interesada en
el tema, que invita a volcar todos los esfuerzos en aumentar la calidad de la educación sin
olvidar ninguno de los aspectos de la persona. La educación en sí misma es emocional, porque el ser humano también lo es. Entonces, ¿por qué no aprender de esa capacidad para sentir?
Palabras clave: Educación, inteligencia emocional, emociones, futuro.
Cristina Fernández Pérez
Psicóloga y futura educadora social. Monitora de ocio y tiempo
libre, fiel convencida de que la mejora social es posible, para que
todos seamos un poco más felices.
[email protected]/ http://educamomo.weebly.com/
46
Nº 12
Introduction
Methodology
As Aristotle said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is not education
at all.” This sentence of the well-known Greek philosopher bases the last sense of the emotional education and is the base of our project EducaMoMo.
The emotional education is a permanent educative process that seeks to promote the
development of emotional abilities and competences, with the objective of increasing the
personal and social wellness. According to Rafael Bisquerra, the emotional education must
help the people to discover, know and regulate their emotions and incorporate them as competences. In that way, the emotional education arises as a way of recovering an emotional
management that would allow the people to increase its levels of psychological wellness.
Jonathan Cohen affirms that an effective emotional and social education develops the
ability for the resolution of conflicts “and implies the learning of abilities, knowledge and
values that increase our capacity ‘to read’ in ourselves and in the others with the purpose of
using that information to solve problems with flexibility and creativity.”
Current educational system does not offer any answer to personal emotional needs,
because it prioritizes academic contents dictated every year with the same methodology,
while leaving in background the emotional area, without considering that the person is a
human being who must be developed in all his scopes. Working from a perspective in which
reason and emotion meet in a common point is the best way to approach a more complete
development of people. It will certify the prevention of future psychological problems and an
adapted development from the emotional competitions. The education by itself is emotional,
because the human being itself also is.So, why not to learn of that emotional ability?
Delors Report (UNESCO 1998) says that the emotional education is an essential complement in the cognitive development and a good tool of prevention, because many problems
have their origin in the emotional scope. On the other hand, the World Happiness Report
2015 –ordered by the United Nations (the UN) to a group of experts of the Network of Solutions for the Sustainable Development- dedicates its sixth chapter to the happiness of the
children. There, it exposes that the studies that make a pursuit to the children from the birth
to the adult age show that, among the three characteristic keys of infantile development
(academic, emotional or behavior), the emotional development is the best of the three
predicting ones, and the academic field the worst one.
After studying and analyzing this information, EducaMoMo was born. It is a project
that arises the illusion of generating a change, making visible the need of emotional
education and giving answer to that need in the childhood. EducaMoMo bets on the
knowledge of the emotions, their identification in ourselves and the people around us, and an
education that teaches our children how to manage their emotions to become happy kids and
healthy adults.
The development of this project is going to be carried out through weekly workshops
in different groups according on the age. We separate the children by grades or groups of
ages not because starting from different levels of formation in each segment, but because in
this way it is possible to adapt the workshops in an attractive way for the people and in order
to make them feel comfortable among their equals.
The methodology that we use in the workshops will be governed by the following
principles:
• Formative: Using methods in which children have a significant learning of the
emotions and managing of these emotions like the most important target.
• Flexible: Modifiable depending on the motivation and interests that the different
points of the contents wake up in children.
• Adaptive and integrating: It takes care of the interests and worries of the target
group so in that way everything we worked can be applied transversely to all
the scopes of their lives, and it helps to confront the changes that they produce
in their surroundings.
• Participative: Everybody contributes and learns with the process. In this way,
nobody is or feels excluded and everyone receives the same importance.
• Positive: Methodology that promotes a pleasant atmosphere, where the children
enjoy learning.
• Dynamic: Always using games as agents of learning.
Addressees
The target group of EducaMoMo is children of our action area. Why children?
Because the idea that makes this project arise is to generate a change, a real and
quality progress. So, we understand the most important necessity to accomplish that is to
educate from the childhood in order to internalize everything we work and learn in the
process of building the personality of the people. Child psychology explains that at early ages
the brain has good plasticity, i.e. better willingness to acquire new knowledge and new skills
that can be organized and solidify for years; and, due to the fact that what comprises the basic
skills of emotional education are the skills and competencies, they can be learned.
There are certain discrepancies in terms of the right age to start working the emotions.
On the basis that the emotional stimulation is useful and influencing the individual from the
birth, there is people that contend that from three years old is possible to start with the
processes of emotional education. However, the closest consensus is around five years old
like starting point and is particularly effective in preadolescence and adolescence stages to
get maturity, coinciding with the end of formal education.
Based on these studies, our educational proposal focuses in its initial stage, children
in school age.
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Instruments
In EducaMoMo, the development and planification of the sessions is adapted
according to the characteristics the context of the group that will participate in workshops,
and the main aim that is intended to achieve. In order to get a quality education program, we
base on already scientifically proven programs and we inspire ourselves in activities that were
previously studied and checked to generate positive results.
Thus, the theoretical basis is supported by the model of emotional education and emotional competencies of Rafael Bisquerra, and the jobs of GROP, continuously updated and
dynamic content generation.
In terms of practical applications we nourish the most in RULER program, which has
the support of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and is widespread around the world
with very good results. RULER is an acronym for the words recognize, understand, label,
express and regulate emotions. It is a program that uses
the academic context to develop emotional ability,
giving value to words, working from a practical
methodology embedded in the school environment.
And finally, for some activities we use sporadically Happy Classrooms, program fully available publicly.
Expect results
From EducaMoMo, we conducted a study with a
small sample about what is the knowledge of emotional
education, the importance that is given to it and the perception the need of this type of education. The results
that we can derive from the widespread survey are to
analyse the current opinion about emotional education
and the possibilities of working in that market, indicate
that a large majority (78.6%) knows correctly defining
the concept of emotional education, 94.2% would like extending the provision of emotional
education in their environment, and a high percentage (95.6%) would take their children to a
program of development of emotional education. Finally, we realize that the adult audience is
a segment that can be potential customers, 87% of the total sample says that they would be an
emotional education service consumer.
EducaMoMo does not rule that one day may open its target to the adult level, because
it is very important that all human beings develop this abilities and skills to cope with
different life situations and because it is essential in the education of the children due to the
fact that parents are the first examples of emotional intelligence to their children.
With all these data obtained from our job and gathering information from the multitude of studies on this issue nowadays, we can expect that in the future the emotional
education will be part of our lives, so daily common as sport, reading or calculation; and it
will generate a positive impact in the future society, building from the human personalities.
Conclusion
Emotions are at the centre of our lives. Nowadays, teaching children how to manage
their emotions is a efficient way to provide them a better psychological wellness, a more
efficient management of the reality and a better sense of satisfaction with themselves.
Promoting an emotional education would mean a real investment in life satisfaction and
wellness for everybody.
That is what we want to generate from EducaMoMo: a
place where listening with the heart would be
outstanding; a place where it would be possible to think
about what we feel and feel what we think. By putting
all our cards on the quality of the education of those
children who will be the builders of the future society,
our bet has a secured winning game. Now, we just need
that everybody would use their own emotional cards to
reach a global victory.
If you read this article and you want to know more about
the project, we invite you to contact and follow us
through our social networks:
h t t p s : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / e d u c a m o m o a n d
http://educamomo.weebly.com/
•
References
Bisquerra, R. (Coord) (2012). ¿Cómo educar las emociones? La inteligencia emocional en la
infancia y la adolescencia. Barcelona. Ed. Faros
•
Cohen, J. (2005). Emotional intelligence in the classroom: Proyects, strategies and ideas. Buenos
Aires. Ed. Troquel
•
•
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. Ed. Kairós.
Red de soluciones para el desarrollo sostenible. (2015). World Happines Report. Retrieved in
http://www.infocop.es/pdf/InfFelicidad2015.pdf
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Introducción
Tal y como dijo Aristóteles, “Educar la mente sin educar el corazón no es educar en
absoluto”. Esta frase del conocido filósofo griego fundamenta el sentido último de la
educación emocional y es la base de nuestro proyecto EducaMoMo.
La educación emocional es un proceso educativo permanente que busca fomentar el
desarrollo de las habilidades y competencias emocionales con el objetivo de aumentar el bienestar personal y social del individuo. Según Rafael Bisquerra, la educación emocional tiene
como objetivo principal ayudar a las personas a descubrir, conocer y regular sus emociones e
incorporarlas como competencias. Siendo así, la educación emocional surge como un camino
para recuperar un manejo emocional que permita a las personas aumentar sus niveles de bienestar psicológico.
Jonathan Cohen, afirma que una Educación emocional y social eficaz desarrolla la
capacidad para la resolución de conflictos “e implica el aprendizaje de habilidades,
conocimientos y valores que aumentan nuestra capacidad de ‘leer’ en nosotros mismos y en
los demás con el fin de usar esa información para resolver problemas con flexibilidad y creatividad”.
Nos encontramos con que en la actualidad el sistema educativo no ofrece respuesta a
las necesidades emocionales personales, sino que priman los contenidos académicos dictados
año tras año con la misma metodología, dejando en un segundo plano el campo emocional, sin
tener en cuenta que el individuo es un ser que debe desarrollarse en todos sus ámbitos. Trabajar desde una perspectiva en la que la razón y la emoción se encuentren es la forma de acercarse a un desarrollo más completo de los individuos, asegurándose así la prevención de distintos
problemas psicológicos futuros y un adecuado desarrollo de las competencias emocionales. La
educación en sí misma es emocional, porque el ser humano en sí mismo también lo es. ¿Porque no aprender de esa capacidad emocional?
El Informe Delors (UNESCO 1998) afirma que la educación emocional es un complemento indispensable en el desarrollo cognitivo y una herramienta fundamental de prevención,
ya que muchos problemas tienen su origen en el ámbito emocional. Por otro lado, el Informe
de la Felicidad 2015 (World Happiness Report 2015), trabajo encargado por la Organización
de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) a un grupo de expertos de la Red de Soluciones para el
Desarrollo Sostenible, dedica el capítulo 6 a la felicidad de los niños, y expone que los estudios que hacen un seguimiento a los niños desde el nacimiento hasta la edad adulta muestran
que, de las tres características clave de desarrollo infantil (académica, de comportamiento o
emocional), el desarrollo emocional es el mejor de los tres predictores, y el rendimiento académico el peor.
Ante estos datos nace EducaMoMo, un proyecto que surge con la ilusión de generar un
cambio, de hacer visible la necesidad de este tipo de educación y de dar respuesta a esa
necesidad desde edades tempranas. EducaMoMo apuesta por el conocimiento de las emociones, su identificación en uno mismo y en los demás, apuesta por una educación que enseña a
gestionar las emociones en los más pequeños para tener niños felices y adultos saludables.
Metodología
El desarrollo de este proyecto se llevará a cabo mediante talleres semanales con los
distintos grupos de edad. Separamos por cursos o por grupos de edades cercanas, no porque
partamos de niveles diferentes para la formación con cada segmento de edad sino para que sea
posible adaptar los talleres de una manera atractiva para los usuarios y con el fin de que se
encuentren cómodos entre sus iguales.
La metodología empleada en el desarrollo de los talleres se regirá por lo siguientes
principios:
• Formativa: Utilizando unos métodos mediante los cuales los niños/as tengan, como
objetivo principal, un aprendizaje significativo de las emociones y el manejo de estas.
• Flexible: Modificable en cuanto la motivación e intereses que los diferentes aspectos a tratar despierten en los niños/as.
• Adaptativa e integradora: Que atienda los intereses y preocupaciones del colectivo destinatario para que lo trabajado se pueda aplicar de manera transversal a todos los ámbitos de su
vida, y ayude a afrontar los cambios que se producen en su entorno.
• Participativa: Que seamos todos/as los que aportemos y aprendemos del proceso, sin que
nadie quede excluido o se sienta de tal manera y todos/as cobremos la misma importancia.
• Positiva: Metodología promotora de un ambiente agradable, donde los niños y niñas disfruten aprendiendo.
• Dinámica: Siempre utilizando el juego y la diversión como promotores del aprendizaje.
Destinatarios
Los individuos objeto de EducaMoMo, son los niños y niñas de nuestro ámbito de acción. ¿Por qué infancia?
La idea con la que surge este proyecto es generar un cambio, un progreso real y de
calidad, por lo que entendemos que lo primordial es educar desde edades tempranas para que
lo trabajado y lo aprendido se interiorice en la construcción de la personalidad del individuo.
Ya que, como se explica desde la psicología infantil, en edades tempranas el cerebro posee
mayor plasticidad, es decir, mayor predisposición a adquirir nuevos conocimientos y nuevas
destrezas que se organicen y solidifiquen con el paso de los años. Y puesto que lo que compone las destrezas básicas de la educación emocional son habilidades y competencias, como tal
pueden ser aprendidas.
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Existen ciertas discrepancias en cuanto a la edad más acertada para comenzar a trabajar
las emociones. Partiendo de la base de que la estimulación emocional es útil e influye en el individuo desde el mismo nacimiento, hay quien argumenta que desde los tres años se puede comenzar con los procesos de educación emocional. Sin embargo, el consenso más cercano se
sitúa alrededor de los cinco años como punto de partida, siendo especialmente efectiva en estadios preadolescentes y adolescentes, hasta alcanzar la madurez, haciéndola coincidir con el fin
de la educación formal.
Basándonos en estos estudios, nuestra propuesta educativa se centra, en su etapa inicial,
en menores en edad de escolarización.
Instrumentos
En EducaMoMo, el desarrollo y planificación de las sesiones se realiza en función de
las características del grupo que va a participar en los talleres, el contexto y el fin principal que
se pretende alcanzar. Para ello, nos basamos en programas ya probados científicamente y nos
inspiramos en actividades, que previamente estudiadas, se comprueba que generan resultados
positivos hacia la meta que se pretende conseguir.
De esta manera, la base teórica se sustenta en el modelo de educación emocional y
competencias emocionales de Rafael Bisquerra, y de los trabajos del GROP, actualizados y en
continuo dinamismo de generación de contenido.
En cuanto a aplicaciones prácticas nos nutrimos en su mayor medida del programa RULER del Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, muy extendido y con muy buenos resultados.
RULER es un acrónimo de las palabras recognize, understand, label, express y regulate
emotions: reconocer, comprender, rotular, expresar y regular las emociones. Es un programa
que utiliza el medio académico para desarrollar la capacidad emocional otorgando valor a las
palabras, trabajando desde una metodología práctica insertada en el entorno escolar.
Y, por último, de forma esporádica para alguna actividad del programa Aulas Felices,
disponible de manera totalmente pública.
educación emocional. Por último, observamos que el público adulto es un segmento con
posibilidades de ser potenciales clientes, ya que un 87% del total de la muestra afirma que sería
consumidor de un servicio de educación emocional.
EducaMoMo no descarta algún día abrir su campo de intervención al ámbito adulto, ya
que es esencial que todo ser humano desarrolle este tipo de capacidades y de habilidades para
enfrentarse a las distintas situaciones vitales, así como es primordial en la educación de lo
niños que los padres sean los primeros ejemplos de inteligencia emocional ante sus hijos.
Con todos estos datos obtenidos desde nuestro trabajo y recabando información de la
multitud de estudios en este tema actualmente, podemos esperar que en el futuro la educación
emocional sea parte de nuestras vidas, de forma tan cotidiana como el deporte, la lectura o el
cálculo y que genere un impacto positivo en las personalidades de la sociedad futura, construida desde lo humano.
Conclusión
Las emociones están en el centro de nuestra vida. Hoy en día enseñar a los niños cómo
manejar sus emociones es un camino seguro para ofrecerles un mayor bienestar psicológico, un
manejo de la realidad más eficiente y una mayor sensación de satisfacción consigo mismos.
Promover una educación emocional significaría una verdadera inversión en satisfacción vital y
bienestar para todos.
Desde EducaMoMo es lo que pretendemos, generar un espacio donde escuchar con corazón sea matrícula de honor. Pensar en los que sentimos y sentir en los que pensamos.
Poniendo todas nuestras cartas en la calidad de la educación de los que serán los constructores de la sociedad del futuro nuestra apuesto tiene asegurada el juego ganador. Ahora solo
hace falta que todos y todas usemos las cartas que tenemos en la mano para que la victoria sea
global.
Si al leer el artículo quieres saber más sobre el proyecto te invitamos a que nos contactes y a que nos sigas a través de nuestras redes sociales.
https://www.facebook.com/educamomo
http://educamomo.weebly.com/
Resultados esperados
Desde EducaMoMo, realizamos un estudio con una pequeña muestra sobre qué
conocimiento se tiene sobre la educación emocional, la importancia que se le da y la
percepción de necesidad de este tipo de educación.
Los resultados obtenidos que podemos derivar de la encuesta difundida para analizar la
opinión actual sobre la educación emocional y las posibilidades de trabajar en ese mercado, nos
indican que una amplia mayoría (78,6%) sabe definir de forma correcta el concepto de
educación emocional, a un 94,2% le gustaría que se ampliara la oferta de educación emocional
en su entorno, y un alto porcentaje (95,6%) llevaría a sus hijos a un programa de desarrollo de
•
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Referencias bibliográficas
Bisquerra, R. (Coord) (2012). ¿Cómo educar las emociones? La inteligencia emocional en la infancia y
la adolescencia. Barcelona. Ed. Faros
Cohen, J. (2005). Inteligencia emocional en las aulas: Proyectos, estrategias e ideas. Buenos Aires. Ed.
Troquel
Goleman, D. (1995). Inteligencia emocional. Ed. Kairós.
Red de soluciones para el desarrollo sostenible. (2015). Informe mundial de la felicidad. Recuperado de
http://www.infocop.es/pdf/InfFelicidad2015.pdf
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Youth, Stand up for Economic Citizenship!
Abstract: The 2008 economic crisis of 2008 brought awareness to stakeholders around the world
that the lack of financial literacy, combined with financial deregulation, has brought many households to bankruptcy and poverty. Over the long term, the economic crisis had a considerable
impact on the current generation of children and youth, and on how they earning, save and spend
money. In order not to undergo the same scenario, it is evident that young people should be
armed with the skills needed to secure employment and capitalize on livelihood opportunities, all
in a socially and ethically responsible manner. Despite the innovative education concepts of
Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and Education for Sustainable Development, Economic
Citizenship Education (ECE) has not yet been considered as a key component within the
discussions on the UN Post 2015 Development Agenda. However, by comparing both topics and
learning objectives, much common ground and shared values between ECE and GCE can be
found. The complementary contents based on social and life skills education should be expanded
in order to raise awareness among national states, especially the ones expected to reach the
Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. It is time to emphasize the outcomes and added-value
of financial and livelihoods education to the present GCE topics and learning objectives. The
Theory of Change, presented by Child and Youth Finance International, proposes that financial,
social and livelihoods education, combined with access to appropriate financial services,
increases financial capability and social empowerment, ultimately leading to greater economic
citizenship. International actors should understand the importance of raising a financially literate
and socially responsible generation, giving them the tool to become empowered economic
citizens. Global Citizenship Education, and especially Economic Citizenship Education, can play
an important role in making this happen.
Key words: Economic Citizenship, Education, Global Citizenship, finance literacy, social
education.
Eva Lestant
The 2008 economic crisis placed greater attention on the need for individuals and community
representatives to build a more solid asset base, increase their financial capability and follow
more prudent financial management. The crisis called for increased financial responsibility
and a greater sense of economic citizenship which is achievable through the expansion of
financial inclusion and quality financial, social and livelihoods education around the world.
A greater entrepreneurial spirit was needed to promote the economic growth required to enrich the lives of individuals and provide them with opportunities to secure a livelihoods for
themselves and their families. Investing in quality education that equips people with the entrepreneurial and employability skills needed to succeed in the 21st century, while ensuring that
they are grounded in financial and ethical responsibility, should be a top priority for policy
makers and decision makers around the world. This was supported by UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-Moon during the opening of the World Education Forum in Incheon Korea in May
2015 when he argued that every dollar invested in education would generate $10 to $15 in
returns. The social, political and economic challenges of the 21st century are calling for
greater global citizenship and this has important economic dimension related to financial inclusion and Economic Citizenship Education (ECE).
A lack of education and meaningful livelihood opportunities creates a negative situation
where young people can be forced into hazardous work, get dragged into criminal activity or
become enrolled in armed forces or violent insurgencies, especially in conflict zones. There
are still 168 million children engaged in child labor, with 85 million involved in hazardous
work. This need for money amongst young people and their families paves the way to youth
delinquency and crime, creating a spiral of poverty and illicit activity that many youth find
incredibly difficult to escape.
Jared Penner
[email protected]
[email protected] / web: www.childfinance.org
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While primary schools can provide basic literacy and numeracy skills, many children and
youth, especially those in less developed countries, fail to complete secondary education and
do not receive essential employability or functional literacy skills to allow them to
successfully secure a meaningful and sustainable livelihood. Once they leave formal
educational centers, these children and young adults are more likely to find work exclusively
in the informal sector. A survey conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO)
showed that in countries such as Cambodia, Liberia, Malawi and Peru, more than 80% of
youth are working in the informal economy, often leading to underemployment or
exploitation. Working in such conditions is more likely to perpetuate poverty, financial
instability and shortened life expectancy rather than develop sustainable and meaningful livelihoods. However, providing access to appropriate financial services, combined with quality
social, financial and livelihoods education can encourage young entrepreneurs to achieve
their economic potential and succeed in the formal economy. It also fosters a greater respect
for asset building and social, financial and ethical responsibility, which are integral to
developing the next generation of global economic citizens.
Full concept of Economic Citizenship
Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI) is a global network of government authorities,
financial service providers, civil society organizations, multilateral institutions and academics
who are all working to advance economic citizenship for young people around the world.
CYFI’s mission is to expand a combination of financial access and education to 100 million
children and youth in 100 countries by the end of 2015. CYFI’s Theory of Change proposes
that, to achieve full economic citizenship, young people need to be financial capable and socially and economically empowered. This is achieved through financial inclusion combined
with Economic Citizenship Education, a framework that integrates the three components of
financial, social and livelihoods education. A diagram of the CYFI Theory of Change can be
found below.
Global Citizenship Education
In an effort to educate the next generation of leaders, workers and inventors, education, both
its pedagogy and its learning outcomes, must be adapted to tackle the new challenges faced
by children and youth in the 21st century. Global Citizenship Education (GCE) represents a
comprehensive move in this direction, emphasizing human rights, conflict resolution, ethical
responsibility, creative problem solving and global connectedness. ECE, by extension,
represents the economic dimension of global citizenship, ensuring that young people develop
financial responsibility and essential life skills to secure ethical and sustainable livelihoods.
Although the concept of global citizenship is not new, GCE has only been explicitly named
since the launch of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) in
2012. This was part of a three pronged educational priority from the UN Secretary-General
stating that “education is much more than an entry to the job market. It has the power to
shape a sustainable future and better world. Education policies should promote peace, mutual
respect and environmental care.” With a large range of partners and advocates, GEFI created
a political profile for education in order to mobilize stakeholders and funding to achieve the
Education For All Goals.
Global Citizenship refers to a “sense of belonging to a broader community and common
humanity. It emphasizes political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and
interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global”. As broad as it can be,
GCE includes all the knowledge, skills and values that promote a peaceful, tolerant,
inclusive, secure and sustainable world. GCE enables students to develop values through
critical thinking, problem solving, team work, and solidarity, in an effort to tackle the
challenges of the 21st century.
The concept covers all three domains of learning: cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral.
To each component, it affects key learning outcomes, and addresses topics to be discussed
according to various age-groups.
GCE values related to ECE
The GCE and the ECE frameworks share a common ground when it comes to learning
outcomes and core topics. Both share values such as diversity, social justice, human rights,
self-engagement and responsibility. Indeed, ECE pushes for social and life skills education to
complement financial literacy and entrepreneurship, ensuring that financial capability and
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enterprise ventures are developed in an ethically and socially responsible manner. The
learning inputs will not only help them to better understand economic citizenship but also
help them to interact effectively in their community.
GCE recognizes the concept of uniqueness and diversity of people. With unique needs,
education should be for all, but even more “for each”. Respect for diversity is also part of core
components of Social/Life skills Education within the ECE framework. This ensures that
young people receive services customized to his/her needs and are accepted without any form
of discrimination. Economic justice, included in social justice, can be defined as the moral
principles which design economic institutions. In the context of ECE, it gives every child
equitable opportunities, especially when it comes to economic opportunities. Furthermore,
both GCE and ECE call for education at all stages to respect and uphold gender equality and
all forms minority rights.
More than teaching fundamental values, ECE shared key learning outcomes of GCE’s behavioral learning component. Bridging ECE’s Social and Livelihood Education, GCE states that
“Learners act effectively and responsibly at local, national and global levels for a more
peaceful and sustainable world.” This reflects ECE’s values such as Employer/Employee
Responsibility and Community Engagement. Making a sustainable and peaceful world
requires that a globalized youth generation be actively engaged in different communities and
take the necessary actions to affect positive change. Another key GCE learning outcome that
bridges social and livelihoods education states that “Learners develop motivation and willingness to take necessary actions” which recalls ECE’s Leadership skills and Active Citizenship.
ECE, as a complement to GCE, provides solutions on how to tackle rising youth population
growth and unemployment rates. The ILO predicts that “280 million jobs will need to be created over the coming five years to close the crisis-related global jobs gap.”'It is estimated that
1 million Indians alone will join the workforce every month for the next 20 years. Through
investment in educational programs, public authorities working with the private sector and
NGOs have the responsibility to efficiently utilize its workforce to generate even more
economic opportunities.
Economic citizenship is reflected in many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG),
and their associated targets, with the exception of SDG4 on education. GCE and Education
for Sustainable Development are mentioned within SDG4 but there is no explicit mention of
financial or entrepreneurship education. ECE provides a cornerstone for lifelong learning
opportunities, financial capability and sustainable livelihoods, not to mention providing a
foundation for financial and social inclusion. A combination of financial, social and livelihoods education should be an integral part of any education strategy that aims to achieve the
ambitious goals and targets of the UN post 2015 development agenda. Economies are
increasingly becoming knowledge-based, requiring skills and competencies to be updated
regularly. Therefore, ECE and GCE should be combined under one target for education under
the SDGs as this would allow educational stakeholders to create a new model for Global
Economic Citizenship Education, respecting human diversity along with human rights and
dignity.
The latest agreement that emerged from the Global Education Forum, the Incheon
Declaration, has given a new approach to education for the post-2015 agenda. Rather than
assessing the quantity of education, they decided to focus on classroom experience, and
evaluate the learning outcomes. This new step shows that stakeholder have recognized the
need for life-long learning to cope with the ongoing challenges of the 21st Century Economy.
Quality education refers to skills, knowledge, values and attitudes but also proper information
to enable children and youth to tackle basic socio-economic needs in order to participate
effectively in the sustainable development of their communities. Financial, social and livelihoods education are two pillars through which critical thinking and problem solving can be
understood. Furthermore, youth activism seems to be placed in the center of these concerns.
The provision of quality learning is central to a nation’s democratic stability, and an individual’s orientation towards legal behavior and global citizenship.
The Role of CYFI in promoting ECE
CYFI has developed curriculum assessment tools to identify how educational materials or
national curriculum frameworks are aligned with the core content components of the ECE
learning framework. The curriculum mapping tools are used to improve existing programming and to profile exemplary programs that are providing a comprehensive coverage of the
financial, social and livelihoods components. These tools can be used by both ECE and GCE
education providers to provide an overview of their content coverage, which can provide valuable insight into programs that aim to achieve targets under the new Sustainable Development
Goals.
CYFI continues to support government authorities and youth serving organizations that offer
integrated financial, social and livelihoods education through both formal and non-formal
channels. Turkey, Uganda, Macedonia and Nepal are all countries that are piloting integrated
financial and social education through schools in the country along with CYFI’s sister
organization Aflatoun and the UNICEF Child-Friendly Schools initiative.
CYFI also promotes ECE through global advocacy and knowledge sharing efforts is a global
youth money awareness campaign which CYFI coordinates each year. During this week,
activities and events are held worldwide to engage children, youth and their communities to
learn how money works, including saving, creating livelihoods, gaining employment, and
becoming an entrepreneur. More than 5.6 million children and youth in 124 countries took
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part in 2015 Global Money Week this past March. Hundreds of organizations showed their
support for children and youth and arranged thousands of fun and interesting activities.
Finally, SchoolBank is a core CYFI concept that aims to increase financial inclusion and
financial education of children and young people, through schools and other educational centers. It ensures that all children that are part of SchoolBank get a formal savings account and
the appropriate education to know why and how to save. The project uses innovative
distribution channels (schools) and technology (e.g. mobile banking and online banking) with
the goal of financially empowering children and youth in a cost efficient way.
Conclusion
Generation Y, aged between 20 and 38 years old, has become the first generation to
experience the advantages and risks associated with financial technologies during an
economic crisis. However, the more technologically connected generation Z is advocating for
change in their education. Thanks to the MDGs, more children have attended school and there
is a greater demand for quality education. It is not only in terms of educational level, but a real
concern about the remaining gap between the education delivered and the skills required for
employability at the local, national, and international level. Therefore, there is a real need for
economic citizenship that takes root in the sustainable development of our environment and
global economy. This involves a financial, social and livelihoods dimension to engage citizens
in the long term. However, in defining the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals, CYFI
is willing to leave its mark on Global Citizenship Education; thus, sharing a common ground
composed of financial responsibility, social values and sustainable livelihoods. All national
stakeholders should be involved, including financial institutions and civil society. Economic
citizenship must be considered as a tangible way of boosting long-term economic growth and
establishing life-long returns. The Sustainable Development Goals should not focus only on
global citizenship, but also Global Economic Citizenship, particularly through Economic
Citizenship Education. This will help young people and their families prevent poverty, nurture
strong communities and secure a sustainable economic future.
References
• Child and Youth Finance International. (2013). Conceptual Development of Children and
Youth as Economic Citizens. Retrieved in
http://issuu.com/childfinanceinternational/docs/conceptual-cyfi-model-economic-citizens
• CYFI. (2013). A Guide to Economic Citizenship Education. Retrieved in
http://issuu.com/childfinanceinternational/docs/a-guide-to-economic-citizenship-education-cyf
i
• CYFI. (2013) ECE Content Mapping. Retrieved in
h9p://childﬁnanceinterna>onal.org/resources/programs/eceArapidAassessmentAexample.pdf
• CYFI. (2013). Economic Citizenship Education Curriculum Assessment – Sample Curriculum.
Retrieved in
http://issuu.com/childfinanceinternational/docs/economic_citizenship_education_curr
• Heyneman, S. (2003). Education, social cohesion, and the future role of international
organizations. Peabody Journal of Education. 78 (3). pp. 25 – 38
• International Labor Organization. (2013). Marking progress against child labour. Retrieved in
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---ipec/documents/publication/wcms_22
1513.pdf
• ILO. (2013). Informal, poorly paid and unemployed: The reality of work for most youth in
developing countries. Retrieved in
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_212917/lang--en/index.htm
• ILO. (2015).'World&Employment&Social&Outlook,'p.16,'Retrieved in
h9p://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/AAAdgreports/AAAdcomm/AAApubl/documents/public
a>on/wcms_337069.pdf
• KPMG. (2013) Future State 2030: The global megatrend shaping governments, Mowat Center
http://www.kpmg.com/ID/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/Future-State2030.pdf
• Tawil, S. (2013). Education for ‘Global Citizenship’: A framework for discussion. UNESCO
Education Research and Foresight, Paris. [ERF Working Papers Series, No. 7].
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/PaperN7EducforGlobalCiti
zenship.pdf
• United Nation. (2012). “Education First” - United Nation Secretary-General’s video message
Youtube video, 1:22. September 6, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psMktIIHqEg
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2015). “UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the World Education Forum (2015), Incheon, Korea” Youtube
video, 7:05. May 21, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWdwlS5FMsc
• UNESCO. (2015). Global Citizenship Education: Topic and learning Objectives p.14
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002329/232993e.pdf
• UNESCO, Global Citizenship is… , Youtube video, 3:28. January 30, 2015,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVSgbU6WVSk
• UNESCO, Global Citizenship Education (GCED) UNESCO’s approach, January 2015
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/questions-answers-21jan-E
N.pdf
• UNESCO. Global Citizenship Education: Topic and learning Objectives (2015), p.22
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002329/232993e.pdf
• UNESCO, The Global Learning Crisis, Paris: UNESCO.
http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/css/Global_Learning_final_web_single.pdf
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LA COSMOVISIÓN MAYA EN LA INTERPRETACIÓN
DEL FIN DE UNA ERA: OXLAJUJ B’AQTUN
Resumen: Nos está tocando vivir el final de un gran ciclo de tiempo marcado por nuestras
Abuelas y nuestros Abuelos, conformado por Oxlajuj B’aqtun llamada Era Maya, que en el
calendario gregoriano equivalen a 5,200 años. De acuerdo con el calendario gregoriano el
conteo de esta cuenta larga Maya culmina el 21 de Diciembre de 2012, para dar paso a una
nueva Era Maya. Es en este contexto, que líderes, investigadores, académicos, ONGs, universidades, centros de investigación, iglesias, gobiernos, cooperación internacional, entre
otros, están haciendo uso y muchas veces irresponsable del significado del Oxlajuj B’aqtun.
Es preocupante ver cómo las posiciones apocalípticas pretenden impactar la psicología
social de grandes sectores sociales que basándose en dos ideas básicas logran infundir
inseguridad y temor en sus potenciales seguidores: primero, la notable precisión de muchas
de las predicciones mayas y segundo, el hecho de que el calendario Maya de la cuenta larga culmina el 21 de diciembre de 2012. Estos dos elementos, matizados y estructurados
con la ideología del racismo histórico hacia los pueblos indígenas, permitió la creación de
una visión fantasiosa de los calendarios mayas y con ella, con sutileza, la renovación de la
ideología racista hacia el Pueblo Maya. Es que políticamente, no les es posible asumir y
aceptar el impresionante nivel de desarrollo científico, sin parangón en el mundo, de la gran
Civilización Maya. En ese sentido, la salida más fácil en la interpretación del Oxlajuj B’aqtun
era la de darle una connotación de fantasía esotérica. Es decir, en vez de reconocer que los
Antiguos Mayas fueron grandes científicos, prefieren divulgar que fueron grandes adivinos.
Además ese racismo exacerbado no puede soportar que a partir de la reivindicación de la
cultura de la gran civilización Maya, pudiera reivindicarse el Pueblo Maya actual, aún atrapado en las estructuras coloniales que duran más de 500 años. Las posiciones apocalípticas
además, reflejan la ideología de dominación del sistema capitalista hacia los pueblos indígenas ya que las mismas sirven de distractor social que favorece la no identificación de las
causas históricas del racismo, la pobreza, la dominación, la explotación y la exclusión social
de nuestros pueblos. Este efecto le permite al sistema capitalista ganar tiempo para reconfigurar sus planes y estrategias de recuperación ante la crisis en que se encuentra. Lo
anterior es parte de la estrategia histórica del sistema capitalista de negación del Pueblo
Maya, de negar su historia, de negar su presente, para garantizar la negación de su futuro
como pueblo. Mientras que por otro lado, en diversas partes del mundo están haciendo uso
de los conocimientos técnicos y científicos mayas en función a la acumulación del capital.
Ante esta situación se hace urgente y necesaria la socialización del posicionamiento Maya
al respecto, en las redes sociales y en todos los medios posibles para reivindicar el
profundo pensamiento científico y humano de la gran Civilización Maya y a la vez ir socializando el posicionamiento político del Pueblo Maya.
Palabras clave: Educación para Todos, Guatemala, Cosmovisión Maya, futuro, pueblos
indígenas, capitalismo, Madre Tierra, desarrollo sostenible.
1. DESDE LA COSMOVISIÓN MAYA
1.1. OXLAJUJ B’AQTUN
La pasión y el interés científico de nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas por
comprender, qué es la vida, su origen, su proceso evolutivo y su razón de ser, y la
interacción de los elementos a lo largo y ancho del infinito cosmos, los llevó a
desarrollar diversas ciencias como la matemática, la física, la astronomía entre otras,
con las que lograron construir una combinación sofisticada de calendarios para el
control del tiempo, el movimiento de los astros, así como para el manejo de los ciclos
naturales, en función de la vida. Cada calendario marcaba un ciclo determinado de
tiempo. Una de las singularidades de la cronología Maya, es que se basa en un método que permite fusionar el tiempo con todo lo que existe, permitiendo a la vez, entender los diversos procesos cíclicos y en espiral evolutivo de la propia existencia. Guorón, lo define bien cuando dice, que no solo se dedica a medir el tiempo, sino además lo relaciona con la naturaleza (personas, plantas, animales, fuego, aire, suelo,
etc.), con el cosmos, con el movimiento relativo de los cuerpos celestes, y con “lo trascendente”, es decir, con Juraqän, las
Fuerzas Creadoras, y hasta con el
Espíritu de los Abuelos y las Abuelas.
(2011:09). Además la cronología Maya es cosmocéntrica, lo que sitúa al
cosmos como el centro del surgimiento y evolución de la vida. Desde esta
perspectiva, la historia Maya (de la
humanidad) sólo se puede entender a
partir de la historia, origen y evolución
cíclica del Cosmos. Entre los variados
ciclos de tiempo, el que nos interesa
desarrollar en este caso es el gran
Ciclo de la Cuenta Larga, que es un
sistema para registrar el tiempo en
Víctor Cristales
Colectivo de Educación para todas y todos de Guatemala. Directivo Campaña Latinoamericana por el Derecho a la Educación
CLADE
[email protected]
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forma lineal, combinado con el ritmo cíclico. Expresa el cómputo del número de días
transcurridos a partir de la mística fecha 4 Ahaw 8 K’umku’, desde la cual nuestras
Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas comenzaron a contar la Cuarta Era del mundo, que finaliza
el 21 de diciembre de 2012, al terminar el recorrido completo de un ciclo de Oxlajuj
B’aqtun.
Oxlajuj B’aqtun significa: Oxlajuj = trece y B’aqtun = período de 400 años, donde
B’aqtun = 20 K’atun, K’atun = 20 Tun, Tun = un año de cómputo = 360 días y Q’ij= 1
día. Oxlajuj B’aqtun entonces son trece períodos de 400 años que dan un total de
5,200 años, que es la duración de una Era Maya (Ibid:11) Vale aclarar que en el Ciclo
de la Cuenta Larga, los años Tun, son de 360 días y no como en el cómputo del ciclo
“HAAB” que registra un año de 365 días, dividido en 18 meses de 20 días, quedando
5 días fuera del sistema vigesimal llamados Wayeb’ que se le agregan para que el
cómputo del año coincidiera con el año trópico de 365 días. (De Paz, 2010:110). Por
referencias de De Paz, encontramos que nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas, en el
período de apogeo de Quirigua (550- 850 d.c.) registraron los acontecimientos históricos más relevantes en la llamada “estela C”, precisando que los mismos habían acaecido en el primer momento de un 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahaw – 8 Kamk’u, fecha de inicio de la
Era actual. De la misma manera, en la “estela I de K’oba” de Yucatán México, erigida
por los años 680-750 d.c., aparece que nuestro mundo actual fue creado en un 4
Ahaw 8 Kamk’u, momento en el que se habían completado un 13 Baqtun anterior. En
el Códice Maya conservado en Dresden Alemania, también aparece la inscripción de
la fecha de inicio de esta Era, en las páginas 24 y 62. El monumento 6 de Tortuguero,
Tabasco México, es una de las fuentes que ha llamado mucho la atención, porque
además de la inscripción del inicio de esta Era que coincide con el 11 de agosto de
3114 a.C., establece con precisión la fecha de su final, que también coincide con la
fecha gregoriana del 21 de diciembre de 2012 (Orellana, Alfonso 2006)
1.2. ERAS MAYAS O GRANDES TIEMPOS
En la concepción predominante del antiguo México, las Eras se denominaban
“sol”, porque concebían que cada Era, tenía su propio “sol”. El pueblo Mexica, más
conocido como Azteca, contaba con cinco “soles”, siendo la Era actual el quinto “sol”.
Partiendo de la propia Cosmovisión Maya, diremos que Los Mayas en cambio, reconocen un ciclo de cuatro Eras, siendo la presente, la cuarta Era. Siguiendo esta
metodología de pensamiento, nuestro análisis deberá partir necesariamente de los
datos que nos ofrecen los documentos antiguos Mayas como el Popol Wuj, el libro de
los libros de Chilam B’alam, la escritura jeroglífica en muros y piedras, los Códices
Mayas que aún se conservan.
Partiendo del Popol wuj podemos decir que éste, define las diferentes etapas de
la “cimentación o fundación” del Universo como Eras, visualizadas a semejanza del
día que comienza con la aurora y termina con el ocaso. Aunque en la mayoría de las
traducciones se habla de “Creación”, esto se debe al contexto de la cultura cristiana
en que se han realizado. El Popol Wuj, refiere a Tepew y Q’ukumatz, a Tz’aqol y a B’itol, Ajtz’aq y Ajb’it, como los escultores y constructores, mientras que Alom, K’ajolom
significan Mujer que concibe y varón que engendra. Todos esos nombres expresan el
concepto de “hacer algo nuevo, de generación”. En otras palabras, de fundar una nue-
va Era. Y como dice Sam, “se menciona a la comadrona: Xpiyakok”...(2008:21-22) .
En un sentido metafórico, hubo un “padre que engendra”, una “madre que concibe” y
con la presencia de una “comadrona”. Si desde el concepto de Creación, la Biblia dice: “Al principio creó Dios el cielo y la tierra...dijo Dios: que exista la luz y la luz existió” (Gen. 1, 1-3), es decir, prácticamente de la nada la concepción Maya de los “orígenes” es diferente, es evolucionista, porque no parte de la nada al explicar el origen del
mundo. En el principio se lee en el P.W.:”solo el cielo existía, todavía no había aparecido la faz de la tierra, solo estaba el mar en calma, al igual que toda la extensión del
cielo”. Aquí se evidencia que el cosmos y el agua desde la cosmovisión Maya, constituyen el principio de todo.Para los Mayas entonces, no existió creación, sino solo fue
un ordenamiento de lo que ya existía.
De la visión que expresan el Chilam B’alam y el Popol wuj se deduce que las siguientes formaciones o Eras, los astros, las constelaciones surgen progresivamente y
el ser humano se perfecciona poco a poco, mediante varias tentativas, sin la
intervención de algún dios externo al mundo, sino a partir de las energías o principios
generadores, llamados Ruk’u’xKaj, Ruk’u’xUlew, donde los nombres de Tepew, Q’ukumatz, y otros, no representan “personas”, sino fuerzas o energías cósmicas: fuego,
luz, obscuridad, aire, agua, vida, muerte, entre otros.
La información sobre las cuatro Eras, la encontramos en la primera parte del Popol Wuj así como en la información oral de los ajq’ija’ actuales. Se refiere a que cada
una de las Eras parece corresponder a las cuatro dimensiones de energía tanto de
nuestro universo galáctico como de nuestra madre tierra, simbolizadas con los cuatro
colores: el rojo, el negro, el blanco y el amarillo y personificadas por nuestras y
nuestros primeros Abuelos: Balam k’itze, Balam Aq’ab, Majuk’utaj e Ik’ B’alam.
a) Primera Era: Ésta, se puede definir con la formación del Universo material y la
vida animal. Cuando Tz’aqol y B’itol se dieron cuenta que los animales no podían hablar, ni pronunciar sus nombres: “entonces les dijeron: serán cambiados, porque no resultaron bien, no hablaron...De esta manera, sus carnes fueron destinadas a ser comidas. Se decidió su oficio: ser comidos, ser muertos
los animales que hay sobre la tierra” (P.W.). En esta primera tentativa, Kabawil,
no logra la finalidad del Cosmos: formar seres conscientes. Entonces continúan las fases de formación del ser humano, a través de las siguientes Eras.
“Entonces se manifestó con claridad, mientras meditaban (Tepew y Q’ukumatz), que cuando amaneciera debía aparecer el hombre”. “No habrá gloria ni
riqueza en nuestra creación y formación, hasta que exista la criatura humana,
el hombre formado, así dijeron”(P.W.). Con lo anterior se puede entender el interés de los Mayas por la evolución del ser humano hacia la perfección.
b) Segunda Era: Ésta la constituye la primera tentativa de formar a los seres
humanos. Se inicia con la formación de las mujeres y los hombres hechos de
lodo y luego se termina con su destrucción porque no tenían entendimiento.
c) Tercera Era: Es la segunda tentativa de la formación del ser humano. Se inicia
con la formación de los hombres de madera y se termina con su destrucción,
convirtiéndolos en monos. Pero Jun Raqän, Tepew y Q’ukumatz solicitaron a
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los adivinos Xpiyakok e Ixmukane, que consultaran con el loq’oläj Tzité, para
ver qué clase de ser humano se haría. Se hicieron de madera. “parecían
humanos en su hablado, parecían humanos en su conversación, fue la gente
que pobló la Tierra...Pero no tenían espíritu y no tenían pensamiento...Una
grande inundación se hizo, que cayó sobre los muñecos. Cayó una gran trementina del cielo...” De Paz, propone que el motivo de la destrucción de los seres humanos de madera “es explícito: los gigantes son culpables de orgullo,
pretenden ser los dueños del Cosmos. Wuqub Kak’ix (Kaqix), sería el Sol del
ocaso de la Era precedente, convertido en divinidad de la Tierra y del fuego y
luego Venus, ¿acaso no se dice en el Popol Wuj, que cuando él aparecía
“inmediatamente se iluminaba la faz de la tierra”? El viejo 7 Guacamaya fue
vencido por la pareja primordial y por sus jóvenes gemelos, sol y luna de la nueva Era... Ellos, (los gigantes), son los civilizados, los sedentarios, los cultos,
mientras que los gemelos son los advenedizos, nómados, cazadores, bárbaros.” (2010:58) Gonzáles, por su parte, afirma que lo que les pasó a los muñecos de madera, es similar a lo que ocurre en nuestro tiempo, que “Hemos evolucionado en cuanto a lo físico, pero estamos estancados en cuanto al
crecimiento intelectual. El uso de nuestro cociente intelectual no ha pasado
más allá de un nivel elemental según los expertos. Pero lo alarmante es que
ese bajo porcentaje,nos hace ya capaces de autodestruir nuestra casa comunal, la tierra” ( 2006:53)
d) Cuarta Era: es la tercera tentativa de formación del humano, y los formaron de
Maíz. Desde esta perspectiva, esta cuarta Era es la que inició en un B’aqtun
13.0.0.0.0. 4 Ajaw 8 K’amk’u y que terminará en un B’aqtun 13.0.0.0.0. 4 ajaw 3
K’ank’in, donde el cero, representa completamiento y no vacío, es el fin y es el
principio. La inscripción de esta fecha aparece en la estela “C” de Quirigua-Guatemala y en la estela 1 de K’oba-Yucatán (De Paz, 2010: 60, 69) “llegaron para
juntarse y celebraron consejo en la oscuridad de la noche... y discutieron; Reflexionaron, y mediaron aquí. De esta manera surgió la idea clara, diáfana; encontraron y decidieron qué se necesitaba para el cuerpo humano...De Paxil de K’ayala’, así llamados, vinieron las mazorcas amarillas, las mazorcas blancas.”
(P.W.) Entonces convinieron la construcción de nuestros primeros padres y madres. Ellos fueron cuatro: Balam K’itze’, Balam Aq’ab, Majuk’utaj e Ik’ B’alam.
Esta Cuarta Era representa la edad o sol del Hombre de maíz, lo que hace suponer que la fecha de inicio y fin de esta Era no es una fecha para limitar un
tiempo, que esencialmente no tiene límites, sino una fecha para referirse a algún evento o acontecimiento especialmente significativo para los Mayas, tal
como es “la última creación del mundo”, hasta ahora, a decir de Thompson, por
referencias de De Paz. ( 2010:72)
Si cuando fueron aniquilados “los hombres” de madera, además de la “lluvia de
día y lluvia de noche”, sus animales y sus objetos de trabajo incitaron a una rebelión contra ellos y los comenzaron a aniquilar. González dice, “Podemos
considerar que la humanidad actual por la libertad que se le ha dado por
Ruk’u’x Kaj Ruk’u’x Ulew, sus inventos y descubrimientos se pueden trocar en
sus propios verdugos para su autodestrucción. En esas piedras de moler, sus
tinajas, sus platos, sus comales,sus ollas... sus perros, sus aves de corral están figurados en los grandes inventos de la humanidad de ahora: los armamentos de destrucción global, inventos químicos, inventos tecnológicos que distorsionan la vida misma, sus experimentos...se levantarán algún día contra los
humanos y los golpearán y los destruirán...Me da miedo pensar que somos un
peligro para la vida” (2006:66)
“Ha llegado el tiempo del amanecer, de que se termine la obra y que aparezcan
los hijos esclarecidos, los vasallos civilizados; que aparezca el hombre, la
humanidad sobre la superficie de la tierra” (P.W.) así se dijo. Como nos damos
cuenta, la visión del Popol Wuj sobre el surgimiento y fin de una Era, es una
visión de evolución hacia el perfeccionamiento del ser humano, junto al proceso evolutivo del universo. Si eso es así, cabe preguntarnos si la generación
actual, ¿Ha hecho mejor uso de esas facultades, superando a sus semejantes
de otras generaciones anteriores?, ¿Ha cumplido con la misión asignada de
ser “hijos esclarecidos” de ser “vasallos civilizados” y además “humanos” en el
amplio sentido de la palabra?, ¿Qué decir del hambre y la pobreza que amenaza la vida de una gran mayoría en el planeta, mientras unos pocos han concentrado y siguen concentrando “riquezas” materiales sin saciedad?, ¿y la escalada militarista que ha alcanzado dimensiones globales, de la que nadie escapa,
enfrentando pueblos contra pueblos, cegando millones de vidas, amenazando
la existencia en el planeta con sus armas de destrucción mundial , en nombre
de la “sacrosanta” acumulación individualista del capital?, Y en palabras de
Gonzales, ¿Cómo, la humanidad hasta ahora, ha sido capaz de convertir el
mundo en un gran basurero donde ha enterrado el espíritu y la conciencia, bajo
los escombros de todo lo negativode su proceder?, ¿O es que nuestra civilización es un fracaso más, para decepción y amargura de Tz’aqol B’itol, de
Ruk’u’x Kaj Ruk’u’x Ulew?
e) Quinta Era: González propone que la primera Era se inició con la primera
tentativa de formar al ser humano, de lodo, por lo que estaríamos por concluir
la tercera Era. La propuesta de De Paz dice que, la primera Era la constituyó la
formación del Universo material, las plantas y los animales, por lo que estaríamos por concluir la cuarta Era. En ese sentido, Este último propone que la Era
que comenzará en el año 2012, será la Era del Centro u Ombligo del Mundo.
Será una Era de equilibrio, porque en el centro confluyen las cuatro direcciones
del Universo. (2010:47)
Algunos Ajq’ija’ consultados, divergen con el último autor sobre la visualización
de la quinta Era, fijando una postura diferente: “la nueva Era tendría que seguir
su curso cíclico, como el Cholq’ij, que sigue el movimiento rotatorio y cíclico de
nuestra galaxia, lo que permitiría visualizar en el tiempo, la continuidad, no de
una Era más, sino la continuidad de la existencia en el tiempo infinito”; pues
ubicar la quinta Era en el centro “porque en el centro confluyen las cuatro direcciones del mundo”, sería contradecir esencialmente, la continuidad cíclica del
tiempo: Vida-muerte- renacimiento. Porque además, ¿dónde se ubicaría la sexta y la séptima y las demás Eras? ¿O acaso se está pensando en que ya solo
una Era pueda existir a futuro?
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1.3. ¿FIN DEL MUNDO O INICIO DE UNA NUEVA ERA?
1.3.1. Los Ciclos del tiempo: De Paz, nos dice que el concepto del “K’INH”-SOL- DÍATIEMPO- es el fundamento de la concepción cíclica del tiempo y de la vida. La
observación de las revoluciones sinódicas de los astros, fundamentó la concepción
cíclica de: vida-muerte-renacimiento, o sea principio-fin-principio. Este fenómeno se
hace más evidente en el ciclo de la luna: aparece-crece-decrece- y se oculta durante
tres noches, antes de volver a aparecer. Con sobrada razón que a las edades cósmicas que han existido, Eras o “soles” son precisamente los días grandes de K’inh. Se
puede considerar entonces que El TIEMPO, es la sucesión sin límites de todos los ciclos del sol y de la luna. (2010:28) En la estela 10 de yaxchilan se observa la efigie de
K’inh en el centro, Kinich Ajaw, el Señor del ojo solar. De esta cuenta, se puede observar que la serie de calendarios se basan en el ciclo solar o lunar. Refiriéndose al calendario Maya, De Paz refiere que para los Mayas, los Nahuas, los Zapotecas, los Mixtecas y otros varios pueblos del México antiguo, era como la espina dorsal que les permitía moverse, actuar y pensar dentro del tiempo. (2010:25)
Se puede observar en el Popol Wuj que desde la formación del universo, hasta la
formación del ser humano, todo fue realizada por etapas, se originó por medio de la
lucha o choque violento entre las 13 divinidades celestiales y las 9 del mundo inferior,
quienes destruyen y vuelven a modelar el universo a través de las Eras (o soles), que
son también ciclos del tiempo, con el fin de lograr formar al ser humano inteligente y
sensible. Cielo, tierra e inframundo: Chikaj, Ulew, Xibalba. También en el Chilam Balam de Chumayel, en la profecía de un Katún11 Ahaw,relata en forma simbólica la sucesión de Eras: “Al terminar el arrasamiento, se alzará Chac Imix Che, la ceiba roja
primigenia, columna del cielo, señal del amanecer del mundo” Aquí se puede observar
con claridad que los diversos ciclos registrados por las Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas, corresponden a realidades concretas de la historia de su pueblo, en un camino infinito
del tiempo como un fluir sucesivo de ciclos de vida y muerte, de principio y fin, a similitud del curso del Sol-Ahaw: aurora-ocaso-aurora. Por tal motivo, para los Mayas antiguos, el final de cada período o Era de Oxlajuj B’aqtun, no significaba el final de la
historia, porque calculaban esos períodos ininterrumpidamente, dentro de la
concepción del tiempo que se extendía eternamente, hacia el pasado y hacia el futuro,
como veremos más adelante, con datos en muros, estelas y códices. En síntesis, los
Ciclos, se unían mediante sucesivas destrucciones y nuevas formaciones.
1.3.2 ¿Fin del mundo?: Se ha venido hablando de profecías múltiples, de profecías
Mayas del fin del mundo, del fin de un calendario antiguo, de un cataclismo global, de
un cambio de conciencia a nivel cósmico, del reciclaje de la humanidad, del regreso
de Quetzalcóatl, entre muchas otras cosas. Mientras la fecha se acerca aumenta la
especulación y el temor. El actual debate nacional y mundial sobre el 21 de diciembre
de 2012, está plagado de suposiciones, malas interpretaciones, juicios y aseveraciones sobre predicciones apocalípticas Mayas sin fundamentos científicos, lo que indefectiblemente ha orillado a malos entendidos sobre la ciencia y las creencias Mayas,
creando a la vez confusión y miedo. En mucho, la confusión deviene de la disparidad
de la visión del mundo occidental de la del mundo Maya y sin embargo es aquella visión la que ha prevalecido hasta estos momentos para estudiar e “interpretar” la cien-
cia y el conocimiento maya. Algo común, desde Ximénez, hasta la actualidad es que
se ha pretendido interpretar la cosmovisión Maya desde parámetros de la cultura
occidental cristiana, lo que ha permitido el desarrollo de un abismal distanciamiento
con el conocimiento y pensamiento originales del Pueblo Maya antiguo.
Entre los datos más importantes que han dado motivos a la especulación sobre un
inminente fin del mundo el 21 de Diciembre de 2012, es la inscripción jeroglífica que
aparece en el llamado muro 6 de Tortugueros de Tabasco, México, que junto a la inscripción del inicio de esta Era, aparentemente aparece una profecía apocalíptica del
fin del mundo.
Por su importancia trascribiremos fragmentos del estudio:
“El análisis de todo el Monumento 6 muestra claramente que su objetivo principal
es el relato sobre los sucesos que ocurrían mientras gobernaba B’ahlam Ahau, destacando la construcción y dedicación de una estructura ritual para la ceremonia de fuego
(“el naah”) en la fecha de cuenta larga 9.11.16.8.18 (14 de enero de 669) Estas inscripciones ocupan la mayor parte de la estela.
En el ala derecha se encuentran los glifos que algunos consideran apocalípticos,
entre los que se conservan legibles se interpreta: El treceavo Baktun acabará en el 4
Ahau 3 Kankin (21 de diciembre de 2012) ¿? Sucederá (falta un fragmento) Será el
descenso ¿? (falto otro fragmento) de Bolon Yookte Kuh para el ¿? (falta otro fragmento).
Después de la fecha y antes de los glifos dañados, el glifo resaltado es el verbo uto- ma, la ortografía de utoom, participio futuro, “que va a suceder”. ¿Cuál es el sujeto
de este verbo? Si correspondiera a los tres siguientes –y últimos- , entonces éstos describirían un suceso asociado al año 2012; pero si sigue la estructura narrativa de la
inscripción, habría una ruptura importante después del utoom, por lo que podría referirse a que los sucesos narrados sucederían “antes de”.
El monumento 6 no dice que se vaya a terminar el mundo, señala el fin de un ciclo
y la llegada de otro. La nueva Era estaría a cargo de un nuevo Señor, Bolon Yookte –
“Dios de los 9 pasos” o “Dios de los 9 árboles”... La expresión 9 Yookte (Bolon Yookte)
es enigmática, al estar seguida de K’uh “Dios(es)”, podría identificar a un grupo, en
este caso de nueve dioses.
En conclusión, la mención de la fecha 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 Kankin (21 de
diciembre de 2012) en el monumento 6 de Tortugueros, es un ancla cronológica aislada dentro de un largo relato, proyectada hacia el futuro, para hacer un punto retórico
acerca de la naturaleza del acontecimiento histórico principal. El gobernante B’ahlam
Ahau, era tan poderoso que sería el anfitrión, cuando Bolon Yookte llegara, para su
investidura... Bolon Yookte también es dios asociado con la guerra y la creación”(Arellano, 2006)
Este último dato coincide con la visión cíclica del Popol Wuj: de la destrucción a la
renovación, para dar paso a la continuidad de la vida y la evolución.
Un segundo elemento que ha contribuido a la especulación es la mala
interpretación que se hace de pasajes del Libro de los Libros de Chilam Balam. A) que
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los libros que contiene fueron redactados después de la invasión española, por lo que
su escritura es la que los frailes españoles adaptaron a la fonología del idioma Maya
en Yucatán. B) La traducción e interpretación del contenido de los relatos y los datos,
se realizaron desde parámetros de la cultura occidental cristiana. C) Chilam B’alam,
que eran los ajq’ija’ de entonces, desde la óptica occidental, se les denominó profetas;
y lo que predecía según su observación sistemática del movimiento de los astros o según su consulta con el loq’oläj Tz’ite, se le llamó profecía, D) Lingüistas mayas dan fe
de que en ningún idioma Maya existe el concepto de profeta o profecía, así como
tampoco permiten una traducción lineal. E) Los datos vertidos en estos libros se manejan en el ciclo de 13 K’atun, equivalente a 260 años Tun, pero fuera del contexto cronológico de la cuenta larga actual, lo que hace difícil precisar fechas en su correlación
con el calendario gregoriano, sobre todo cuando se hacen referencias a predicciones
de cataclismos o eventos de destrucción. (ChilamB’alam 1996: 9, 10).
ta del capital; b) crisis financieras del sistema capitalista que provoca verdadera crisis
social generalizada, c)hambruna globalizada que amenaza la vida de pueblos enteros
en el mundo d) cambio climático, debido a la depredación de los bosques y la contaminación extrema que trae desolación y muerte e) la contaminación y el agotamiento del
agua para consumo humano que se perfila como uno de los mayores problemas del
futuro de la humanidad, f) la destrucción del ozono por la irresponsabilidad industrial
del sistema, g) la contaminación de ríos y mares con químicos y desechos radiactivos,
entre otros problemas.
Por el contrario, entre los datos que ayudan a entender el mensaje de fin de Era y
no de fin del mundo, tenemos la página 62 del Códice de Dresden (llamada de los números de serpiente), abajo, en el ángulo derecho, está consignada la fecha inicial de 4
Ahaw 8 K’amk’u. Además, los números de distancia, entre anillos, en la parte de arriba, al restarlos a la fecha inicial, nos conduce a una fecha anterior de 37,000 años, lo
que nos indica que existieron Eras anteriores.(De Paz, 2010:78)
Pero por otra parte, si para nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos, cada creación, era una
mejora respecto a la de la Era anterior, que la existencia y la vida del ser humano se
desarrolla en constante movimiento cíclico, hacia la perfección; el inicio de una nueva
Era Maya implicaría para el Pueblo Maya actual, avanzar en la evolución humana hacia la preeminencia de la dimensión espiritual sobre lo material, donde el desarrollo
espiritual habría de manifestarse en una conciencia colectiva, en decisiones en
conjunto, en luchas globalizadas para construir un modelo de vida que no sólo responda a los anhelos e intereses históricos de nuestros pueblos, sino permita construir además un modelo de vida que funcione en equilibrio con la madre naturaleza, el cosmos,
pues hemos aprendido que estamos en la antesala de una nueva Era para la
humanidad y el cosmos.
En la estela I de K’oba, de Yucatán, (680- 750 d.c.) además de registrarse el inicio
de esta Era, también se registra el mayor cómputo que se hay escrito, el 13 Baktun
elevado a la 21 potencia. Este cómputo infinito demuestra que los astrónomos Mayas
reconocían que existieron otras Eras anteriores al 4 Ahaw 8 K’umk’u.
Un informe publicado por la revista Science, el 10 de mayo de este año, acerca del
hallazgo del calendario Maya más antiguo encontrado, apunta que este hallazgo fue
realizado en la selva del norte de Guatemala, en las paredes de un recinto oculto en la
antigua ciudad de Xultún, cuya antigüedad data del siglo IX d.c. En ellos se observa
los ciclos de la Luna, el Sol, Venus y Marte y las fases por las que pasarían en los próximos siete mil años.Los estudiosos reportan que estos calendarios encontrados son
más antiguos que los códices Mayas que se fechan entre 1300 a 1521. En las tabletas
se encuentra el calendario ceremonial de 260 días, el solar de 365 días, el calendario
de Venus de 584 días, el de Marte de 780 días.
La contundencia de los datos anteriores permite desmentir de tajo la pretendida
“profecía Maya del fin del mundo en el 21 de diciembre de 2012.
Para decirlo con simplicidad, Nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas, simplemente nos
dirían: No es el fin del mundo. Es el inicio de una nueva Era.
1.4. ¿QUÉ PASARÁ ENTONCES?
Si el principio de la vida, traducido en conocimiento, que nos heredaron nuestras
Abuelas y Abuelos se basa en la lógica: vida-muerte-renacimiento, hemos de aceptar
nuestra realidad actual, una realidad que está llegando al fin de esta Era, inmersa en
un franco cataclismo propio de esta Era: a) Guerras globalizadas que amenazan con la
extinción de la vida en la tierra, en nombre de la “sacrosanta” acumulación individualis-
Y aunque haya otros fenómenos naturales que amenazan nuestra existencia en el
planeta como un posible impacto de algún meteoro de grandes proporciones, o la alineación planetaria y solar con el centro de nuestra Galaxia que podría afectar la vida
en la tierra, los principales fenómenos que nos están orillando hacia la destrucción y
muerte, es responsabilidad de la presente “civilización”.
El desarrollo de la conciencia colectiva, ya está viendo los primeros rayos de luz
del nuevo amanecer. En Abya Yala, así como en el país más poderoso del mundo y en
la otrora Europa esplendorosa, millones de personas y pueblo enteros ya están alzando su voz y su lucha contra las guerras, contra la destrucción de nuestra madre tierra,
contra la pobreza y la hambruna generalizada en el mundo, por el reconocimiento de
los derechos históricos de los pueblos y naciones oprimidos del mundo, contra el sistema capitalista e imperialista, por la expansión global de la conciencia colectiva para
enfrentar que unos pocos líderes, tomen las decisiones por todos los pueblos del mundo.
Por todo esto, los Mayas de hoy, tenemos la responsabilidad de ser actores decididos de ese “nuevo amanecer”, en la dirección anunciada por nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos. Ahora tenemos que participar enérgicamente en la conducción de la historia y
lograr que desde el inicio del próximo ciclo de la cuenta larga de Oxlajuj B’aqtun, no
sólo seamos un pueblo descolonizado, para “que nos amanezca y nos llegue la aurora”, sino que junto a los demás pueblos oprimidos del mundo, nos convirtamos en la
materialización de la conciencia colectiva global, para construir una nueva Era de igualdad y Justicia social,donde ya no haya racismo y dominación, donde ya no haya explotación ni de individuos ni de naciones por otras, donde haya respeto y equilibrio, ya no
solo entre los seres humanos, sino entre todos los seres que habitamos la tierra y el
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universo, donde el sentido de la existencia sea la vida misma, como nos enseñaron
nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos. De esta manera estaríamos asumiendo nuestra misión legada por Tepew- Q’uq’umatz, Tz’aqol-B’itol, Ruk’u’x Kaj-Ruk’u’x Ulew; pues hacer lo
contrario es aceptar la extinción.
El mensaje del fin de esta Era Maya, más que de alerta y temor, sea de esperanza,
sea de asumir compromisos comunes, de impulsar nosotros mismos los cambios hacia
una conciencia colectiva para merecer el paso a una nueva Era.
1.5. RETOS Y DESAFÍOS DEL PUEBLO MAYA ANTE EL INICIO DE UNA NUEVA
ERA
Para el Pueblo Maya de hoy, el final y el inicio de una nueva Era Maya, implica tiempo de reflexión, análisis, y posicionamiento, tanto para avanzar en los cambios necesarios hacia el interior del ser humano, su desarrollo espiritual, su armonía con la
naturaleza y el cosmos, que darán la pauta de la evolución del ser humano, en tanto se
convierta en sintonía con el cosmos, así como para avanzar en los cambios políticos e
ideológicos necesarios para transformar su realidad social aún entrampada en las
estructuras coloniales impuestas desde hace más de quinientos años, a raíz de la invasión española, lo cual ha significado siglos de dominación, explotación, y exclusión
social.
El mensaje de nuestras y nuestros abuelos está claro, que nuestro origen es cósmico y que de forma permanente, estamos conectados con esa fuente central de energía
e información, la cual nos muestra que en el cosmos (incluyendo al ser humano y la
vida en general) existe un orden y una sincronía en el espacio y en el tiempo. Entonces
el cambio de este gran ciclo astronómico, de esta Era Maya, implica cambios evolutivos
del ser individual y de las colectividades humanas.
Desde esta línea de pensamiento, podemos decir que como Pueblo Maya, estamos
justo en el tiempo, en el momento histórico, para emprender un nuevo camino colectivo, una nueva ruta histórica, marcada por la liberación de nuestro pueblo de las garras
de la colonización capitalista, su ruta histórica hacia su soberanía, hacia la construcción
de un nuevo modelo de vida, basada en el bienestar colectivo, en armonía con la madre naturaleza y el cosmos.
Es el tiempo de replicar lo que nuestras abuelas y abuelos nos enseñaron a decir:
“que todos se levanten, que no se quede ni uno ni dos atrás de los demás”. Pero, para
“que nos amanezca la aurora”, hemos de unirnos en un solo pensamiento, una sola
voz, una sola lucha, porque una es nuestra realidad histórica y uno es nuestro destino
común.
Para lograr lo anterior, el Pueblo Maya se propone lograr que la Cosmovisión Maya
vaya más allá de una forma de ver el mundo y la vida y se convierta en un método de
pensamiento Maya para transformar su mundo, su realidad social oprobioso de más de
500 años. Esto permitirá la construcción del sujeto político Maya.(Ba Tiul, prensa) - La
construcción de un proceso de descolonización, donde el conocimiento de la historia de
nuestro pueblo Maya, la ubicación y el análisis de los diferentes contextos históricos
que han derivado la realidad de dominación, explotación y exclusión social, sea la que
defina nuestra ideología política, ya que el modelo neoliberal se sustenta en la coloniza-
ción del pensamiento. - Lograr el reencuentro de los diversos sectores mayas y no mayas con las comunidades, ya que es aquí donde se resguarda la esencia de la Cultura
Maya y es donde hemos de iniciar nuestro proceso de descolonización. - La apuesta
por el liderazgo comunitario emergente, para la articulación de un movimiento político
maya nacional, para la transformación social. - Hacer que de las demandas culturales y
de derechos colectivos, se salte a demandas políticas, de derechos históricos del Pueblo Maya: derechos políticos, económicos y sociales. - Hacer que las luchas contra el
racismo, incluya la lucha por la transformación estructural del país. - Lograr que en esta
transición hacia una nueva Era Maya, se construya un proyecto político histórico del
Pueblo Maya, donde se vea reflejado sus más caros anhelos de paz y libertad y la
construcción de un modelo de vida justo y en sintonía con el equilibrio de la madre
naturaleza y el cosmos.
Pero además de sus desafíos políticos, el Pueblo Maya se propone la defensa de
la madre naturaleza de forma contundente y efectiva, donde la estrategia de
organización y movilización apuntaría a integrar a los cuatro pueblos del país y a todos
los sectores sociales, buscando denunciar, detener y revertir los procesos de contaminación, depredación y destrucción de la madre naturaleza, en vez de las luchas aisladas de muchas comunidades al interior del país. - Luchar por la conservación del agua,
donde se buscará en territorio indígena, tanto el impulso generalizado de la reforestación para la recuperación de fuentes de agua extintas, así como la defensa del territorio
ante la contaminación industrial y no industrial del agua. - La defensa del territorio indígena de forma contundente y efectiva, ante los proyectos de minería a cielo abierto e
hidroeléctricas, donde la organización y movilización social tendrá que ser a nivel
regional y nacional. - Detener el uso de pesticidas contaminantes o nocivos para la salud humana, y en particular, los que atentan contra el nivel de la reproducción humana
de las nuevas generaciones. - Recuperar e implementar en los territorios indígenas, las
antiguas técnicas y métodos de producción agrícolas Mayas que además de rentables,
corresponden al orden y equilibrio de la madre naturaleza.
2. OTROS ENFOQUES
Si en términos generales, el mundo actual, no solo se identifica con las concepciones teológicas, sino en gran medida se base en ellas para interpretar el mundo y la vida, es fácil entender que el tema “profecía” logre un impacto sin precedentes en la mente humana, sobre todo cuando es vinculado a un “inminente” fin del mundo. El diccionario de la Lengua Española, define la profecía como “un don sobrenatural que consiste
en conocer por inspiración divina las cosas distantes y/o futuras”.
Entendiéndose el alcance que este tema pudiera tener en la mente y en la actitud
de grandes sectores sociales, algunas élites políticas o económicas del país y del mundo han pretendido sacarle el mayor provecho al acercamiento del fin de esta Era Maya,
vinculándola con presuntas profecías mayas de fin del mundo.
El Estado Guatemalteco, a través del Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes y en
particular a través del Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo, ha lanzado grandes
programas de captación de turismo en las áreas Mayas, basándolos en el llamado
“Cambio de Era Maya”. El objetivo fundamental, presentado en las inauguraciones de
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los programas en los principales centros arqueológicos Mayas como Iximché, Tikal, Uaxaktun, entre muchos más, es favorecer a la iniciativa
privada orientada al turismo, más que el interés por rescatar el conocimiento Maya ancestral, tanto en función del desarrollo científico, así como para ir desarticulando el pensamiento aún colonizado del Estado Guatemalteco sobre el Pueblo Maya actual.
Al igual que el Estado Guatemalteco, la mayorías de las producciones literarias, en
particular las novelas sobre “las profecías Mayas” “2012 y el fin del mundo” y una variedad de títulos sugestivos e impactantes, buscan lograr el mayor provecho monetario,
vendiendo fantasía, más que promoviendo el conocimiento científico Maya. La Industria cinematográfica que realizó películas como“Apocalipsis”, “2012,el fin del mundo”, y
otras, buscó y logró las mejores ventas de taquilla, a pesar de constituirse en burla y
en una falta de respeto a la gran civilización Maya. Los Medios masivos de
comunicación, no se quedan a la deriva para prestarse a dar cobertura a cualquier
evento relacionado al fin del Oxlajuj B’aqtun, para incrementar sus ingresos.
La religión en cambio, aunque no tenga los mismos objetivos monetarios, de la misma manera busca sacarle el mayor provecho a este gran acontecimiento. Ante tanta
divulgación de las llamadas, “profecías Mayas”, se han propuesto a consolidar aún
más su cosmovisión teológica, tratando de convencer a sus feligreses, que “solo dios
es el dueño de la vida”, “que ningún hombre sabe hasta cuándo el mundo vive o muere” “que según la biblia, nadie sabe de cuándo será la segunda venida del señor”.
3. ENFOQUES PRINCIPALES EN LA INTERPRETACIÓN DEL OXLAJUJ B’AQTUN
Entre la diversidad de producciones literaria, cinematografía, documentales, artículos y comentarios vía internet, se puede identificar tres enfoques principales: a) los partidarios de las “profecías del fin del mundo”, b) los que niegan con fundamento “el fin
del mundo” c) los que niegan sin fundamento “el fin del mundo”.
Los que defienden “las profecías del fin del mundo”
Los partidarios de esta postura son la inmensa mayoría, algunos lo son por ignorancia, otros por temor; pero otros por conveniencia, con intereses de fondo, bien definidos. Estos fundamentalmente son los creadores de novelas y ensayos esotéricos, creadores de películas fantasiosas, entre otros. Éstos, basándose en dos ideas básicas logran infundir inseguridad y temor en sus potenciales seguidores: primero, la notable
precisión de muchas de las predicciones mayas y segundo, el hecho de que aparentemente el calendario Maya no continuara más allá de la fecha del 21 de diciembre de
2012. Estos dos elementos, matizados y estructurados con la ideología del racismo histórico hacia los pueblos indígenas, permitió la creación de una visión fantasiosa de los
calendarios mayas y con ella, con sutileza, la renovación de la ideología racista hacia
el Pueblo Maya.
Es que políticamente, no les es posible asumir y aceptar el impresionante nivel de
desarrollo científico, sin parangón en el mundo, de la gran Civilización Maya. En ese
sentido, la salida más fácil en la interpretación del Oxlajuj B’aqtun era la de darle una
connotación de fantasía esotérica. Es decir, en vez de reconocer que los Antiguos Mayas fueron grandes científicos, prefieren divulgar que fueron grandes adivinos. Además
ese racismo exacerbado no puede soportar que a partir de la reivindicación de la
cultura de la gran civilización Maya, pudiera reivindicarse el Pueblo Maya actual, aún
atrapado en las estructuras coloniales que duran más de 500 años.
Además de la ideología del racismo, priva en éstos, la ideología capitalista que
apuesta a la rentabilidad individual de los proyectos económicos sin menoscabo de los
daños que pudiera causar y en ese sentido, mientras más fantasiosa y más esotérica,
sea la obra literaria sobre el Oxlajuj B’aqtun, ésta, tiene mayor demanda en el mercado
popular.
Un tercer elemento que no es menos importante, es que las sociedades de
consumo hacen que las personas estén presas de la situación existencial de tal manera que una alarma catastrófica de limite de tiempo sobre el Oxlajuj B’aqtun, nos empuje
a entrar en pánico y hasta en un estado de shock. Para el sistema capitalista de este
momento, este punto es de vital importancia en tanto que sirve de distractor social que
favorece la no identificación de las causas históricas del racismo, la pobreza, la dominación, la explotación y la exclusión social de los pueblos. Este efecto le permite al sistema capitalista ganar tiempo para reconfigurar sus planes y estrategias de recuperación.
Lo anterior quiere decir que las intenciones perversas de sesgar y desviar el
sentido de los ciclos de tiempo especificado por los Mayas, deviene no de uno o
algunos autores en específico, sino del propio sistema capitalista, apuntalado por aquella élite intelectual para expandir a todos los confines de la tierra su propia visión sobre
los pueblos dominados del mundo.
Su efecto es arrollador sobre la sicología de las masas. Todo mundo comenta
sobre el fin de los tiempos, la mayoría se refugia en su religión y pretende minimizar el
miedo conformándose con que “se haga la voluntad de dios”. Otro sector social, más
inclinado a la tecnología de los últimos tiempos,prácticamente ha abarrotado las redes
sociales de artículos de opinión, conferencias, videos, sobre “la profecías Mayas del fin
del mundo”. Aquí circula una diversidad de opiniones sin fundamento que dejan entrever el desconocimiento, la confusión y el miedo.
Para los catastrofistas el fin de la humanidad es un hecho, puesto que lo relacionan con los signos violentos naturales de nuestros tiempos, relacionado a la destrucción hecha por la humanidad
de su casa común, la tierra. Su argumento fundamental es la necesidad de un reciclaje
de la especie humana, como garantía de la sobrevivencia de la especie humana. Reciclaje relacionado a la falta de sensibilización humana y a la destrucción de la vida, lo
que implicaría necesariamente que solo sobrevivirían los que alcanzaren un nivel
espiritual en sintonía con el cosmos.
Ante esta situación se hace urgente y necesaria la socialización del posicionamiento Maya al respecto, en las redes sociales y en todos los medios posibles para reivindicar el profundo pensamiento científico y humano de la gran Civilización Maya y a la vez
ir socializando el posicionamiento político del Pueblo Maya.
Es seguro que cuando llegue el 21 de diciembre de 2012 y no ocurra nada, los ca-
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tastrofistas, se inventarán una nueva fecha y nuevas mentiras, buscando siempre seguir colonizando nuestro pensamiento, ya que el neoliberalismo se funda sobre el pensamiento colonizado.
Los que niegan con fundamento “el fin del mundo”
En los últimos años, ante la escalada divulgación de “las profecías del fin del mundo”, el sector académico, epigrafistas, arqueólogos, antropólogos e historiadores,
centros de estudios de universidades, se han dado a la tarea de analizar una variedad
de estudios que ofrecen datos de fuentes antiguas relacionados al manejo de los ciclos
de los tiempos. Sus análisis pretenden ser objetivos y científicos, políticamente imparciales, que tiende a negar toda posición sin fundamento científico sobre “las profecías
mayas del fin del mundo”; sin embargo toda información “científica” al respecto habrá
que tomarla con cautela y análisis serio y objetivo ya que podría también estar sesgada
por su interpretación desde una visión occidental del mundo, como ocurrió desde el inicio de la invasión española, lo que ha continuado ocurriendo a lo largo del siglo XXI
hasta nuestros días, donde se ha incurrido en la proyección o aplicación de las propias
ideas y creencias de los investigadores extranjeros sobre las de los pueblos originarios
de Abyayala.
Los que sin fundamento niegan “el fin del mundo”
Los de esta postura, son fundamentalmente mayas que pretenden detener el arrollador efecto de la versión del “fin del mundo”, pero que no tienen el suficiente
conocimiento objetivo al respecto, que los hace caer en sesgos y confusiones. Uno de
los sesgos más comunes percibidos hasta el momento es la afirmación de que al final
de esta Era Maya “no hay fin del mundo”, “lo que sí hay es un cambio espiritual del ser
humano a la entrada del siguiente b’aktun... en este nuevo Baqtún, habrá paz y armonía entre los seres humanos” asumiendo como de forma automática un cambio evolutivo inminente y a corto plazo en lo espiritual de las personas y colectividades. Esto ha
llevado
a confusiones e incredulidades, sobre todo porque viene de actores mayas.
El impacto de este sesgo no se ha hecho esperar. Sobre todo el sector popular de
la población maya, asume como verdad que a la entrada del nuevo B’aqtun las cosas
serán distintas, ya no habrá, maldad, no habrá violencia, no habrá injusticias; sólo habrá equilibrio entre las personas. Desde luego, el resultado podría ser negativo para los
desafíos y retos del Pueblo Maya, ya que en gran medida, los cambios sociales se han
de alcanzar con organización y movilización, con posicionamiento y lucha.
Ya vimos en este ensayo que, desde la perspectiva Maya, los cambios van al unísono con los ciclos de los tiempos; pero por los antecedentes evolutivos de la vida en la
tierra, se puede aseverar que los cambios evolutivos son paulatinos, incluso dependen
de variadas condiciones necesarias para la consumación de los saltos de calidad.
Ante este fenómeno, se hace imperativo un trabajo de socialización urgente y ampliado del posicionamiento Maya sobre el Oxlajuj B’aqtun, como parte de la recuperación del pensamiento profundamente científico de nuestra Abuelas y Abuelos relacionado a la vida en movimiento y sus ciclos cósmicos.
4. ALGUNAS CONCLUSIONES
1. Al final de un ciclo más de Oxlajuj B’aqtun, se habla del fin del mundo, basado
en unas “profecías Mayas” que nadie puede explicar bien. Ya sea en las redes
sociales, en novelas, en películas, en la calle, en buses, en centros laborales, en
las iglesias, incluso en camisetas, el rumor de que se acerca el fin del mundo va
en aumento. Se rumora que ocurrirá el 21 de diciembre de 2012, que habrá grandes cataclismos apocalípticos, que habrá una extraña alineación planetaria que
terminará con la vida sobre la tierra. Lo peor de todo es que se asegura que los
Mayas, lo predijeron.
En principio, cualquier predicción apocalíptica que carece de fundamento científico, es absurda. La llamada “profecía maya del fin del mundo” no pasa ninguna
prueba científica, porque es, en principio, inexistente.
¿Para qué invertir tiempo y hablar de esta profecía, entonces? La respuesta es
obvia, para negarla por completo. El avance en el conocimiento de la escritura
glífica, sí permite afirmar categóricamente, que Nuestras Abuela y Abuelos Mayas, jamás predijeron un fin del mundo al final de esta Era Maya. También
permite afirmar que los antiguos Mayas sí tienen relatos de destrucción de mundos y Eras, pero siempre asociados con algo nuevo, con nuevos ciclos de tiempo y de vida.
2. Entre los Calendarios Mayas más conocidos por su importancia tenemos: El
Tzolk’in, llamado calendario sagrado que se compone de 13 meses X 20 días,
dando un total de 260 días. El Haab’, que es un calendario agrícola, se compone de 18 meses de 20 días cada uno, más un mes especial de 5 días llamados
wayeb’, dando un total de 360 + 5 días = 365 días. Cabe mencionar que la duración exacta del Año Maya, con los ajustes convencionales, es de 365.2423, que
es la que se maneja para correlacionar otros calendarios como el de la cuenta
larga, que veremos seguidamente. El Calendario llamado de la cuenta larga,
que se compone de 5, 200 años Tun, donde cada Año Tun es igual a 360 días,
un K’atun = 20 Años Tun, un B’aqtun se compone de 20 K’atunes que da un total
de 400 años Tun, y 13 ciclos de 400 años Tun, equivalen a 5,200 años Tun, a lo
que se le llama Oxlajuj B’aqtun.
El anterior ciclo de Oxlajuj B’aqtun, para correlacionarlo con el calendario gregoriano, se traslada dividiendo todos los días correspondientes a los 5,200 Años
Tun que es equivalente a 1, 872,000 días, entre 365 días que tiene el calendario
gregoriano y se tiene 5,128.76 años. Pero hay autores que prefieren la exactitud, entonces dividen 1,872,000 días del Oxlajuj B’aqtun entre 365.2426 que es
la duración exacta del Año Maya y como resultado tienen 5,125.36, que es la
cantidad que maneja la mayoría de los autores que se rigen con rigurosidad científica. La anterior explicación nos dice que 5,200 Años Tun son equivalentes a
5,125.36 años Siderales.
De esa cuenta se tiene que el inicio de la Cuenta Larga Maya, 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw
8 Kumk’u corresponde a 11 o 13 de Agosto de 3,114 a.c. , y el final de la Era,
corresponde otra vez al 13.0.0.0.0, pero ahora la ronda calendárica nos da 4
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Ajaw 3 K’ank’in correspondiente al 21 o 23 de Diciembre de 2012. La variante de
11 o 13 de agosto de 3,114 a,c, al inicio y la de 21 o 23 de diciembre de 2012
para el final del ciclo, se debe a debate entre los investigadores; sin embargo en
los últimos años, la mayoría de ellos se ha inclinado por el 11 de agosto de 3114
al inicio, para finalizar el ciclo el 21 de diciembre, a raíz de nuevos datos encontrados.
3. Nuestras Abuelas y nuestros Abuelos descubrieron el movimiento del Sol a través del fondo de las constelaciones que tarda 26,000 años en recorrer. El Sol
aparece en otro lugar cada equinoccio y observaron que cada 72 años se va moviendo en el horizonte un grado completo (el equivalente al diámetro del Sol –
por dos). Este movimiento lento, llamado Precesión del Equinoccio, causa que el
Sol del Equinoccio parezca caminar hacia atrás en el “escenario mítico” de las
estrellas.
Esto significa que el Sol en el Equinoccio de Primavera va apuntando a una
constelación y año a año, poco a poco se mueve a otra. Continuará caminando
a través de todas las constelaciones... hasta que en aproximadamente 26,000
años llegará de regreso al mismo punto de partida. Esto es el “gran ciclo” o cuenta larga de la que formaría parte un ciclo de Oxlajuj B’aqtun. Mark Van Stone,
apunta que el ciclo completo de Precesión es de 25,800 años. Además apunta
que “la mañana del 21 de diciembre de 2012, la tierra y el sol se alinearán con la
Grieta Oscura cerca del Centro de la Galaxia y este evento solo ocurre cada
25,800 años.”
Lo anterior coincide con los registros aztecas que plantean que ha habido cinco
Creaciones o Eras, de 5,125.36 años que suman 25,626.8 años.
Estos últimos datos han llevado a proponer que la actual Era Maya que está por
culminar, correspondería al último de los cinco ciclos. Es decir que nos estaríamos encontrando en el final de la noche galáctica, saliendo de la oscuridad y a
punto de entrar en el amanecer de la galaxia.
recorrido, por el conocimiento del pensamiento de las Abuelas y los Abuelos Mayas. Otro elemento que le da complejidad a nuestro tema y que merece nuestra
atención, es el mal manejo que intencionalmente realizan ciertos sectores de
poder, para interpretar sesgada y antojadizamente los datos encontrados hasta
el momento.
Ante lo planteado, el Pueblo Maya, a través de sus instituciones y
organizaciones, deberá tomar parte protagónica en los procesos de
investigación del legado Maya, por interpretar correctamente lo que ya está a la
mano y lo que está por descubrirse; de lo contrario, como Pueblo heredero de
ese gran legado, solo seremos espectadores inocuos, en espera de la
información y de la versión que se nos quiera dar. Además es necesario que el
Pueblo Maya cree las instancias idóneas que rijan el control de cualquier área
arqueológica Maya por estudiar, en conjunto con las instituciones del Estado ya
existentes.
2) Ante el sesgo apocalíptico y la maraña de imprecisiones imperantes en la
interpretación del Oxlajuj B’aqtun,se hace imperativo un trabajo de socialización
urgente del posicionamiento Maya sobre el mismo, como parte de la recuperación del pensamiento profundamente científico y humano de nuestras Abuelas y
Abuelos, relacionado a la vida en movimiento y sus ciclos cósmicos.
3) A la vez, es urgente y necesario, que a raíz de este cambio de Era, se defina y
socialice a nivel nacional, un Posicionamiento Político Maya, capaz de impulsar
procesos de cambio sociopolítico a favor del Pueblo Maya y demás pueblos indígenas del país. La dominación, explotación y exclusión social del Pueblo maya
de más de 500 años, es una ignominia con la que debemos acabar, para merecer el amanecer de una nueva Era Maya.
La propuesta anterior no entraría en contradicción con la metodología del pensamiento Maya, si consideramos que los Mcftuftyutrayas están hablando de las
Eras relacionadas al surgimiento de la especie humana, mientras que la versión
anterior se refiere a grandes ciclos del tiempo en el que el padre Sol realiza su
agotador recorrido por cargarse de las energías cósmicas para dotarnos de vida.
5.ALGUNAS RECOMENDACIONES
1) Después de un pequeño acercamiento a la temática de Oxlajuj B’aqtun, hemos
podido corroborar la complejidad de la misma, dado el poco avance en el manejo de datos que se tiene hasta el momento, del basto conocimiento
científico legado por nuestras Abuelas y Abuelos Mayas. Prueba de ello es el
hallazgo,dado a conocer a penas el 10 de mayo de este año, del calendario Maya más antiguo encontrado en la selva del norte de Guatemala, en las paredes
de un recinto oculto en la antigua ciudad de Xultún, cuya antigüedad data del
siglo IX d.c. Lo anterior nos da la idea de que apenas se ha iniciado el largo
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The Need of Youthful in Global Education
Youthful – The Mindful Natural Way for Each Life
Abstract: Youthful is a blessing for any life. The beauty of youthful is its own
innocence to live naturally connected with nature, to grow up with maturity, and to
embody our mutual care and share. Youthful works its level best at all ages with
maturity, if one can learn lessons from experience. Only need is to respect our own
intuitions, respect each other's differing needs and life circumstances, understand
that there are many ways of being natural but it does not work when we attempt to
coerce, shame or inflict guilt upon each other, even subtly. Living with maturity with
acceptance of happenings are the real experiences from each situations is the
purpose for any life by refining one’s self at the same time protecting the youthful
nature, the moral duty for any life during the journey. The conventional ways of
growing up can enhance maturity through age but natural ways always protect
youthful nature that already exists within each. The youthful attitude reflects the life
of all idealistic living with meaningful purpose. Youth education needs systematic
and streamlined ways to explore life experience than just bookish knowledge. Let
youthful and youth education goes side by side to balance natural health within each
children in its very early stages of life. The role of wisdom irrespective of all ages
enhance natural way of youthful to protect dignity, liberty and morality if one wish to
live for the purpose and not just to exist.
Keywords: Youth, Youthful, Nature, Natural Health, Society, Education, Life,
Lifestyle.
Development is not just about offering the opportunity of a livelihood,
education, job, and access to basic social services: it is also concerned with creating
an environment where people are capable of realize their rights and participate
meaningfully in society. Full development cannot be achieved unless women, youth,
and the resources they represent are integrated into the development process.
Education is the single most important factor contributing to young people’s chances
of leading productive and responsible lives. Overall, the commitments made under
the Millennium Development Goals are clear with regard to the emphasis placed on
both primary and secondary education, aspects of particular relevance for young
people between the ages of 15 and 24. Education is but one part of young people’s
lives—an important part in some regions of the world, but a non-existent element for
large groups of youth in other regions. Certainly, modern formal education and
training systems were developed with young people in mind—people seen to be
going through an initial learning phase in their lives, to be doing a whole range of
things for the first time, and to be doing these things all together at more or less the
same ages. It is understood that this is a purely social construction that has
established itself in very specific times and places, but in practice the arbitrary
nature of these institutionalized arrangements escapes conscious notice.
Educational statistics are by and large a highly condensed and narrowly focused empirical representation of a set of taken-for-granted arrangements for intentional
learning and its outcomes. Youth as a social phenomenon and young people as the
primary target population of formal education and training fade from view behind an
avalanche of indicators that describe participation in institutional processes for
learning but reveal little about those who take part. In many ways, educationalists
and analysts are condemned to reporting on education and saying nothing about
youth. Youthful mind is the need as an investment in gender equality and women’s
empowerment is vital for improving economic, social and political conditions in
developing countries within the framework of sustainable development. In view of
the foregoing, renewed emphasis should be placed on implementing lifelong
learning schemes to provide culturally, socially and economically appropriate
Rashmi Chandran
Natural'Health'and'Environmental'Research
[email protected]/////h1p://drrashminaturallife.blogspot.in/
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education. Lifelong learning arrangements, particularly those in informal and nonformal settings, can confer a number of benefits: they can provide people who live in
countries that do not have universal education with access to learning opportunities
on a continuous basis; they can address the problem of conventional formal
schooling being too far removed from local cultural and social environments; and
they can alleviate economic hardship, particularly for young people in developing
countries who may experience strong pressures to earn income to help support their
families or, particularly if they are girls, to take on significant responsibilities at home
(1, 4). The basic foundation of education should start from each and every home
which is the thread to tie up the connectivity with the society in turn should spread
globally.
Self Awareness, Culture and Development
Empowerment in context refers to the ability of people to control their own destinies in relation to other people in society. Prominent definitions of empowerment
can be: the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context
where this ability was previously denied to them. With the passage of time, the
spheres of activity of males and females became more and more watertight. The
challenges of life were faced by men, while women were restricted to the household
sphere. Man considers woman to be frail and weak by nature. The same time in all
patriarchal family, women and youth are the victims to protect their dignity and liberty
due to the immoral acts of certain vampires exists in the name of family men and
religious leaders in each corner of our globe. The oneness in nature is the natural
ways of treating all as All are equal souls irrespective of caste, creed, culture and
religion to balance solidarity and natural health within each. The conventional and
conservative attitude, beliefs and habits affects the tradition and culture of the real
development sows the seeds of fear and tear for each living degrading youthful
nature of each life. A man and a woman or any two or more individuals are like two
wheels of a cart. The cart can move fast and safely too, when both of them pull it in
the same direction and with equal strength. Hence no developing country or society
can afford to ignore the role of each individual, if they are to progress. Women's
education, employment, and family roles and the interrelations between them have
attracted increasing attention during the last few years. Over the last few decades
there has been a tremendous change in laws, attitudes, and norms affecting
women's status, roles, and development in society in India. If women get
empowered, reflects the youth and society. Culture has the power to transform entire
societies, strengthen local communities and create a sense of identity and belonging
for people of all ages. As a vector for youth development and civic engagement,
culture plays an essential role in promoting sustainable social and economic
development for future generations. Youth can act as a bridge between cultures and
serve as key agents in promoting peace and intercultural understanding. Transmitting the values of intercultural understanding, cultural diversity and creating a
sustainable environment from one generation to the next is essential if the seeds of
peace are to be planted and nurtured by future generations. The United Nations initiates young people to these principles through involving them as active partners and
stakeholders in both its on-the-ground and normative actions. Engaging youth in the
policy-making process contributes to better informed and equitable cultural policies
and strengthens transparency, accountability and ownership. The UNESCO World
Heritage Education Programme strives to give young people the opportunity to learn
and develop by acquiring knowledge about World Heritage protection, conservation
and promotion. The driving force of the programme is the involvement of youth as a
major segment of the community, taking cultural dimensions into account,
encouraging them to become thinkers and actors of development. The Programme
has generated many different projects and activities such as Youth Forums, skills
development training courses, educative workshops and seminars, the World Heritage Volunteer Programme and its main tool, World Heritage in Young Hands
(WHYH), an educational resource kit for school teachers, existing in 37 national
language versions, and which has reached at least 1 million young students.
Currently young people across the world are increasingly involved in heritage
protection and promotion, recognizing that heritage does not only belong to the past,
but is also part of their identity. Transmitting heritage values to young people favors
intercultural understanding, respect for cultural diversity and helps create an
environment propitious to a culture of peace – principles which are central to the
United Nation’s mission. Heritage related initiatives clearly demonstrate that culture
is an indispensable driver and enabler of sustainable development. Heritage
provides testimonies to, and links between, the past and present. As one of the
world’s few inexhaustible natural resources, creativity is a source of considerable
potential in promoting sustainable socio-economic development for people of all
ages (1, 3, 6, 10). The creative industries can serve as a springboard for new ideas
and innovation, which can open up new opportunities for employment and learning,
while at the same time promoting well-being and self-esteem and empowering entire
communities. Young women and men are increasingly engaged in proposing creative
solutions to local challenges. This creative energy needs to be harnessed so as to
maximize the positive impact it can have on society. Education with self awareness,
cultural values, and morality is the single most important factor contributing to young
people’s chances of leading productive and responsible lives for the emotional,
mental, spiritual and physical well being.
The Need of Youthful in Birth, Life and Death
Life is full of mystic as well as mysterious experiences if one can feel it with all
its divinity. A youthful way of expressing the facts needs wisdom reveals the truth
shines forever reflecting one’s self. Birth of any life is as divine as all creations, in its
initial stage due to the quality of innocence and fearless. Whether it is an animal,
plant or human, the innocent and tenderness are the natural ways with all its sensitivity with each and every feels of nature. The birth of any new creation is with all its
divine quality of youthful nature. Life and living is the next stage to survive and exists
to protect that divine nature. Each happenings, experiences and situations is the way
for life and living very much naturally to accept and move forward refining one’s self
by purifying not to get distracted with any of the ill effects and impacts. The way of
youthful mindfully is the natural way to purify your thoughts and beliefs balancing
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practical realities. To feel the life and living youthful nature is the need even to feel
the death which is not an end but the recycling process of energies within nature.
Forms and acts need this youthful nature never cheats one’s self since it is inherited
in each one’s life. Death is not the end of any life when forms die, in reality death is
the one if one looses their youthful nature in life.
“Living as Living corpse without any youthful nature is the real death” –
Dr. Rashmi Chandran.
The Need of Mindfulness and Natural ways to Protect the Youthful
The empowerment of youth is essential for achieving gender equality and the
integrity to overall well-being viz. spiritual, emotional, mental and physical. These are
also fundamental if youth movements are to achieve equal political, economic, social
and cultural rights. A sense of self-worth is relevant to domestic violence and the
development of confidence within both the home and the society. It is essential to
design, implement and monitor, with the full participation of youth and women,
effective, efficient and mutually reinforcing gender-sensitive policies and programs, at
all levels that will foster the empowerment and advancement of youth mind of all
ages if it is women or men. Natural lifestyle has a significant impact on personal
happiness levels, but a significant piece of the equation is one’s attitude towards life.
It’s probably no secret that optimists tend to be happier people, but one may not realize that there’s more to optimism than ‘putting on a happy face or ‘looking on the
bright side’. Nobody is happy all the time, but some people are definitely more fulfilled than others (5-12). The art of natural living empowers all phases of life, to face
the present challenges by providing tools and techniques that help to eliminate
individual stress and learned nature. The Art of Natural Living encourages all ways of
life irrespective of religion, culture, caste, creed and language, to find practical solutions to their challenges so that each one becomes self-reliant in their own natural
ways accepting each of their destiny, levels and capacity. A youth mind is the glue
that holds society together. From my experience personally I trust and believe the
health of each person depends of his own awareness and consciousness of self
worth with morals reflects the whole family, society, and therefore the whole nation,
benefits. The term Natural Health founded by me in 2002 after a major immoral
incident in my personal and professional life happened completely out of my control.
Youthful nature and certain natural ways helped me to balance my natural health and
youthful to continue my living as a survivor not victimizing me at any situations of life
so far by divine grace. Practicing natural life style, sharing by reflecting myself for a
meaningful purpose is an awesome feel, the only moral duty of mine to respect the
self. Self awareness with efforts needed to understand and accept the learned nature
of the present society, and to protect the natural health of the youth in very early
stages through empowerment and awareness. A change in lifestyle and diligence is
the only natural way that determines each of our health to thrive against the toxic
environment in and around us and to lead a complete physical, emotional, mental
and social well-being. The well-being enhances the consciousness with youthful
nature to implement the divine wisdom balancing the natural health within.
Natural ways to Protect the Youthful
Be natural with morals.
Never be a hypocrite and never be judgmental.
Accept pros and cons of all your experiences in all its natural ways.
Never victimize yourself at any situations and levels.
Live as a survivor to share and care.
Live naturally with higher consciousness with feels not just feelings.
Avoid secrecy but always respect your privacy.
Respect all divine feels and protect your youthful nature.
References
1. Youth and Education. World Youth Report, 2003. Pg. No. 27 – 53.
2. h9p://whc.unesco.org/
3. Diversity of Cultural Expressions, h9p://www.diversidades.net/ﬂooone/home.html
4. h9p://undesadspd.org/Youth.aspx
5. Rashmi Chandran 2015. WATER - The Natural Health for the Planet. GLOBAL
EDUCATION MAGAZINE (inscribed in bibliographic database of the Ministry of Culture
of Spain with ISSN 2255-033X). Global Education section, Pg. 110. This article was
published on 22nd March 2015, for the World Water Day, in Global Education
Magazine. h9p://www.globaleduca>onmagazine.com/waterAnaturalAhealthAplanet/
6. Rashmi Chandran 2014. “Solidarity – The Need for Survival and Existence”. GLOBAL
of Spain with ISSN 2255-033X). Global Education section, Pg. Pg. 69-72. This article
was published on 20st December International Day of Solidarity (issue nº 10).
http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/solidarity- survival-existence/
7. Rashmi Chandran 2014. Peace and Silence – A Mystical Journey Within. GLOBAL
of Spain with ISSN 2255-033X). Global Education section, Pg. Pg. 68-72. This article
was published on 21st September International Day of Peace (issue nº 9).
http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/peace-silence-mystical-journey/
8. Rashmi Chandran 2014. Mystic Nature - Do Animals Have Souls Like Human Beings?
Mystic Nebula (Reviews) ACCEPTED 3/14/2014.
9. Rashmi Chandran 2014. The Divine Nature of Women Naturally – A Challenge of 21st
Century. GLOBAL EDUCATION MAGAZINE (inscribed in bibliographic database of the
Ministry of Culture of Spain with ISSN 2255-033X). Global Education section, Pg. 48 –
52. This article was published on March 8th: International Woman’s Day (issue nº 7).
http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/divine- nature-women-naturally-challenge21st-century/
10. Rashmi Chandran 2013. The Art of Compassion in Natural Life. GLOBAL
of Spain with ISSN 2255-033X). Global Education section, Pg. 62 - 64. This article was
p u b l i s h e d o n 1 0th D e c e m b e r : H u m a n R i g h t ’ s D a y ( i s s u e n º 6 ) .
http://www.globaleducationmagazine.com/art-compassion-natural-life/
11. Dr. Rashmi Chandran 2013. A HAND BOOK ON NATURAL HEALTH IN
TODAY’S LIFESTYLE SCENARIO. International E – Publication, International
Science Congress Association. (ISBN: 978-93-83520-20-6).
12. Rashmi Chandran 2011. Natural Life – The Path towards Happiness and Prosperity. In: Vakdevatha (A Bilingual magazine publishing from Nigdi, Pune, India). Pp. 6970.
66
Con el apoyo de la
Oficina de
Santiago
Organización
para la Educación,
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Transversal Studies Section
PAGE 69
THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY TO AVOID DEPLETION OF NATURAL RESOURCES OF PLANET EARTH
Fernando Alcoforado
Member of the Bahia Academy of Education (Brazil). Engineer and Doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona (Spain).
e-mail: [email protected]
PAGE 73
Capitalism, Desperation and Urgency: How Do Working Class Youth Cope With the Capitalist Present?
Deniz Yonucu is currently a visiting scholar at London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her PhD Degree from the Department of Anthropology at Cornell.
Her articles are available at https://lse.academia.edu/DenizYonucu
PAGE 80
The Beauty of Imperfection within Quantitative Economic Modeling
Saskia Troy (MSc.) is a business economist specialized in Global Business and Stakeholder Management and amongst others Regional Coordinator Europe and Chapter Leader
Netherlands Children of the Earth (NGO of the United Nations) and she is a member of the Working Group Sustainable Finance (Changing Finance, Financing Change) of the UNEP/
World Resources Institute in Washington.
Email: [email protected]
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THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY TO AVOID DEPLETION OF
NATURAL RESOURCES OF PLANET EARTH
A ECONOMIA CIRCULAR PARA EVITAR O ESGOTAMENTO DOS RECURSOS NATURAIS DO PLANETA
TERRA
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the need for the adoption of Circular
Economy in order to avoid the depletion of natural resources of planet Earth and to preserve
the environment.'To achieve this objective should be used Reverse Logistics which provides
for the reuse of waste from the process of production and consumption.
Resumo: O propósito deste artigo é demonstrar a necessidade da adoção da economia circular visando evitar a exaustão dos recursos naturais do planeta Terra e preservar o meio
ambiente. Para a consecução deste objetivo deve ser utilizada a logística reversa que prevê a
reutilização dos resíduos do processo de produção e do consumo.'
Keywords: Exhaustion of the planet's natural resources. Linear economy. Circular economy.
Reverse logistic.
Palavras chaves:Exaustão dos recursos naturais do planeta. Economia linear. Economia circular. Logistica reversa.
Fernando Alcoforado
Member of the Bahia Academy of Education (Brazil). Engineer and
Doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the
University of Barcelona (Spain).
e-mail: [email protected]
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1.
Introduction
9) Tantalum (use in cameras lenses) - Extinction in 2027
An indisputable fact is that humanity already consumes more natural resources than the
planet can replenish. The current rate of consumption is a threat to the future prosperity of
mankind. In the last 45 years, demand for natural resources on the planet doubled due to the
high standard of life in rich and emerging countries and the increasing world population.
Today humanity uses 50% of the planet's fresh water. In 40 years will use 80%. For two
centuries the extraction of mineral resources has become more intense, removing increasing
amounts of nature. The concern is that most of these resources are not renewable, ie they are
not replenished by nature. If the pace of extraction continues as it is, humanity will surely see
some minerals become extinct. Based on existing reserves today, certain mineral resources
already have a possible date to run out, among them we can mention gold, tin, nickel and oil.
10) Nickel (use in metal alloy coating, electronics such as cell phones) - Extinction in 2064
Currently, over 80% of the world population lives in countries that use more resources than
their own ecosystems can renew. The core capitalist countries (EU, USA and Japan),
ecological debtors, have exhausted their own resources and must import them. In the survey
of the Global Footprint Network, the Japanese consume 7.1 times more than they have and
would need four Italys to supply the Italians. The consumption pattern of developed countries
disrupts this balance. An indisputable fact is that humanity has ever consumes more natural
resources than the planet can replenish.
For these reasons many of planet Earth minerals are coming to an end, which may stop the
use of various technologies currently used. As for oil, will last 40 years according to data
presented on the website <http://institutoparacleto.org/2013/05/23/o-futuro-do-petroleo/>.
Natural gas has reserves that can ensure your production up to 60 years according to the
website
<http://exame.abril.com.br/economia/noticias/os-10-paises-com-as-maiores-reservas-de-gasnatural-do-mundo>. Coal, in turn, has enough reserves to last 250 years according to the
website data
<http://carvaomineral.blogspot.com.br/2006/09/reservas-de-carvo-no-mundo.html>. The
shale gas in recent exploration in the United States, that could meet the domestic demand of
the country for natural gas at current levels of consumption for over 100 years, is extremely
negative for the environment because it generates half the carbon emissions from coal, and
pollutes the sheets underground aquifers.
The available data on reserves of mineral resources also point to the effect that the Earth is
now reaching its limits. Exhaust estimate of mineral resources of the planet Earth is
presented in the article Quando os recursos minerais se esgotarão? (When the mineral
resources will be exhausted?), published on the website
<http://planetasustentavel.abril.com.br/noticia/ambiente/quando-recursos-minerais-se-esgotar
ao-648952.shtml>, based on information from the US Geological Survey, the US government
agency responsible for geological research that crossed information on the annual
consumption, mineral reserves available on the planet and its predictable extinction:
1) Platinum (use in surgical materials) - Extinction by 2049
2) Silver (use in the manufacture of mirrors and cutlery) - Extinction in 2016
3) Copper (use in wire and cable and air conditioning ducts) - Extinction in 2027
4) Antimony (use in remote controls and other materials to increase strength) - Extinction
2020
11) Tin (use in coating metal alloys, such as those used in the soft drink cans) - Extinction
2024
12) Lead (use in car batteries and trucks and welds and bearings) - Extinction in 2015
13) Gold (use as jewelry and computer microchips) - Extinction in 2043
14) Zinc (use to cover alloys, preventing rust that destroy objects like coins) - Extinction in
2041
All that has just been described on the duration of fossil fuel reserves indicates that, given the
longevity of coal, it would be the source of energy to be used in the future when other fossil
fuels are depleted, a fact that would aggravate the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere.
2.
Linear Economy and Circular Economy
Traditionally, the production processes are characterized by use of natural (raw material) in
the manufacturing products for human consumption which residues resulting are taken to a
landfill. This operational dynamics that can be termed as Linear Economy, which is shown in
Figure 1 below, tends to contribute to the continued depletion of natural resources of the
planet.
5) Lithium (use in cell phone batteries, laptops and video games) - Extinction in 2053
6) Phosphorus (use in agricultural fertilizers) - Extinction in 2149
7) Uranium (use for electric power generation) - Extinction in 2026
8) Indian (use in smartphones and tablets touch screen screens) - Extinction in 2020
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Unlike the Linear Economy model, the Circular Economy is concerned with sustainable
development by seeking efficiency in manufacturing products and reusing solid waste contributing in this way to avoid the exhaustion of the planet's natural resources. The Circular
Economy concept is to transform waste into raw materials for the production of new products.
As in nature, in which the remains of fruits consumed by animals are decomposed and transformed in fertilizer for plants closing the loop, used appliance parts can be reprocessed and
reintegrated into the production chain.
One of the main concepts of the Circular Economy is the Cradle to Cradle (Cradle to Cradle),
which argues that innovation is the way to transform the waste in a production chain
components and materials to another. Other concepts are important to understand the Circular
Economy. One is the Biomimicry, who studies the processes of nature and apply them to solve
problems, ie it is to imitate nature to solve human challenges. Another important concept is
the Industrial Ecology, which tied the Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle, aims to create closedloop processes, designing production systems adapted to local ecosystems.
In Figure 2, it can be seen that in Circular Economy, natural resources, which are used as
primary raw materials in the manufacturing process, are transformed into products for human
consumption that will generate solid waste that, after it became a secondary raw material, it´s
used in manufacturing products, and so on.
that after its transformation into secondary raw materials are used in manufacturing products
and thus successively. According to Ellen MacArtur Foundation, this new way of thinking
about supply chains brings micro and macro economic benefits, as well as stimulates innovation. Products and materials that are now developed should return to production chain. Thus,
the extraction of raw materials decreases and natural resources entering the production cycle
are used for longer, preserving the environment. The need to recycle and reuse materials
promotes the development of new relationships between companies, which are now also suppliers and consumers of materials that will be reincorporated to the production cycle
[NAT.GENIUS. Economia Circular (Circular Economy). Posted on the website <http: //
www.natgenius.com / EconomiaCircular.aspx>].
3.
Reverse logistic
To improve and expand the Circular Economy is essential that consumers, retail businesses,
industries and government understand their role. This also means changing the way of
creating and using the products: they will no longer be consumed and discarded, but used and
processed into new products. Reverse logistics is a way to break with the Linear Economy,
where the raw material is extracted, transformed into products and discarded after use. Reverse logistics is the area of logistics which deals with the return of products, packaging or
materials at its production center. The Reverse logistics in the recycling process that causes
the material to return to different production centers in the form of raw material. Reverse logistics management activities provide for the recycling and removal of waste and management of
returns. With a Circular Economy, where everything can be reused, can reduce the extraction
of raw materials and waste disposal on the environment.
The Reverse Logistic (RL) is the area of logistics, that is the return of products, packaging
materials or to their production center, as is shown in Figure 3 below the RL in the recycling
process causes the material to return to different production centers in the form of raw material. Reverse logistics management activities provide for the recycling and removal of waste
and management of returns. With a circular economy, where everything can be reused, can
reduce the extraction of raw materials and waste disposal on the environment.
In the Circular Economy, natural resources, which are used as primary raw materials in the
manufacturing process, turn into products for human consumption will generate solid waste
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serted in the productive system worldwide in 2010. Projections indicate that the institute until
2020, amount of raw materials will rise to 82 billion tonnes per year [INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DE ALTOS ESTUDOS DE DIREITO PÚBLICO. Sustentabilidade: Resíduos sólidos:
Economia Circular: Novo negócio: Embraco (Sustainability: Solid waste: Circular Economy:
New business: Embraco). Published on the website <http://www.altosestudos.com.br/?p. =
52902>].
Nat. Genius advises that the implementation of Circular Economy is not a task that involves
only the companies. It is necessary that all involved in the life cycle of a product to understand
their role in this new model. In a world where the relations of production and trade are
becoming more global, the need to disseminate the concept of Circular Economy becomes
increasingly present, large-scale, including the consumer population. The spread of the concept
of Circular Economy has occurred in several countries. Among them, China, where the Circular Economy is part of the Promotion of Clean Production Law, enacted in 2002. Among the
measures of public awareness are eco-labeling of products, the dissemination of information
on environmental issues in the communications vehicles and the Cleaner Production courses
offered by educational institutions, which are designed to train professionals familiar with the
Circular Economy [NAT.GENIUS. Economia Circular (Circular Economy). Posted on the
website <http://www.natgenius.com/EconomiaCircular.aspx>] .
4.
Conclusions
Adopting the principles of Circular Economy is critical because of the need of human beings to
make better their natural resources to avoid their future exhaustion and not cause so many
negative impacts on the environment. To achieve its objectives, the Circular Economy is
primarily concerned with the following topics: 1) product development using easily recyclable
materials and non-hazardous; 2) Environmental laws that encourage the sector; 3) the return of
solid waste to the production chain; and, 4) Treatment and reuse of waste. Many universities in
Europe now offer degrees in Circular Economy as is the case in Germany that form Master and
PhD in Economics Circular, also known as Waste Economy [PORTAL RESÍDUOS SÓLIDOS.
E c o n o m i a C i rc u l a r ( C i rc u l a r E c o n o m y ) . P o s t e d o n t h e w e b s i t e < h t t p :
//www.portalresiduossolidos .com / economy-circular />].
The Brazilian Institute for Public Law Advanced Studies (Instituto Brasileiro de Altos Estudos
de Direito Público) reports that in 2012 about 62 million tons of solid waste were produced in
Brazil. According to the Ministry of Environment, only 2% of the material returned to the
production chain. Residues which are not recycled end up in landfills (17.8%), controlled landfills (24.2%) and landfills (58%). Failure reuse of solid waste costs the country R$'8 billion a
year. Second report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation - nonprofit organization that studies
and encourages the adoption of circular economy - 65 billion tons of raw materials were in-
Nat. Genius also said that in Brazil, it was implemented the National Solid Waste Policy, 2010
law, which aims to ensure shared responsibility for the lifecycle of products, reverse operation
and the sectoral agreement. The shared responsibility for the lifecycle of products provides that
all agents of the production cycle, consumers and public services have responsibilities to minimize the volume of solid waste and environmental impact.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BLOG PARACLETO. O futuro do petróleo (The future of oil). Published on the website <http://
institutoparacleto.org/2013/05/23/o-futuro-do-petroleo>.
EXTRAÇÃO DE CARVÃO MINERAL. Reservas de carvão no mundo (Coal reserves in the world).
Published on the website <http://carvaomineral.blogspot.com.br/2006/09/reservas-de-carvo-nomundo.html>.
EXAME.COM. Os 10 países com as maiores reservas de gás natural do mundo (The 10 countries with the
largest natural gas reserves in the world). Published on the website <http://exame.abril.com.br/economia/
noticias/os-10-paises-com-as-maiores-reservas-de-gas-natural-do-mundo>.
INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DE ALTOS ESTUDOS DE DIREITO PÚBLICO. Sustentabilidade: Resíduos
sólidos: Economia Circular: Novo negócio: Embraco (Sustainability: Solid waste: Circular Economy: New
business: Embraco). Published on the website <http://www.altosestudos.com.br/?p. = 52902>.
NAT.GENIUS. Economia Circular (Circular Economy). Published on the website <http: //
www. .natgenius.com / EconomiaCircular.aspx>.
PLANETA SUSTENTÁVEL. Quando os recursos minerais se esgotarão? (When the mineral resources will
be exhausted?). Published on the website <http://planetasustentavel.abril.com.br/noticia/ambiente/quandorecursos-minerais-se-esgotarao-648952.shtml>.
PORTAL RESÍDUOS SÓLIDOS. Economia Circular (Circular Economy). Published on the website
<http: //www.portalresiduossolidos .com / economy-circular />.
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Capitalism, Desperation and Urgency: How Do Working
Class Youth Cope With the Capitalist Present?
Abstract: In this article1, drawing on my research in Hasköy and Güzeltepe2 which
once used to be organized working class neighborhoods of Istanbul, I will discuss
the effects of contemporary capitalism on working class youth and certain forms of
responses they devise in face of this. More specifically, I will explore the ways in
which Hasköy and Güzeltepe youth’s struggle against social and economic
exclusion is shaped by a sense of urgency –sometimes at the expense of their
future– as exemplified in the reaction of the young man who finds an alternative way
to enter the mall at the expense of his body. Both Hasköy and Güzeltepe were
important headquarters for the pre-1980 revolutionary socialist movements. Both
have been affected by the economic and social changes following the 1980 military
coup in different, as well comparable ways. Upon briefly touching on the history of
these two neighborhoods and the transformation processes they underwent after
1980, I will try to explore the reaction of the neighborhoods’ youth to this
transformation by looking at the ways in which they use the streets. I will discuss
how the street is used by youth as a stage and a performance space and analyze
how these young people exhibit themselves on the stage/street, pointing at the
sense of urgency in these “spectacle.”
Keywords: Young people, capitalism, Hasköy, Güzeltepe, Istanbul, Turkey.
Deniz Yonucu is currently a visiting scholar at London School
of Economics and Political Science. She received her PhD
Degree from the Department of Anthropology at Cornell.
Introduction
In July 2003, an incident took place in Hasköy, Istanbul that was newsworthy, even
though it was not in the papers: 5 young men around the ages16-17 want to enter
the new shopping mall that opened in their neighborhood. However, the security
guard, who is also a resident of the same neighborhood, does not let them enter as
per his instructions. Because according to the mall management the youth of the
neighborhood are “dangerous.” The young men get angry and an argument ensues
at the entrance. Among the group, a young man of 16 is exasperated with being denied entrance, and as his friends are arguing with the guard, he begins to run back
and forth to crash into the large glass shop window. At his third strike, the glass shatters and the young man succeeds in entering the mall alongside the glass cutting his
body. In this article, drawing on my research in Hasköy and Güzeltepe3 which once
used to be organized working class neighborhoods of Istanbul, I will discuss the effects of contemporary capitalism on working class youth and certain forms of responses they devise in face of this. More specifically, I will explore the ways in which
Hasköy and Güzeltepe youth’s struggle against social and economic exclusion is
shaped by a sense of urgency –sometimes at the expense of their future– as exemplified in the reaction of the young man who finds an alternative way to enter the
mall at the expense of his body.
Both Hasköy and Güzeltepe were important headquarters for the pre-1980
revolutionary socialist movements. Both have been affected by the economic and
social changes following the 1980 military coup in different, as well comparable
ways. Upon briefly touching on the history of these two neighborhoods and the
transformation processes they underwent after 1980, I will try to explore the reaction
of the neighborhoods’ youth to this transformation by looking at the ways in which
they use the streets. I will discuss how the street is used by youth as a stage and a
performance space and analyze how these young people exhibit themselves on the
stage/street, pointing at the sense of urgency in these “spectacle.” In this article I will
primarily focus on three different types of performance: 1.Walking around with new
brand clothes as a manifestation of the desire to resemble the middle class. This
mode of appearance on the street will be discussed under the theme of capitalism
and the production of desire. 2. Young people from Hasköy who walk around middle
Her articles are available at
https://lse.academia.edu/DenizYonucu
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class streets at night, deliberately striking fear in the middle class and taking pleasure in it. Hasköy’s youth portraying themselves as threatening/frightening bodies in
middle class streets will be discussed in reference to class identity and the manifestations of rage. 3. The relatively small, pirate demonstrations involving Molotov cocktails and/or street confrontations in Güzeltepe. These demonstrations will also be
analyzed in the context of manifestations of rage against capitalism.
Hasköy and Güzeltepe: A Brief History
Hasköy was founded as a squatter [gecekondu] neighborhood towards the end of
the 1940s by migrants coming from rural areas to the city. A number of the large factories that were built in Istanbul in the late 1940s in the scope of national
development policies were in the vicinity of Hasköy. The proximity of factories and
houses, the strengthening of union organizations at the factories and the rising leftist
movement in Turkey after the 1950s, quickly transformed Hasköy into a typical
working class neighborhood. In this period, Hasköy streets witnessed marches in
support of workers on strike, protests against high prices and unemployment, as well
as conflicts between rightist and leftist groups.
Güzeltepe Neighborhood was founded almost 30 years after Hasköy under
the leadership of revolutionaries. The majority of the population in the neighborhood
has been Alevis4 since its foundation. From the mid 1970s until the 1980 coup, the
neighborhood was governed autonomously under the control of revolutionary
organizations. The principle of dividing land based on need was adopted at the
foundation of the neighborhood realized entirely through collective communal work.
Before 1980, the streets of Güzeltepe witnessed both collective struggle against the
demolition of squatter houses, and collective production. At the same time, as in
Hasköy, the neighborhood streets were the sites of many political marches. Until the
end of the 1990s, numerous collective demonstrations supported by local
businesses and the majority of the neighborhood population were organized on the
streets.
At a time when squatter neighborhoods were regarded as the biggest obstacle before urban development by the urban elite in Turkey, and residents of squatter
houses and thus the urban working class were regarded as “backward” villagers,
workers from both Hasköy and Güzeltepe earned respectability due to their working
class identities.5 While some workers from Hasköy and Güzeltepe actively
participated in the organized labor movement to build a more just future, others,
though not directly an organized part of this movement, still became workers within
the atmosphere of a promising future generated by the working class and/or socialist
movement. Thus, it would not be inaccurate to say that until the 1980s, workers in
Turkey had both a respectable status and a dream and/or hope of redemption in this
world.
However, after 1980, and especially by the mid 1990s, workers in Turkey began losing their esteemed status, as well as their hopes for the future. The primary
reasons for this include the economic and social atmosphere instigated by the 1980
military coup and the violent repression of the leftist movement that had begun to reemerge in working class neighborhoods with a history of organized left by the 1990s.
The 80s and 90s
As has been extensively discussed, the economic liberalization policies following the
1980 coup caused the organized labor force to work under unorganized, insecure
and flexible conditions. While workers were rapidly excluded from the formal labor
market, the constant promotion of consumer culture began to underline poverty and
impoverishment in a more defined way. The fact that consumption as opposed to
production assumed a central role in identity construction and ensuring respectability, contributed significantly to the loss of the respectable status created/earned
through being a worker during the pre-1980s.6 Again at this time, the violent
repression of the socialist movement led to the deterioration of the hope for
“heaven”/justice on earth among the working class. However, the socialist/
revolutionary movement re-emerging in particular in working class neighborhoods of
large cities in the 1990s suggests that this hope was not destroyed entirely with the
1980 coup. As opposed to the 1980s, in the1990s, the rising socialist movement and
the Kurdish movement –which also began to express itself in the urban sphere
following the forced migration from villages– were repressed by state violence targeting specific places (working class neighborhoods, neighborhoods defined as “liberated zones” before 1980, neighborhoods populated largely by Alevis) rather than all
segments of society. In other words, state violence was concentrated in specific territories to repress the rising left in the 1990s.7 For instance, the common emphasis of
residents who describe the state of Güzeltepe in the 1990s is that at the time the
neighborhood transformed into a semi-open prison. In this period, in addition to
Güzeltepe, working class neighborhoods such as Gülsuyu, Gazi, Armutlu, 1 Mayıs
Mahallesi, Okmeydanı largely populated by an urban Alevi and leftist population also
transformed into neighborhoods where there was constant police surveillance.
Identity checks were performed upon people entering and exiting these
neighborhoods, people were arrested arbitrarily and at times people disappeared or
were killed in unresolved murders. These neighborhoods, which sometimes even the
public buses avoided because they were “dangerous,” turned into spaces where anything could happen any time. While this attributed danger led them to become detached from other segments of society and isolated them from the rest of the city,
this isolation further facilitated the practice of violence in these neighborhoods as it
enabled the confinement of violence to the neighborhood.
A picture of Güzeltepe in the 1990s emerging from the accounts of over 30
people I interviewed in the neighborhood can be described as follows: On the one
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hand a series of mass street demonstrations on numerous current political issues
ranging from Palestine to the economy, from the hunger strikes in prisons to the
problem of education are taking place; on the other hand, police forces with the
power to take anyone from the neighborhood at any time are raiding associations
and coffee houses with long barreled weapons, and occasionally displaying tortured
bodies in the neighborhood to show what they are capable of. In short, in the 1990s,
in working class neighborhoods with leftist backgrounds, the cruising white Renault
cars [used by plainclothes cops], disappearing people, unresolved assassinations,
incidents like those at Gazi and 1 Mayıs neighborhoods in 1995 where shots were
fired at residents resulting in deaths, led to a renewed blow on the rekindling hope for
the future. In other words, in the 1990s the police forces of the state threatened the
re-flourishing hope of a better world.
In terms of the history of squatter neighborhoods, the 1990s has another
significance frequently pointed out by Turkish academicians: In the 1990s the
working class/squatter neighborhoods were redefined. Terms such as “slum” [varoş]
and “other Turkey”/“other Istanbul,” that went into circulation in the mid 1990s in
reference to old squatter neighborhoods, began to be define them as spaces that
were not and could never be a part of the imaginary “real” or “normal” Turkey. People
living in these places began to be represented as dangerous, uncivilized, even savage and ready to strike at any given moment (Aksoy 2001, Akçay 2005, Etöz 2000,
Erman 2001). I would like to characterize this period as a time when the tension
between being the subject of politics and objects of anthropology (cultural other) was
experienced most intensely in the history of Turkey’s squatter neighborhoods. There
are two incidents in which this tension was manifested most blatantly: One is the
1995 Gazi Neighborhood incidents, the second is May 1st 1996. At the Gazi incident
an armed group opened fire on a coffee house frequented mostly by Alevis and killed
an Alevi dede [elder, spiritual leader].8 The next day Gazi Neighborhood turned into a
war zone. Conflict ensued between the police and neighborhood residents. As a
result of the police attack supported by special ops forces, 15 people died. When we
look at the representations of this incident in the newspapers, Gazi Neighborhood is
almost a novel discovery for the media. The media has discovered the “slum” that is
utterly different from other spaces in the city. They ask: “Who are these people? Is
this Istanbul? How can such a place be a part of Istanbul?”9 Looking at newspaper
articles on the Gazi incident published at the time, it seems like they are written
almost under enchantment. The middle class and urban journalists have been forced
to encounter people completely unlike themselves –or at least perceived as such– in
this part of the city they have never had to go to, that they have always heard about
from a distance. This state of enchantment masks the political struggle, political
discourse and demands of the people living in Gazi, since attention is not focused on
what is said, but rather on the interlocutor and the presumed cultural difference. For
example, Yalçın Doğan titles his article about Gazi, which he goes to see
immediately at the aftermath of the events, “The Outcome of Different Identity,
Different Culture” and asks in awe: “Slums are different worlds, I understood when I
came here these are different worlds. Is this Istanbul? Will this place integrated into
Europe? Is this place in Istanbul?”10 As can be discerned from the title of the article,
for Doğan what is in essence visible is the “difference” of Gazi neighborhood and
what underlies the incident is precisely this cultural difference.
Another striking event in which political actions and demands were undermined just
as in the case of Gazi incidents is the May 1st demonstrations in 1996. On May 1996,
before the march started, conflict ensued in the demonstration area and two young
people were killed. Subsequently the conflict spread to the entire area. However,
what was picked up by the news was not the killing of two people but the image of
two young women plucking tulips. The incident was depicted in the media as people
coming down from the mountains, refusing to be civilized (there is a headline “slum
dwellers came down to the city,” for instance11) and butchering tulips (Akçay 2005).
Again in the same atmosphere of enchantment and awe, the question was: “How can
we live in the same city with these people who don’t even respect flowers?” The fact
that a rather large May 1st demonstration was organized after the 1980 coup regime;
the significance of May 1st; what brought so many people together for the occasion;
the death of two young men were barely mentioned or discussed.12
So this is the environment the youth of today were born to in Güzeltepe and
Hasköy in the late 80s and early 90s. The youth in Hasköy, where the leftist
movement lost its influence much earlier, towards the mid 1980s, were born not in a
working class neighborhood with a collective liberation project on the rise, but rather
in a neighborhood defined as the other Istanbul, both ostracized and criminalized as
slums. More significantly, they grew up with the awareness that their neighborhood
was defined and degraded as a slum and its residents were regarded as uncivilized
people. The youth born in Güzeltepe in the same period grew up witnessing police
violence that had become a part of everyday life in the neighborhood. They witnessed their older sisters, brothers being beaten on the street by the police and left in
pools of blood. They witnessed police bullets and gas bombs flying in the air. They
went to their schools regularly guarded by tanks, passing by masked police standing
guard with their long barreled weapons at the street corners.
Desire and Rage
In the remaining part of this article, I will try to discuss the subjectivities of the youth
in Hasköy and Güzeltepe Neighborhoods shaped in face of the transformations enumerated above in the framework of the dynamics of rage and desire. While doing so,
I will exclude the experiences of the Kurdish youth who live in both neighborhoods
because these young people, who came to the city after 1990 with forced migration,
relate to the city and the country differently from youth whose parents were born in
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squatter neighborhoods. Furthermore, the existence of an organized Kurdish
movement also distinguishes the experience of Kurdish youth from that of the other
working class young people. Since I did not encounter any young people who support
the Islamic movement or define themselves as followers of political Islam in either
neighborhood, I will also exclude young people supporting political Islam from the
analysis below and primarily focus on the subjectivities of youth born to secular and
leftist families.13
Desire
In the early 2000s, shopping malls began to open at some of Istanbul’s working class
neighborhoods. Hasköy is one of these neighborhoods. The mall at Hasköy
contributed significantly both to the production among Hasköy youth a desire to be like
the middle class and also rendered this desire very visible. With these new shopping
malls, young people in Hasköy, who, thanks to the media, could envision how the
middle class regarded them, that is those living in the “slums,” suddenly had to battle
the ostracizing, discriminatory, degrading gaze of the middle class14 not just in middle
class urban spaces, but also in their own neighborhood. The imagined or real middle
class gaze that entered the neighborhood with the mall triggered the desire to be like
the middle class among the youth of Hasköy. The mode in which the desire to be like
the middle class is manifested most frequently is imitating the consumer habits of the
middle class, in particular the their dressing codes. Most of the people I interviewed
said that young people began to wear designer label clothes after the mall opened.
After the mall, the streets of Hasköy began to turn into spaces where class identity,
rather than being pronounced loud and clear, was concealed as something embarrassing in an attempt to resemble the other, i.e. the presumed “normal.” For instance two
of the youth I interviewed express this desire to conceal their identities as follows:
“Whenever I have to go out without new brand clothes I always walk with my head
down. Because if people see me dressed like that they will make fun of me… To
be honest, when I see people without designer clothes I look at them with scorn.
For example, I never go to the mall with regular clothes; people should know how
to dress in places like these.” (age 17)
“People come to the mall not just from here, but also from Ataköy; they come from
Bakırköy, also Yeşilköy. This has changed the people here. Hasköy youth who see
those with money try to keep up with them and pay more attention to their clothes,
their shoes. They become wannabes, that is, they say, these guys come like this,
let’s also hang out like this. They become picky about their clothes as they are
going out.” (age 21)
As can be discerned
from the excerpts above, one of the strategies devised by Hasköy youth to avoid being
“slum dwellers” or the lower class is to dress up like the middle class and to imitate
them. That is to say, to look for a way that will urgently and immediately shake the ostracizing gaze that disturbs them. The effort to look like a member of the middle class
even though one is not middle class actually indicates the incredible violence
embodied in the ostracizing gaze directed at those bodies that do not belong to the
middle class in Turkey. This gaze is so violent that it forces those young people whose
bodies do not resemble middle class bodies to avert their eyes and walk looking
down15 or to conceal their class identity and dress up like someone else. That is to say
that it compels youth to immediately, urgently devise a means of struggle against this
gaze.
Rage
While capitalism and capitalist ideology produce a desire to be like the consumer
middle class deemed as “normal,” the impossibility of satisfying this desire, the reality
that no matter how much one strives to imitate it middle class life style will never be
attained also generates a serious rage. Because Hasköy youth is not only ostracized
discursively, they are also excluded from labor processes.16 Thus they know that they
will not be able to attain middle class standards one day by working very hard. One of
the principal reasons underlying the rage against the middle class is this awareness.
At the same time, while they are working under very harsh conditions for very low
wages, the consumer middle class shopping carefree at the mall further provokes the
rage of Hasköy youth. As one young man conveys:
“Purse snatching, theft is very common here. And also, this is very determinant:
not being able to afford things. People say, we work, we get paid 300 million a
month, 200 of which our family will take for sure, shall we buy cigarettes or clothes
with the rest? A pair of pants costs 50-60 million. Even those of us who work periodically, we say among ourselves, well, we can’t buy even though we work, what
can be done? Now, a guy comes to the mall, he buys 5-6 pairs of pants, each 100
million. The young man says, I can’t afford pants for 20 million, he buys pants for
100 million. This inadvertently encourages him. Some work their ass off, others
spend without a care, how can they spend so carefree? Whose money is this?
Whose scheme, whose plot? Before the mall no one knew about designer labels
here. What can one do, you’re young, you aspire to them. If he has it why don’t I?
That’s what you think.” (age 23)
One of the spaces where the rage against the middle class is manifested is streets inhabited by the middle class. Hasköy youth, who now encounter the (imagined or real)
ostracizing gaze of the middle class even on their own streets, transform into
dangerous bodies striking fear on the streets they reside in turn. For example a young
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man from Hasköy who spends the occasional money he gets his hands on in one
night at bars17 in Taksim where middle class youth hang out, describes this state of
striking fear as:
“Hasköy, Karagümrük, Gaziosmanpaşa, Kocamustafapaşa, these four are on the
police black list. These are the places with most cops. Here there are plainclothes
cops at every corner […]. These are also places where murders are committed
most frequently. That’s what the young learn from the older. And yet despite this, the
Hasköy youth does not readily give in to the police. I mean tough guys come out of
Hasköy. And they’re known anywhere. Theft, cars, houses... In Bakırköy, Ataköy, the
Hasköy kid harasses all bourgeois neighborhoods; he enters from the window at
night, I mean he enters anywhere he can find.” (age 23)
Another youth who makes sure to walk around in designer clothes all the time explains
how he fearlessly walks around middle class streets at night when the middle class is
afraid to go out:
“Of course they look down on us, because we are a poor neighborhood, but we also
look down on their youth. Because they are bourgeois. You throw a Hasköy boy
among 50 monsters; he’ll walk out in one piece. Throw a Bakırköy boy in one glass
of water, he will drown there. The Hasköy kid is not afraid of anything, but the
Bakırköy boy, if the electricity goes out, he shouts “help mom.” For us, sun, moon no
difference. To put it very simply, Ataköy, come 8 or 9, you see not a soul on the
street. But I walk around Ataköy at 3 o’clock at night. So you see, the Hasköy kid is a
rebel, a wildcat, hot shot. I mean a guy in Bakırköy, let him be the most dangerous of
fellows, to me he’s nothing. He’s from Bakırköy, that’s it, segregated, excluded,
raised in a bourgeois district, with a bourgeois mind. Neighborhoods like ours are
Kasımpaşa, Kulaksız, Beyoğlu, Tarlabaşı, Dolapdere, Sarıgöl, Gaziosmanpaşa. Has
to be a bastard of a neighborhood, cause it is the same mentality.” (age 21)
Hasköy youth, who are not considered a part of normal Turkey, who are excluded both
from the labor market and the imaginary urban culture, return to the middle class
spaces they are cast out from like boomerangs to scare off the middle class. As can
be discerned from the above quoted statements, there is a pleasure derived from this
state of evoking fear; it allows for a temporary expression and satisfaction of class
rage. Unlike the past, currently class struggle manifests itself not collectively at city
squares, but as a menacing ghost secretly treading in the back streets. The inexistence of the material conditions necessary to satisfy the desire to be like the middle
class, and the absence of an organized working class movement that can present a
future perspective which can transform rage into a productive energy, lead to the
further marginalization of youth and to a loss of hope for the future. In other words, the
lack of a vision of
liberation/future both in the personal and in the social sense, leads the Hasköy youth
to fluctuate between the dynamic of desire and hate familiar to us from the colonial
context.18
In a world shaped according to consumer middle class norms, Hasköy youth,
who are very much aware of the fact that unless they exhibit this consumerism in their
bodies and life practices, they won’t earn respect and will be subject to ostracizing, othering words/gazes, seek salvation in trying to be like the middle class. They do this not
just by imitating the way members of the middle class dress, but also by adopting the
middle class gaze as can be seen in the first quote above, or by going to the bars/
clubs middle class youth frequent and having/trying to have fun there. Even though
undertaking certain life practices of the middle class allows Hasköy youth to occasionally experience the fantasy of passing19/becoming middle class, the confines of
financial opportunities and the history of their class engraved on their bodies constantly remind them where they come from. When the middle class youth leaves the
bars/clubs they enter paying a fortune by their own standards, saying the “slum dwellers are here”; when they are turned away from malls they go to for shopping on the
grounds that they are deemed “dangerous”; when they are subject to ostracizing
behavior at stores they do manage to enter they are repeatedly reminded that it is
nearly impossible to attain the desired social status and trying to be like the middle
class and not being able to do so generates considerable rage. Thus as being a
member of the middle class becomes a position that is desired, aspired to, it also turns
into a position stirring emotions of rage/hate as a constant reminder of a shortcoming,
a lack.
In Güzeltepe, still known as a neighborhood populated by socialists, the rage of
youth is less complex and more direct compared to Hasköy. Here the resistance
against capitalism does not manifest itself over a complex emotional relationship with
the middle class, but rather through being directly opposed to capitalism and demanding a more just and equal world. While one of the first things we recall when we think
of Hasköy today are shopping malls, when one thinks about Güzeltepe streets, three
things immediately come to mind: 1-Graffitti – graffiti on the walls entailing the political
demands of tens of different revolutionary organizations, 2-Small tanks –or as they are
referred to in the neighborhood jargon, scorpions– doing constant surveillance on the
streets, 3-Surveillance cameras installed at central points throughout the
neighborhood. While the visibility of consumer culture dominates Hasköy, what is most
visible in Güzeltepe today is state security forces. The state violence the neighborhood
was subject to at various periods throughout its history still remains prevalent. With its
scorpions, cameras and plainclothes cops, the state constantly says “I am here, I am
watching you and I can exert violence any time.” This keeps the rage against state
violence alive, while also evoking fear in the neighborhood residents. What’s more,
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there is an increasing unemployment in Güzeltepe and a lessening hope for a better
future.
When we look at the manifestation of this rage on the street, we see that there
has been a shift since the early 2000s. Demonstrations, which used to be organized
with the collaboration of various revolutionary organizations, have been replaced for
the most part by marginal, more aggressive demonstrations by small groups. In
addition to the mass demonstrations in Güzeltepe organized for Newroz or the anniversary of Gazi incidents, we now frequently encounter pirate demonstrations of 10-15
people. These demonstrations are usually undertaken by youth in masks aged
between 15 and 18, attacking the main street from the side streets with Molotov cocktails in their hands, using garbage containers as barricades and fighting with the police. The violent aspect of the demonstrations that temporarily turn the neighborhood
into a war zone leads to a double marginalization: of the youth and political
organizations by the neighborhood residents, and the neighborhood itself by other segments of society in turn. By drawing attention to the form/style of the realization of the
demonstrations, such actions render invisible and conceal the political demands, that
is the content of the demonstrations. As is, the street transforms into a space where
youth momentarily display their anger and then retreat behind the curtains. The
presence of people gathering at street corners, watching the demonstrators and occasionally applauding them gives the onlooker the impression that these demonstrations
are taking place on a theater stage.
Conclusion
The sense of urgency in the manifestations of desire and rage in Güzeltepe echoes
the need for immediate gratification of desire and rage in Hasköy. Hasköy youth, who
want to belong to the middle class but remain aware of the impossibility of the
satisfaction of this desire, experience a temporary satisfaction when they go out on the
street/stage as if they are middle class, yet have to confront their actual financial and
material conditions when they return home with their bodies they have dressed up with
a middle class look. Again, when in a similar sense of urgency they convey the rage
they feel for the middle class with momentary outbursts (for example harassing the
passersby on the streets of Bakırköy, Ataköy, scratching their cars, etc.) only to swiftly
retreat, they are subject to the violence of capitalism in their everyday lives. The
feelings of rage and admiration20 Hasköy youth feel for the middle class leads to a
further marginalization of these young people due to the difficulty of satisfying this
desire and rage through legal means. As for the youth in Güzeltepe, their display of
their rage on the street at small demonstrations deemed marginal by neighborhood
residents and their subsequent retreats leads not only to the marginalization of youth
in the eyes of the neighborhood, but also results in harsh prosecutions, jail sentences,
or youth being wounded or even killed21 by police bullets, since such demonstrations
take place in a neighborhood under constant police surveillance. So why do these
young people express their rage against capitalism and desire to build a better world
with such demonstrations?
In both cases, the manner in which youth express their desires and rage –by
exhibiting themselves on the street like a member of the middle class, a revolutionary
hero, or a menacing body and then withdrawing backstage (to their “real” lives)– is actually directly related to the absence of an imagination of the future. A number of the
young people I interviewed both in Güzeltepe and in Hasköy responded to the question “where do you see yourself in 10 years?” by saying “I don’t know if I will still be
alive in 10 years” precisely because of this impossibility of imagining the future.
In his book Wasted Lives, where sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (2004) presents
an analysis of contemporary capitalism, he states that the present day youth has
taken out waiting from wanting. Because according to Bauman in the consumer
society of today waiting has become a source of shame. “The shame of waiting rebounds on the one who waits. Waiting is something to be ashamed of because it may
be noted or taken as evidence of indolence or low status, seen as a symptom of rejection or a signal to exclude” (109). In the present day society where consumer goods,
information, places, people and even dreams are regarded/promoted as merely a key,
a computer screen, a shop window away, the slum youth, who are criminalized and
excluded from the imagination of normal Turkey and have even been constructed as
the other of this imagination; for whom the distance between themselves and their desires and dreams remain nearly impossible to travel, want to urgently attain these
dreams nonetheless.22 These young people who are very much aware of the fact that
they are unable to earn respectability through their current social identity, try to deal
with the rejection and exclusion they are subject to by immediately gratifying their desires. However, as I have tried to convey throughout the article, this effort to urgently
discard their social identity leads to a further marginalization of the youth.
Youth in Hasköy who witness their parents being crushed in the same cycle of
poverty for years, know that no good comes from waiting, from being patient in this
world where poverty is scorned at. Or some of the young people in Güzeltepe who
have observed their sisters, mothers, fathers spend years in prison, being killed, tortured, have given up on waiting and want to show their reaction immediately. While
such intense injustice reproduces the desire to abolish this injustice more strongly, the
expression of the revolt against this injustice with sudden acts of resistance serves to
increase the youth population in prisons. While capitalism does not offer any promises
for the future for working class youth, the inexistence of an organized working class
movement prompts the fear of being futureless to grow even deeper.
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NOTES
[1] I would like to thank Eylem Akçay for his feedback to an earlier version of this article which has been
published previously in red thread journal.
[2] The names of the neighborhoods in which this research was conducted have been changed in this article to
prevent any prejudice and to protect the privacy of those participating in the research. Hasköy and Güzeltepe
are code names used instead of the real names of the neighborhoods.
[3] The names of the neighborhoods in which this research was conducted have been changed in this article to
prevent any prejudice and to protect the privacy of those participating in the research. Hasköy and Güzeltepe
are code names used instead of the real names of the neighborhoods.
[4] Alevism is a sect of Islam and Alevi population is a minority in Turkey. Alevis are known for their support
for progressivist and leftist politics.
[5] During a field research I conducted in one of the working class neighborhoods in İstanbul, I realized that
the rising socialist movement in Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s had a respect generating effect among the
working class, regardless of whether they supported the movement or not. For example, in an interview I
conducted with retired workers, a worker from a leather factory at Kazlıçeşme, where there was an organized
socialist presence, related how one day as he was doing his shopping in Sirkeci, he realized that people around
him noticed the smell of leather on him. When I asked him, “Did this disturb you?”, he responded, “Disturbed?
Not at all! On the contrary I was very proud people noticed I was a leather worker.” The labor and union
movement of the time not only told the working class that poverty was nothing to be ashamed of, furthermore,
regarding workers as the primary subject of the struggle to build a just and equal world, contributed to the
establishment of a respectable worker identity. We could also assert that the songs of Cem Karaca, one of the
socialist vocals of the time, with worker protagonists and praising labor and workers were both an indicator of
how working class identity was highly esteemed and also contributed directly to the construction of this
identity as such. For respectability earned through class status for workers in Turkey before 1980 and their
participation in the socialist movement see: Aslan 2004, Kaya 2005, Yonucu 2005. For respectability earned
through labor per se see: Sennett 1998, 2003.
[6]For the effect of consumer culture on working class identity see: Bauman 1997, 2004, 2005, Comaroff and
Comarroff 2000, Sennett 2005.
[7] We could argue that state policy towards the Kurdish national liberation movement rising around the same
time assumed a similar shape. Confining the violence to the officially declared “State of Exception” region
prevented those living in other places in Turkey from learning about the intensity of the violence experienced
in the region In this way the region was isolated and its ties with the rest of the country were severed.
[8] For a detailed account of the incident see: Dural 2005.
[9] For an analyis of news featuring the slums in the media in this period, please see: Aksoy 2001.
[10] Milliyet, March 15 1995.
[11] Yeni Yüzyıl, 2 May 1996.
[12]At the II. International congress organized in Paris in 1889, May 1st was declared the “International Day
for Solidarity and Struggle.” Countries throughout the world started celebrating it beginning in 1890. May 1st
was celebrated in Turkey for the first time in İzmir in 1905, and over the past century the celebrations have at
times been met with the ban or restrictions of the political powers. In Turkey, May 1st is also known as the
“Workers Day.”
[13] For a study of working class neighborhoods where political Islam is dominant, please see: Tuğal 2011.
[14] Here, I am not claiming that everyone from the middle classes looks at Hasköy youth in the same way.
This gaze can be real, or it can be a projection of Hasköy youth. What is more significant here is how Hasköy
youth homogonize the middle class and think that these people look at them in an ostracizing manner.
[15] Even though it remains beyond the scope of this article, I wanted to mention an anecdote because of the
striking similarity: As we were getting on the subway with a Jamaican worker friend in New York, I was surprised to see him put on sunglasses and asked him why he did that. He said that he found the way white
Americans looked at him disturbing, so he put on sunglasses and thus avoided meeting their gazes. The intensity and historical burden that forces a young woman in Hasköy to walk around with her head down when she’s
not wearing new brand clothes to avoid middle class gazes and a Jamaican worker who puts on sunglasses even
on the subway to avoid the racist gaze of white Americans is worth contemplating.
[16] Most of the youth I interviewed worked at leather or textile workshops at very low wages. Temporary or
permanent unemployment, and work without social security and with low wages was rather common among
Hasköy and Güzeltepe youth in early 2000s, as it still is today.
[17] Of course young people from “slums” going to bars/clubs frequented by middle class youth creates a tension. For the discomfort of middle class youth related to young people from the “slums” going to these bars/
clubs, see: “Clubber’dan ‘kıro’ber’a”, 18 April, 2004, Milliyet.
[18] One of the most significant writers of postcolonial literature, Homi Bhabha, argues that the dynamic of the
simultaneous attraction to and hatred of the colonizer is one of the primary constituents of subjectivities in
colonial countries. See: Bhabha 1993. Bhabha was inspired by the arguments of Fanon, who was both a theoretician and a militant of the anti-colonialist movement and explored the desire and efforts of colonized black
people to become white in his work Black Skin White Masks (1952).
[19] The concept of passing has been conceptualized by Fanon. In his article “The Spectacle of the Other,” Stuart
Hall (1997) refers to Fanon and describes how black people adopt white people’s values and dress and act like them
in order to pass from being black to white. Because, according to Hall, becoming white/passing as white is only
possible through entirely detaching oneself from black culture and being assimilated into the white world.
[20] An admiration instigated by the desire to be like them.
[21]To give one example, a 15 year-old middle school student was killed in 2000.
[22] For the sense of urgency created by technology in the context of present day capitalism, please see: Tomlinson
(2007).
References
Aslan, Şükrü. 2004. 1 Mayıs Mahallesi: 1980 Öncesi Toplumsal Mücadeleler ve Kent. İstanbul:
İletişim.
Akçay, Eylem. 2005. The End and the Beginning of Politics: The Case of İstanbul. Article presented
at The Beginnings and Ends of Political Theory Conference. UC Berkeley, May 27-28 2005.
Aksoy, Asu. 2001. Gecekondudan Varoşa Dönüşüm: 1990’larda ‘Biz’ ve ‘Öteki’ Kurgusu. In Dışarıda
Kalanlar/Bırakılanlar, ed. Avcı et al. İstanbul: Bağlam.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 1997. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. New York: New York University Press.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2004. Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. Oxford: Polity Press.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2005. Liquid Life. New York, London: Polity Press.
Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 2000. Millennial capitalism: First thoughts on a second coming.
Public Culture 12 No. 2: 291.
Dural, Tamasa. 1995. Aleviler…Ve Gazi Olayları… İstanbul: Ant.
Erman, Tahire. 2001. The Politics of Squatter (Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey: Changing Representations of Rural Migrants in the Academic Discourse. Urban Studies Vol. 38, No.7.
Etöz, Zeliha. 2000. Varoş: bir istila, bir tehdit. Birikim No. 132.
Fanon, Frantz. 2008. Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press.
Hall, Stuart. 1997. The Spectacle of the Other. In Representations: Cultural
Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage: London.
Kaya, Muzaffer. 2005. Siyasal Katılım: Zeytinburnu Örneği. Unpublished graduate thesis, Yıldız Technical University, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Thesis advisor: Prof.
Fulya Atacan.
Sennett, Richard. 1998. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New
Capitalism. New York and London: W.W. Norton.
Sennett, Richard. 2003. Respect in a world of inequality. New York: W.W. Norton.
Tomlinson, John. 2007. The culture of speed. London: Sage.
Tuğal, Cihan. 2010. Pasif devrim: İslami muhalefetin düzenle bütünleşmesi. İstanbul:
Koç University.
Yonucu, Deniz. 2009. A Story of a Squatter Neighborhood: From the place of the dangerous classes to
the place of danger. Berkeley Journal of Sociology No. 52.
79
Nº 12
The Beauty of Imperfection within Quantitative
Economic Modeling
Abstract: New forms of risk illustrate the interconnected nature of economic crisis.
In the past scholars of economics have studied patterns that cause a behavioral equilibrium that induces no further reaction within the system. Hereby identical agents
possess perfect rationality and arrive at shared logical conclusions or expectations
about the situation they are in at the particular moment. When these expectations
provoke actions that aggregative create a world that values them as predictions,
they are in equilibrium. However, there’s now the need to turn to the question of how
the actions of individual agents, their strategies and expectations might endogenously change while they adapt to the aggregate patterns they have been creating.
Keywords: Risk management, measuring uncertainty, failure of models that predict
failure, complexity theory, standard out of equilibrium level, irrational expectations on
economic rational actor model
Saskia Troy (MSc.) is a business economist specialized in Global
Business and Stakeholder Management and amongst others Regional
Coordinator Europe and Chapter Leader Netherlands Children of the Earth
(NGO of the United Nations) and she is a member of the Working Group
Sustainable Finance (Changing Finance, Financing Change) of the UNEP/
World Resources Institute in Washington.
‘’Financial markets can be wilder than the wildest river ever seen in nature.
They are hard to measure while they are prone to uncertainty, randomness,
luckiness, coincidence, errors and mistakes’’ (Economist, 2010; Taleb 2007;
Taleb 2005).
At the moment the subprime crisis struck in the United Sates and
particularly when it spread to other sophisticated economies and has been causing
a recession for the global economy, the effective policy response to the crisis
became the main objective for international leaders of business and government.
The final ambition of widespread central bank and government interventions was
to address the fragility of the banking systems and restore confidence in the
financial markets. For that reason the sources of stress and the availability of suitable remedies against heightened uncertainty about financial and economical
developments have been analyzed (Swagel, 2009).
Nevertheless, as the crisis is a complex phenomenon, no single theory is
likely to fully explain what occurred or completely rule out other explanations. A
relatively new observable fact in the economic crises is that of leverage which is the
usage of borrowed money to increase the expected interested on financial capital.
The usage of leverage has been steadily increased within the financial sector
within the years before the global financial economic crisis and has created extreme
vulnerabilities and dependencies that have increased the severity of the crisis. The
credit crisis has disclosed the limitations in regular ways of restraining leverage
while the reductionist, narrow view of economics is no longer equipped to suit the
real world complexity that is highly dependent on risk models for determining capital
needs.
For example, it might have been the case that consequent uncontrolled deleveraging by financial institutions has compounded the crisis. The attempts of financial
institutions to deleverage by selling financial assets could cause prices to spiral
downward during times of market stress and in this way cause a counterproductive
effect by exacerbating a financial crisis. Also deleveraging by restricting lending can
cause economic growth to slow down steadily (GAO, 2010).
Email: [email protected]
80
Nº 12
Measuring Uncertainty within Financial Markets
Trying even harder to capture risk in mathematical formula can be counterproductive if such an extent of accurateness is intrinsically unachievable.
Nonetheless, one of the irrational exceptions on rational economic theory which
is observable and systematic is that human beings are inherently overconfident
about their capability, knowledge and future predictions (Economist, 2010).
The usual approach within economics consists of the choice of the formulation of a certain assumption, where after a case has been found where one
would intuitively think that X causes Y even though the theory yields a negative
answer (or vice versa). For example, the case in which Bill and Suzy throw rocks
at a bottle. Bill’s rock hits the bottle a split second before Suzy does and as a
result the bottle shatters. The first thought would be that Bill’s throwing of the
rock has caused the bottle that has been hit to shatter into pieces. But as a
matter of fact had he not thrown the bottle the bottle would have shattered anyway. Thus Bill’s throwing does not come out as the cause of the shattering. And
yet, we would say it is the case (Reiss, 2008).
Nevertheless, even though in financial markets in the real world past the
outcomes of these financial, mathematical models searching for causal relationships
within a complex world have proven to be very uncertain, unreliable and inaccurate
human beings still have the tendency to develop forecasting models while using the
instrument of defining causal relationships without testing them with counterfactuals
to answer more fundamental associational questions in order to predict future
developments within the world economy. The problem is that when these models fail
to answer causal questions they do not answer anything at all and provide a false
sense of reality of nowadays problems in financial markets.
According to Reiss (2008) within his book on economics and philosophy “The
Error of Economics, The Methodology of Evidence-Based Economics “No matter
whether there’s an economic growth or a decline, investors would always be
interested in the following question: “What would have happened to “Y” had “X” been
“x”, whereas in this example the variable “Y” would be the target variable, “X” the variable that causes the impact on “Y” and respectively the variable “x” the control variable” These questions are called authentic “What if” questions. Nevertheless, instead
of trying to answer “what if questions” with counterfactuals we should pose more
fundamental associational questions, so argues Reiss.
Taleb (2005, 2007, 2012) within his books on financial markets and system
dynamics Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan and Antifragile argues that our incapability to forecast in environments subjected to extreme events including a lack of
the awareness of this state of affairs means that certain experts are claiming to tell
the truth while in fact they are not. More important, according to Taleb, who himself
is a mathematician but also has been a trader in financial markets, they are better in
smoking you with complicated mathematical models while creating a sense of the
truth. There recognition as being experts is because of their skills in narrating not in
providing a realistic description of the economical truts.
According to Taleb (2007) people are permitted to be fortunate thanks to “aggressive trial and error” and not by giving rewards for “mathematical skills”. Due to
the change in the nature of risk over the past ten years and the trans-disciplinary
nature of problems many experts now find themselves lacking the skills to cope with
dynamic nature of these problems. Taleb (2007) argues that in measuring uncertainty
one simple observation that can be characterized as an extreme event with lowprobability and high impact can invalidate a statement derived from a million of
observations. Such events could explain almost everything in the world, from the rise
and fall of empires, the upcoming of religions but also elements of our personal career, family- and romantic life’s.
The Failure of Models that predict Failure
New forms of risk illustrate the interconnected nature of economic crisis and the way
in which distinct events can cause other problems within a nested system. For
example, think about the phenomenon of leveraging within financial markets. In the
past scholars of economics have studies steady models of market behavior which
are patterns that cause a behavioral equilibrium that induces no further reaction
within the system. However, these models which are known as steady, robust might
not be as reliable as they seem.
In the past in economic analysis it was presumed that identical agents possess perfect rationality and arrive at shared logical conclusions or expectations
about the situation they are in at the particular moment. When these accumulated
expectations aggregative create a world that values them as predictions, they are
according to micro- and macro-economic theory in a so-called perfect market equilibrium.
However, scholars are now elaborating on the former equilibrium approach
by turning to the question of how the actions of individual agents, their strategies or
expectations might endogenously change while adapting to the aggregate patterns
these create. The moment we emphasize the formation of structures rather than
their given existence, the problems that occur when trying to forecast the
developments within the economy are different by nature (Arthur, 1999).
The complexity theory that holds this perspective on analyzing the economy
portrays it not as deterministic, predictable and mechanistic but as process
dependent, organic and always evolving. It is not an adaption to the conventional
economic equilibrium theory but a theory at a standard out-of-
81
Nº 12
equilibrium level whereby reaching a perfect equilibrium is moreover the exception
than conventional behavior (Arthur, 1999).
This way of thinking might be much more appropriate when it comes to analyzing current economic problems like the highly complex phenomenon of the
financial crisis of 2008 than the former neoclassical models, because the latter seem
in complete lack of practical applicability. Next to that they disregard the significance
of the behavioral and humanizing aspect of modern economics.
The current models do not emphasize the more philosophical, associational
insight but instead imply a false sense of precision with mathematical numbers.
This is also the case with the models that have been used for the packaged mortgage securities and which failed in their predictions. One needs to be more honest
about the limitations of these models in order to prevent future disaster in financial
markets and the fallibility of the mathematics that has been used in order to make
future forecasts (Taleb, 2007).
For example, a model using data on securitized subprime mortgage issues
in 2006 demonstrates that as the degree of securization increases, interest rates
and new loans rely increasingly on hard information about borrowers. As a result
the model fitted in a low securization period breaks down in the high securization
period while it underpredicts defaults among borrowers. In July 2006 the ABX index
that tracks credit default swaps based on AAA subprime tranches fell by about 45%
over the course of eight months. Behind the valuations was a statistical model that
estimates defaults on the underlying collateral. Bankers and investors were left completely surprised with this new information (Rajan et all, 2009).
However, Rajan (2009) debates this breaking down of the financial model
while underestimating the political, social and economic risks should not have been
very much of a surprise while the models relied entirely on hard information and ignored soft control variables such as the incentives of lenders to collect information
about borrowers, which was one of the fundamental causes for their failure (Rajan
et all., 2009).The moment we are trying to quantify the behavior of human beings,
while making use of mathematical models, it is as if we “force the ugly stepsister’s
foot into Cinderella’s pretty glass slipper” (Economist,
2010).
Bibliography
Arthur, W.B., Increasing Returns and Path Dependency in the Economy, University
of Michigan Press, Michigan, 1995
Rajan, U., Sen, A., Vig, V., The Failure of Models that predict Failure: Distance, Incentives and Defaults, January 2009
Reiss, J., Error in Economics, The Methodology of Evidence-Based Economics, London, Routledge, 2008
Swagel, P., The Financial Crisis; An Inside View, Brooking Papers on Economic
Activity, March 30, 2009
Taleb, N., N., Antifragile, Things that Gain from Disorder,
Random House
th
Publishers, New York, November 27 2012
Taleb, N., N., Fooled by Randomness, The Hidden Role of Chances in Life and in
the Markets, 2005
Taleb, N.; N.; The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Allen Lane,
Great Britain, 2007
Valencia, M., The Economist, Special Report: Risk, The Gods strike Back, Februari
13th-19th, 2010
Financial Markets Regulation; Financial Crisis Highlights need to Improve Oversight
of Leverage at Financial Institutions and across System, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Financial Services, House of
Representatives, General Accounting Office (GAO), United States, Washington,
2010
82
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Nº 12
Playing For A Goal in Siem Reap, Cambodia
Para muchas personas alrededor del
mundo, el deporte y el juego son
inmediatamente asociados a la noción
de infancia. A través del juego los niños
exploran, inventan y crean. Desarrollan
habilidades sociales, aprenden a expresar sus emociones y ganan confianza
sobre sus propias capacidades. Sin
embargo, para la mayoría de niños de
Siem Reap, Camboya, la oportunidad de
aprender y crecer a través del deporte y
el juego no está disponible, lo que les
roba sus mejores momentos de la
infancia.
Somos Valentina Cabanzo (Caracas,
Venezuela) y Sergi Sauras (Barcelona,
España), estudiantes universitarios que
creemos en el poder del deporte para
enseñar, motivar y mejorar el entorno
social. El deporte afecta positivamente a
cambiar y promover el desarrollo de los
niños. Por supuesto, no debe verse
como un remedio infalible al problema
de la pobreza y desigualdad. El deporte
es una tan sólo una herramienta, pero
pensamos que un programa inclusivo
puede reunir a niños, niñas, minorías y
personas con discapacidades para darles la oportunidad de trabajar juntos por
un objetivo.
Playing For A Goal es un campus deportivo que dará a los niños y a los entrenadores las herramientas y
conocimientos necesarios para codiseñar y ejecutar un programa
sostenible para niños en situación de
riesgo. El campus se enfocará al aprendizaje social y la interacción con la
comunidad de Siem Reap, contribuyendo
con el material y equipamiento necesario
para organizar juegos y enseñar a los niños los valores del deporte, el trabajo en
equipo, la amistad y promoviendo un estilo de vida saludable.
Otra parte importante del program es
Goals For Girls, la sección que se centra
en el desarrollo de las mujeres jóvenes no
sólo a través de los juegos, sino también
trabajando con ellas para organizar los
eventos y dirigir a los niños más jóvenes.
Enseñar sobre la igualdad de género e
inspirar a la comunidad es tanto o más
importante que marcar goles.
Quienes apoyen la campaña* estarán
dando a más niños la oportunidad de
participar en Playing For A Goal, y les ayudará a establecer el proyecto como una
parte importante del Sports Program que
la ONG Globalteer desarrolla cada año y
que impacta positivamente las vidas de
centenares de niños. Estamos muy ilusionados por la oportunidad de ayudar a un
gran número de personas a través de lo
que amamos: el deporte.
Al fin y al cabo, todos los niños tienen
derecho a jugar.
*Campaña:
https://life.indiegogo.com/fundraisers/playi
ng-for-a-goal-in-cambodia/x/10831177
84
Nº 12
Advocating for Today’s Youth - How Boys & Girls Clubs of America Prepare Young People for Great Futures
Today’s youth face numerous challenges
ranging from poverty to obesity to
academic struggles. 11 million kids are left
unsupervised after school each day and
need a safe haven with caring mentors
and program that can change their
opportunity equation.
Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA)
tackles these issues every day, all year
round. As the number one advocate for
youth, the 4,100 Boys & Girls Clubs
across the country and on U.S. military
installations worldwide work to ensure
great futures are within reach of the nearly
4 million members by helping them stay
on track to graduate from high school with
a plan for the future, demonstrating good
character and citizenship, and living a
healthy lifestyle. In fact, by 2018, BGCA
aims to see 1.4 million Club teens on track
to graduate from high school, 1.2 million
Club teens volunteer a total of 6 million
hours and 4 billion hours of physical
activity by Club youth.
Following is a look at some of the
academic success programs Boys & Girls
Clubs have place to provide all youth with
the support, resources and opportunities
they need to ensure they are on the path
to pursue their dreams.
Academic Success
For every hour a child spends in school,
they spend two hours out of school. How
they spend that time can have a
significant impact on their lives. As a
leader in youth development during out-ofschool time, BGCA is redefining the
opportunity equation by leveraging the
power of after-school and summer
programs to ensure academic success
and create a stronger generation of future
leaders.
Even with U.S. graduation rates at an alltime high, nearly one in five American
students still will not graduate high school.
From expanding horizons in elementary
school, to unearthing passions in middle
school, to embracing subject mastery in
high school, Boys & Girls Clubs are leading the charge to close the graduation gap
for good. Club members nationwide
participate in year-round academic
success programs that
encourage them to
graduate from high
school on time and
prepared for a postsecondary education
and a promising 21st
century career.
For example, Clubs
around the country
offer programs such
as Graduate for Más,
in partnership with the
Taco Bell Foundation,
that identifies and addresses issues that
teens face as they
navigate the path toward graduation and
beyond.
The multi-faceted program
available at Clubs across the country helps
to prepare rising 8th and 9th graders for a
successful transition into high school, while
introducing teens of all ages to higher
education opportunities and career goals
beyond high school.
The focus of this
program, along with BGCA’s wide range of
academic success offerings, is to reach the
organization’s goal of helping 1.4 million
Club teens stay on track to graduate by
2018, which represents an estimated $8
billion in economic impact.
To date,
according to a Harris Survey, 90 percent of
Club alumni reported they earned a high
school diploma or equivalent.
BGCA also offers programming that educates Club members about today’s digital
world and ignites their passion for science
a n d t e c h n o l o g y. A c c o r d i n g t o
STEMConnector.org, STEM jobs in the U.S.
are expected to grow nearly twice as fast as
other fields by 2018. There will be more
than 8 million STEM jobs in the U.S. by
2018, but 3 million of them may go unfilled
because of a lack of people with required
skills. Programs such as My.Future, sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal, introduce
more young people to STEM-related
activities to help address this large, unmet
need. My.Future allows Club members to
select from more than 40 activities that reinforce digital literacy, including areas of
exploring the web, communicating with
others digitally and building media. Additional experiences allow members to
explore advanced topics, such as robotics,
coding and game design. These programs
give Club members the technology skills
needed to pursue promising careers and
thrive in today’s digital world.
In addition, BGCA recently announced a
partnership with The College Board and
Kahn Academy to offer Club teens free, personalized practice for the redesigned SAT®.
This pilot program helps level the playing
field for students who are interested in
taking the SAT and preparing for collegelevel courses.
And Club academic programs don’t end
when the school year does. Each summer
most youth lose about two months’ worth of
math skills, while low-income students also
lose more than two months in reading
achievement despite the fact that their
middle-class peers make slight gains over
the summer break.
To combat summer learning loss, BGCA offers a program called Summer Brain Gain.
The program is comprised of 17 one-week
modules with themed activities for elementary school, middle school and high school
students. Supported by Disney, each module takes a project-based learning
approach; youth engage in a process of
learning through discovery, creative
expression, group work and a final project
or production. Examples of these modules
include “Bio Motion” and “Bug Off!” where
Club youth can explore how living things
navigate their environments or examine the
incredible amount of diversity in the insect
world. Although the average low-income
U.S. student lost at least two months of
learning last summer, the average Summer
Brain Gain participant did not. In some
areas, Club members showed significant
gains, including improvements in reading
skills for fifth and eighth graders, and in
math skills for fourth, fifth and sixth graders.
As the leading after-school and summer
learning provider, BGCA is committed to
helping close the educational opportunity
gap in the U.S. Through BGCA’s ongoing
focus on academic success, as well as
healthy lifestyles and good character and
citizenship, today’s youth have access to
the resources they need to ensure the great
future they deserve is within reach.
For more information about Boys & Girls
Clubs of America, visit
www.greatfutures.org.
85
Nº 12
Young Queens UK
Young Queens UK is an international
project, a subdivision of Anima
Foundation Charity, and the brain child
of the 2014 Miss Ghana UK, Eloise Anima Dickens. While the pageant is, on
face value, more about beauty and
confidence, this particular Young Queen
embodies such compassion in her heart,
such a love for people and a keenness
to empower, that she has embarked on
a journey that will see her and her peers
devoting their time to showing other
Young Queens why they should be
proud to be crowned. The icon that is
the symbol of Young Queens is a representation of her success in the pageant, but this undertaking, is entirely
independent, initially self funded and
non profit.
The purpose of the programme is to
emancipate females between the
ages of 13 and 24 in all aspects of
their lives. This, we seek to achieve,
by involving our members in events
catered towards their economic,
personal and social growth. These
include talks given by professionals
in their varying fields of expertise,
exclusive meets with special guests,
workshops accommodating
curriculum vitae enhancements, excursions and a myriad of other undertakings.
Membership is elective, encouraged
and outside the age requirements,
non-discriminatory; any nationality,
ethnicity, religion and background is
welcome. At the time of print, this
society consisted of an ever growing
number of ambassadors, three
partners and Miss Dickens, the founder
and chair of Anima Foundation Charity.
In her words:
My aim has always been to inspire
people to be more, do more and become
more. I was astonished and pleased by
the number of applicants expressing
interest in becoming an ambassador;
reason being, it showed me that these
young ladies recognised something
within themselves...LEADERSHIP
potential and SELF BELIEF. These are
two very important factors that should be
harnessed in every single female. I see
it as my duty to give these ladies
confidence to be more, do more and
become more. By extension, I am
committed to taking on anyone who
shows genuine interest in joining our
Young Queens family. Applications are
welcome indefinitely.
The ambassadors are motivated,
enthusiastic young individuals of all nationalities who represent the organisation and
its values as well as carry out varying
duties in a bid to fulfil the objectives of
Young Queens. These duties include endorsing the society to potential sponsors
and affiliates, as well as presenting Young
Queens to members of the public across
social media, and at locations such as
academic establishments.
In the UK alone, employment rates have
risen, with those for women at a record
high of 68.6% and these are statistics
vouched for by the BBC. Our aim is not
necessarily to see to it that this figure
increases in an upward trajectory, but
rather to ensure that when the time comes
for our young queens to enter the job
market, they have the confidence, the etiquette, the resilience, and ability that
employers will require of them. We aim
to support and advise, not just the
Queens in the UK, but to act as advocates for the education of our fellow
queens in developing countries. We
aspire to inspire females all over,
using our platform to be a positive
influence, offering aid in any way we
can.
What is coming is better than what is
gone. As women, we have the courage to grab life by the lapels, and live
it how we want. We can see that, and
we are here to help you realise the
potential in you. As said by other great
people who realised their own
potential, leadership is not a trumpet
to self importance. It is an opportunity
to serve. Leadership isn't about
creating followers. It is about creating
more leaders and making others
better as a result of your presence.
by Nancy Bernett
[email protected]
86
Nº 12
ERASMUS YOUTH AND EDUCATORS PROGRAMME
Nature within the framework of
different activities organised in
three categories:
> The NGO – Objectif Sciences
International
The non-profit association Objectif
Sciences International offers high-quality
sci e n ce ca m p s fo r ch i l d re n a n d
teenagers all over the world. These
science camps are organised with the
aim of discovering and experimenting
new ways of conducting science projects
while respecting Nature and the
Environment.
-
Robotics/Drones and Technology
Up the Trees (Study of Trees and
their characteristics)
-
Meetings of Excellence
They shall also take part in mountain hiking trips, work in nature laboratories, or make use of hand-held
cameras or cameras mounted
aboard drones that they will learn
to pilot during the course of the
Programme.
http://www.science-camps.com/
The aim of the NGO is to inform and
create awareness on the importance of
Science Education and Participatory
Research while advancing Sustainable
Development solutions, i.e. learning
about the Environment and at the same
time fostering respect and appreciation
for living creatures.
These Programmes are both aimed at
encouraging young people and professionals in adopting a coherent and
holistic approach to environmental rights
and responsibilities. This is a large-scale
project that involves participants from
different European countries.
Both programmes are targeted at:
1.
Young people between the
ages of 13 and 30 years: > >
Summer Programme
(August)
All participants will take part in
a European Programme that
will give them the opportunity
in coming together this August
(from the 2nd to the 9th) in the
Provence Region of SouthEast France.
2.
> > Group Project
Participants will take part in writing a scientific news report in
their native languages on the fascinating topic - Rights of Nature,
which they will take back home to
their different countries - with their
own signatures as authors.
They will also prepare a scientific
journal on activities conducted
during the Programme, with the
aim of returning home well
equipped to continue with their
individual projects.
Participants will work together on
practical projects on the Rights of
Professional/Scientific
Educators > > Autumn
Programme (November)
The NGO is also organising an
international workshop on Science
Education for Scientific and
Professional Educators from the
16th to the 27th of November
2015.
We are counting on the general
public’s support in collaborating
with us on this large-scale initiative.
For registrations and enquiries, contact:
The NGO – Objectif Sciences
International
( Switzerland : +41 22 519 02 41
France: +33 5 35 54 42 02
Belgium: +32 2 318 31 08
∗ : [email protected]
[email protected]
87
Nº 12
Bodour Al Qasimi to Champion Youth Empowerment at World Economic Forum 2015
Economic Forum Global Strategic
Infrastructure Initiative, Member of
Parliament and Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom (2007-2010); Omar Al
Ghanim, Chief Executive Officer of Al
Ghanim Industries, Kuwait; Suma Chakrabarti, President of European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD), London; and John Rice, ViceChairman of GE, Hong Kong SAR.
Sheikha Bodour is the first Emirati
woman to co-chair the World
Economic Forum on the Middle East
and North Africa
Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi,
Chairperson of the Sharjah Investment
and Development Authority (Shurooq),
encouraged youth empowerment
during the upcoming World Economic
Forum on the Middle East and North
Africa, which hold at the King Hussein
bin Talal Convention Centre in the
Dead Sea, Jordan, in May 21st -23rd.
Besides being the first Emirati woman
to co-chair an event at the economic
forum, Sheikha Bodour took part in a
panel discussion on the second day
titled ‘The Youth Imperative: What
Shifts Are Necessary to equip the region’s youth for a future of peace and
prosperity?,.
She emphasised the vital need to
encourage and empower the younger
generation to become active
contributors to the economic, social,
and political development of their
nations. Sheikha
Bodour will also
speak at a Young Global Leaders
Community Bonding event on May
21st..
Sheikha Bodour remarked, “The Arab
region has no shortage of young talent,
but the challenge is to effectively utilise
such talent and invest it in the
development process both locally and
regionally. As the youth population constitutes over 55% of the total
population in the Arab world, it is crucial that we engage young people in
core issues, instilling in them hope and
optimism while harnessing their
abilities and energy to create real and
lasting peace and prosperity in the
region.”
An esteemed lineup of global figures
will join Sheikha Bodour as co-chairs of
the World Economic Forum on the
Middle East and North Africa, including
Gordon Brown, Chair of the World
A delegation from the emirate of Sharjah,
composed of representatives from
various government departments and
authorities discussed different ideas, exchanged experiences with other
participants, including political,
intellectual, business and technology
leaders from around the world.
The World Economic Forum is an
international institution committed to
improving the state of the world through
public-private cooperation in the spirit of
global citizenship. Incorporated as a notfor-profit foundation in 1971 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the
forum features business, political,
academic and other leaders of society
who aim to shape global, regional and
industry agendas.
North Africa bring together more than
800 key government, business, and civil
society leaders from the region and
beyond, to support a comprehensive and
forward-looking vision for prosperity and
peace. The World Economic Forum on
the Middle East and North Africa issues
economic indices in competitiveness,
business environment, labour force and
market performance.
For more information please contact:
M a j d i A s h o u r S a h a r a C o m m u n i c a t i o n s E - m a i l : m a j d i @ s a h a r a g c c . c o m Mobile: 055 1014522
Titled ‘Creating a Regional Framework
for Prosperity and Peace through PublicPrivate Cooperation’, the 2015 World
Economic Forum on the Middle East and
88
Nº 12
The European Azerbaijan School – Driving Educational Success
Azerbaijan is, in many ways, a very fortunate
country. The land is rich in natural wealth. But as
I have discovered, its greatest resource is not
energy or precious metals but its young people.
One in two of its 10 million population
is under 30. Nearly 25 per cent are under 15. It is
the energy and talent of these youngsters that
will enable Azerbaijan to achieve its ambitions.
To maximise the country’s benefits, one
has to give young people the tools to make the
most of their potential. And that means making
sure they get the best possible education.
Azerbaijan has a great platform to build
on. The first Muslim country to create modern
universities, it has almost universal literacy, unlike many countries in the region.
But policymakers in Azerbaijan are well
aware that their education system must strive to
keep up with the best in the world, and give
young people the skills and confidence they need
to adapt their knowledge to a world changing
faster than ever.
Given that the jobs they will fill and the
technology they will use may not yet exist, it is
not enough to simply require children to learn
what we know. Azerbaijan needs to equip them
to think on their feet, to challenge what they
learn as the best education systems already do.
It is this approach which lies at the heart
of the European Azerbaijan School (EAS) which
opened in Baku in September 2011, and I am
proud to be a consultant at the school. EAS was
set up by Tale Heydarov in support of the
Ministry of Education’s drive to modernise the
country’s education system. An Azerbaijani
entrepreneur, Tale is determined to promote good
educational practice in his country and to bring
out the full potential of his country’s young
generation.
The school’s primary objective is to
equip its students with the skills necessary for
them to flourish in their future careers, whether
in Azerbaijan or further afield. Inspired by the
school’s plans to be a symbol of educational
excellence in Azerbaijan, and drawing on my
own experience of managing and teaching in
schools across five different continents, I have
set out below what I believe to be a blueprint for
educational success.
1.
Learning how to learn
At EAS, teaching is not a one-way processchildren are actively engaged in their own
learning. Gone are the days of children being
seen as empty vessels into which facts can be
poured. They are encouraged not to simply regurgitate information, but to learn how to learn; this
means that discovering for themselves what it is
that they need to learn, rather than being told by
their teachers. This is a fundamental pillar of the
school’s philosophy, and is one of the many
ways in which EAS is forging new paths in the
country.
2.
Equip children with skills for the jobs
of tomorrow
App developer. Social media manager. Cloud
computing expert. These are just three of many
job descriptions which barely existed five years
ago. The lesson here is that we should not attempt to mould children of today into the jobs of
tomorrow, since we do not know what these jobs
will be. Instead, we should equip our children
with the knowledge and, most importantly, the
skills required to be leaders in any field that they
choose to go into.
3.
Education outside the classroom
Extra-curricular activities are a vital part of a
child’s development, and EAS is committed to
offering its children a varied programme which
includes sports, drama, chess, dancing, choir,
traditional carpet-making, drawing and pottery.
The importance of such activities is difficult to
overstate. They teach children the value of being
part of a team working towards a long-term goal.
They help them discover new interests, forge
new relationships and raise self-esteem. And
they help children learn to structure their time
and to plan ahead. Put simply if they want to
make football training or theatre class, they need
to make sure their homework is done on time!
4.
The highest international standards
Azerbaijan sits at the crossroads of Europe and
the rest of the world. It is an outward-looking
nation with much to contribute to the global
community, but like all countries it has a great
deal to learn from others.
With this in mind, as a candidate school, EAS is
in the process of becoming an International Baccalaureate school, enabling its students to benefit
from a combination of world-class international
and local curricula. EAS is also already building
links with other schools across the country to
help modernise teaching techniques.
5.
Speaking the world’s languages
EAS also recognises the importance of Azerbaijani children becoming multilingual agents in an
open economy. Our lessons are currently
conducted in Azerbaijani, with English and
Russian woven into the curriculum - for example
in drama lessons – while the school works
towards fully bi-lingual instruction (Azerbaijani
and English). Interactive storytelling techniques,
such as dialogic reading, are used to enable
young children with very few words to become
enthusiastic readers and develop a love of reading that will stay with them for the rest of their
life.
6.
Education in the Digital Age
With technology making children more visuallyoriented, children require constant stimulation.
EAS uses SMART boards in virtually every
classroom, as well as other interactive teaching
technologies. A 1:1 laptop program is underway
for Secondary School children and iPads are
widely used from Early Years onwards, assisting
the process of interactive teaching and
empowering of students to take responsibility for
their own learning.
Many countries have used these facilities
for years, but the challenge is to make them costeffective. In an era where you can turn a $40
By Graeme Pollock
video game controller into a digital whiteboard,
anything is possible.
7.
Getting parents and teachers onside
Drawing from my own experiences across the
world, this is maybe the most crucial step of all.
The model outlined above will only achieve
educational transformation if parents and
teachers all buy into this new philosophy.
This will not be easy. Many will have
grown up in a different educational era- one of
rote learning, a narrow curriculum and an
inward-looking attitude to languages and
educational standards. But it is essential that
teachers and the wider community embrace
innovations that have been developed by
educational researchers and practitioners, and
learn from the successes and failures of the past.
8.
Education for all
Providing children with top-class facilities is not
cheap, and so EAS is a fee-paying school.
However the school recognises that the brightest
minds of tomorrow could come from any section
of Azerbaijani society. With that in mind, the
school has decided to keep its fees to an absolute
minimum, and provide scholarships to students
who show outstanding potential.
Bright children from every background
can therefore benefit from the education that
EAS provides. Currently one in six children at
the school benefit from scholarships in some
form, and this is something that Tale as founder
is particularly passionate about maintaining.
Through the example EAS is setting, the
achievements of its pupils and the links they are
building, I am confident that the school will play
its part in maintaining the improvement in
educational standards throughout Azerbaijan.
If we give our young people the skills to
succeed, we can rely on them to build the future
we all want. Azerbaijan has made significant
steps in this direction and that is the real reason, I
believe, that the country is so fortunate.
89
Nº 12
Like Lambs to the Slaughter: The Erosion of the Cultured Citizen
“Like Lambs to the Slaughter: The Erosion
of the Cultured Citizen” is Part I of a series
entitled Education through the Looking
Glass which is a commentary on the role of
politics and its effect on critical thinking and
reflection in education.
Sean M. Douglas is an
author, businessman and
teacher whose latest book
From Storm Clouds
Come Angels has been
praised as a work of true
and genuine insight. Mr.
Douglas continues to lecture and is a student
of the Philosophy of Educational Theory and
Policy. [email protected]
The following article discusses the
issues surrounding the decline in cultural
education. Whereas in the past subjects
such as English, literature, music, art
and humanities was a focal point of
education, today these disciplines are
often the first to have their funding reduced. As a result, education is failing to
develop well-cultured, creative and critically thinking students. This trend will
not only lead to an apathetic culture, but
a society that fails to recognize the
importance of creating a strong culture.
History remembers culture by their artistic achievements and values, not by their
narcissistic attitudes, thus we need to
consider that in order to evolve into the
future, education is responsible for
inspiring the present.
intellect, insight, understanding, values
future.
and citizenship, or is it that higher
whose three objectives “focus on
standards with lower expectations has
establishing high levels of student
equated to this phenomenon that claims
achievement; reducing the gaps in
that ‘Failure is not an option’?
student achievement; and ensuring high
Perhaps what first needs to be
asked is, what should an education look
like, versus what kind of learning is
currently shaping the next generation?
One can hardly deny that
“I have never let school interfere
education has changed since, say the
with my education” wrote Mark Twain as
days of Socrates3, and it is clear that the
he considered his own understanding of
age of texting and self-corrective
the world; but how long before someone
technology has led to a decline in
holds a mirror up to public education and
communication skills, and while the de-
realizes that the reflection of the
cline of such proficiency is unfortunate, it
students staring back is not the one they
will not be “the way to a dusty death”4.
thought they would see? It is a shame
What is unfortunate, however, is educa-
to see Mr. Clemens1 fears become a
tion’s digression from culture in the
reality as education becomes lost within
classroom, for it is through the process
the school.
of being cultured that all skills follow; “ay,
As an example, some states
show that in the past six years gradua-
there’s the rub!”5
There is, however, a great irony in
tion rates for secondary students has
such a digression of culture, for what
dramatically risen from 68% to 81%2 due
often brings culture to a standstill is what
to Student Success programs, but the
occurs in the school itself, the same
questions that rarely get asked are, do
institution that one would assume seeks
these numbers truly reflect a students’
to shape the hearts and minds of the
Then again, it is the ministry
levels of public confidence in public education”6. When the emphasis of
education is based around statistics and
external perception, it is no wonder that
students are not developing a sense of
personal identity, citizenship, and culture.
Perhaps schools no longer know
how to effectively implement the values
of culture, for now that we have become
so immersed in politics, we are so overwrought with tensions that our sensitivity
and our fear of being un-politically
correct has eroded culture itself. One’s
ability to teach classic literature, art,
music, history, philosophy, and theory, is
successfully being eroded, and it is these
disciplines that are necessary for
students to become cultured citizens.
We are at a point in time when
what most would benefit society is a renaissance of culture. Instead, we have entered an age where the priority for the
arts and humanities has been overshadowed by what is commonly considered
90
Nº 12
“employable skills”, the same skills that are quickly
eradicating what it means to truly be human.
Education should challenge one to question,
push one to seek, allow one to reflect; education
should inspire curiosity, share insights, admit that
failure is a necessary adversary to success;
education should drive one to study the thinkers,
artists, writers and musicians of the past, to
promote fading values, and to instil an appreciation
for wanting to learn the ideas that establish all that
we are and can be.
So what is it that has shifted within schools?
To be cultured is to encompass a greater
understanding of people; culture allows one to
appreciate the undertones that drive society and
connect what it is that inspires and feeds the passions of the individual. Instead, we are becoming a
culture dictated by the values of material worth
without having been taught the values of culture.
Where once there was a desire to improve oneself
through reading, music and art, now there is a
desire to prove one’s worth through the superficiality of those things that come and go without leaving
so much as a lingering impression. We have been
driven “like lambs to the slaughter”7 towards a corpo-
What is the new model for the curriculum? Perhaps
rate model of citizenship where profit proceeds the
it may be argued that society has shifted its values
person.
away from bettering the person to bettering the
moted this ideal.
profit, and that education now seeks to create a
culture consisting of employable skills rather than
creating a community of culture.
Gone are the days when expectations were
created to challenge, and one equated success with
self-advocacy and the strength that came through
trial and error, determination, hard work and
initiatives that promote an individual’s freedom to
consequence; here are the days where
critically think, reflect, challenge, and be challenged,
expectations are written with an emphasis that there
though the reality is that there is very little room for
is no such thing as failure, when ones’ personal re-
true criticism or reflection in the classroom; the fo-
alities are substituted with accommodations, and
cus of education is not on challenging students, but
culture has been replaced with conformity.
translated in something that can be effectively numerated and explicitly bought. This is not suggesting that students do not need to develop skills
necessary for the workplace, but it is implying that if
a greater emphasis was placed on culturing
students, these skills would naturally follow.
NOTES
Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel L. Clemens.
Ontario.ca
Socrates used a method of inquiry that established
understanding through a process of critical thinking that
was based on a discussion that revolved around a
dialogue of questions and responses as a means to
achieve a sense of comprehension.
Macbeth 5.5
Hamlet 3.1
Ontario Ministry of Education.
(http://www.edu.gov.on.ca)
Jeremiah 51:40
And it is public education that has pro-
While on the surface, schools suggest
rather on explicating absolute skills that can be
Now is the moment that public education
must begin to look through the looking glass and
realize that unless we want a country with no cultured conscious, we need to focus on creating a
community of culture. The time is now, the place is
here; this is the moment that change must be made,
for it is now that we must ensure that school never
interferes with education.
91
Nº 12
Technology And The 21st-Century Workforce: Why All Teenagers Need To Learn To Type
A global economy provides more
opportunities than ever for employment,
but in order to take advantage of the expanding market in telecommunications
and internet-based business, young
people need to become experts in the
tools these jobs require.
It seems like the competition for
good jobs gets more intense every year.
These days it's not enough just to be willing to work hard - even entry-level jobs
require a certain basic skill set, and
because many jobs involve the use of
computers and keyboards, typing is one
of those basic skills.
What does this mean for
teenagers and young adults who are
hoping to succeed in a competitive jobs
market? It means that they need to be
ready to cope with the technological
demands of the jobs they're applying for,
by learning basic computer skills.
Because many employers have at least
one eye on the global marketplace, a
good knowledge of English vocabulary is
also essential; fluency in English helps
in assisting customers around the world
and gives a new employee the ability to
work for their company in an overseas
office. But whether communicating in
English or another language, every new
employee needs to be able to touch type
accurately and quickly to keep the
business moving forward.
Workplace Success Begins At School
One of the key indicators of
achievement on the job is education.
Children who get a good education in
primary school have the skills to
advance to higher education and better
jobs as young adults. In many schools,
computers and keyboard-based learning
are playing a larger role in daily
classroom activities. New educational
reforms are even putting keyboarding on
the list of required skills for students as
young as 8 and 9 years old.
Children who can't type quickly
and accurately won't be able to keep up
with assignments. They won't be able to
finish online exams in the limited time
they're given to click through the test sections and type out the responses, even if
they know the answers to all of the
questions. The lower scores they receive from incomplete assignments and
exams will lower their grades, and the
opportunities they might have had to
apply for high-value scholarships and
awards will also decline.
By learning how to touch type at
an early age, children can take
advantage of all of the educational
opportunities they're given.
Unfortunately, not every school offers
keyboarding classes, even if that school
uses computers in the classroom. Fortunately, there's an easy solution for
children and young adults who want to
reach their educational and job-related
goals: the award-winning typing tutor Ultimate Typing™ 2015.
Step-By-Step Success
With Ultimate Typing™ 2015 anyone can learn to touch type simply by
following the lesson plans, practicing the
exercises, and reviewing the instructions
for incorporating business skills and ergonomics into a daily typing routine. The
cloud-based software guides the user
through scientifically-designed activities
that focus on basic to advanced typing
skills, using feedback from the activity
results to personalize each user's learning
experience. Whether that user is 8 years
old or 18 years old, they'll be presented
with a customized practice schedule that
helps them hone their typing skills while
having fun at the same time.
Each typing lesson starts with a
brief video that demonstrates finger
positions and keystrokes. The system also
provides regular reminders about the
proper position for their hands, head, and
body to avoid developing repetitive stress
injury problems.
Personalized Success
The Ultimate Typing™ 2015 software
adapts to each user and satisfies their
individual learning needs by adjusting the
exercises according to the user's current
typing speed and accuracy rate. The
system encourages a user to repeat and
review any activity or exercise where they
did not score well enough to match their
typing milestones. This guidance and
encouragement helps the user to keep a
positive attitude and a focus on their ultimate goal: to be an expert touch typist.
The training text used in the games
and advanced activities is also customizable. A user can import documents and
texts and practice typing with those texts
so that they are using words that are
immediately relevant to their lives. For
example, a student in high school can
choose to upload a chapter from a history
book they're required to read, and use that
as the typing practice text. By combining
typing practice with their other educational
goals and requirements, every user can
make progress quickly in a range of skills.
Celebrating Success In Typing
As the user completes each exercise and
activity, they are awarded status points
that motivate them to advance to the next
level. Earning these status points is fun,
and users can even compete with each
other to see who can reach the next
status level first by publishing results on
social media platforms. Typing speed and
accuracy rates are also tracked by the Ultimate Typing™ 2015 system and displayed
in charts and graphs that the user can
look at any time. Users can compare their
current rates to the typing goals that they
set, and enjoy seeing the proof that their
keyboarding skills are quickly improving.
Every user receives a certificate of completion at the end of the course and can add
that certificate to their CV or portfolio.
Helping Youth Succeed Around The
World
Parents, teachers, and adults everywhere
can play their part by encouraging
children, teenagers, and young adults to
set and achieve their goals, both in keyboarding and in general education and job
training. eReflect, the company behind
Ultimate Typing™ 2015, is committed to
helping young people and adults around
the world to continue working on selfimprovement and self-paced education in
order to create a more vibrant,
interconnected, and successful global
community.
About the Author: Chassie Lee is the
Content Expert for eReflect – creator of
Ultimate Typing and Ultimate Typing EDU
which is currently being used by tens of
thousands of happy customers in over 110
countries.
92
Nº 12
-TokApp School-
Hoy
en día muchos son los centros
educativos (colegios, institutos, guarderías, AMPAS, universidades, academias, etc.), empresas y asociaciones de
todo el mundo que dan el paso a introducir nuevas plataformas en sus establecimientos. El principal problema que vimos en los centros educativos fue la dificultad para establecer una
comunicación efectiva al cien por cien.
Con TokApp School proponemos una
solución definitiva para los centros, profesores, alumnos y padres, innovando
así el panorama tecnológico-educativo,
ya que pocos recursos fiables y tan
específicos existen hoy en día en el
mercado.
Nuestro sistema, permite ahorrar el
consumo de papel, tóner de impresoras,
cartas, sellos y medios de transporte
para los comunicados, cuidando así que
el impacto medioambiental sea mínimo.
El usuario no hace falta que vaya en
busca de la información, si no que la
información le llega directamente, sin
necesidad de acceder a plataformas.
Para los padres tenemos a parte de los
servicios de comunicación instantánea,
una amplia oferta de servicios que ponemos a su plena disposición del sector
educativo, entre ellos, librerías , logopedas, academias de enseñanza...etc.
Comunidades como Galicia, Valencia,
Asturias, Andalucía y Barcelona ya son
oficiales de los servicios de TokApp
School, siendo ésta última donde más
usuarios de nuestros servicios tenemos.
En la EOI Escuela Oficial de Idiomas, por
ejemplo, contamos con más de 7.000
usuarios, en la de Pontevedra y coruñesa
c o n m á s d e 5 . 0 0 0 a l u m n o s . Podemos afirmar que damos cobertura a
más de 400.000 familias. La empresa se
encuentra operando a nivel nacional ,
teniendo previsto seguir creciendo y progresando, expandiendo la iniciativa al extranjero en el futuro próximo.
Enlaces :
Página Oficial:
https://www.tokapp.com/tokappschool/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokappSchool
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/TokappSchool/1397172620542555
Con TokApp School facilitamos el interactuar los centros con los padres y alumnos, siempre respetando la privacidad.
Lo que nos diferencia de cualquier otra
plataforma educativa es que sabemos
en que momento, con fecha y hora exacta, el usuario ha leído el mensaje,
además de poder solicitar sólo si el
centro o el profesor lo requiere. 93
Nº 12
Intellisense Co. Ltd is a multiple award
winning technological company based in
Budapest, Hungary. Since its inception in
2010 Intellisense has been working
together with the most renowned Universities and Teachers from across Hungary,
developing unique and creative STEM
applications for primary and secondary
education.
Working together with 24 well educated
and experienced professionals, Intellisense aims at taking part in the digital
transformation of education and provide
convenient and innovative solutions in the
field of data acquisition.
Since becoming an Intel partner in 2012,
Intellisense is working closely with the
world’s biggest hardware and educational
software producers and is constantly in
negotiations and discussions with other
STEM solution providers.
LabCamera
Science is fun
http://www.labcamera.com
Lab Camera is a Science Exploration app
with 7 tools that enables you to carry out
scientific concepts using the laptop’s or
tablet's camera.
Built as a natural science exploration and
data logging laboratory, Lab Camera
allows students and teachers to carry out
substantial scientific observations and
measurements by using our software and
your device’s basic integrated camera.
Conducting physics, biology and chemistry experiments with Lab Camera - both in
the classroom and at home - brings
natural science education to a whole new
level. It provides homes and schools with
an instrument that makes learning natural
science subject matters modern, exciting
and engaging. The use of the software
bridges the gap between school and home
education, involves students actively and
enables playful engagement with natural
sciences, facilitating in depth
understanding of the subject. We have
developed seven great functions to help
you discover the secrets of nature and
your immediate surroundings.
Level: Elementary School-Higher Degree
Languages: 29 languages
Ages: 6 and up
Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Desktop, Chrome
D e m o :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhuQ
s9f2zVM
MATEK (Mathematics)
Snap and solve
http://matekapp.com/
MATEK is an innovative application that
teaches and helps you solve simple or
complex mathematical equations by snapping a picture of a handwritten or printed
equation or just by writing it on your
touchscreen.
Providing a step-by-step human logic
explanation of an equation, MATEK
promotes a can-do attitude towards solving mathematics by offering a proper
explanation of the solving process and
related background information from
knowledge sources on the web. Not to be
mistaken for a calculator, MATEK helps
children understand the world of numbers
by using innovative technology and easy
to follow assistance and guidance.
IDEAL FOR HOMEWORK, CLASSROOM,
MATH PRACTICE AND DISTANCE
LEARNING
Ages: 12 and up
Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Desktop,
Chrome
D e m o :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MynVLF
p4w1I
The study concludes that as the difference
was even higher in case of problems of medium difficulty, Fizika raises students with
average skills to a higher level of
understanding, thus converting part of those
uncertain about science subjects into
science enthusiasts.
FIZIKA (Physics)
Smart fun physics
http://fizikaapp.com/
IDEAL FOR HOMEWORK, CLASSROOM,
PRACTICE AND DISTANCE LEARNING
Experience physics in a fun and engaging
way with the most entertaining and
educative physics simulator on the market.
Fizika allows you to learn and have fun at
the same time! Use the preloaded objects or
just draw on the screen to create scenes
and experiments with ease and press the
play button to get everything in motion.
Change the properties of the objects or the
environment to alter reality and observe the
impact it has on the simulation. Switch to
colourful themes such as Fruitland and
Mysterious to make your simulation even
more fun!
S t a r t i n g f r o m g r a v i t y t o e l a s t i c i t y,
acceleration, mass, friction and more, Fizika
allows you to understand physics beyond
theory and classic laboratory experiments.
Besides playing with the extended customizable properties, you can analyse the
processes with Fizika’s live graphing
solution that will allow you to track and record everything for a later-on deeper
analysis.
A 4 months study conducted by ELTE (Eötvös Lóránt Science University in Budapest,
Hungary) on 160 9th-grade students from 5
different schools showed that the groups
using Fizika for problem solving, accomplished final tests with a score 15% higher
than their peers having traditional approach
during their classes.
Level: Middle School/High School
Ages: 6 and up
Chrome
D e m o :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGQtL5
R2obc
Clapmotion
Your story, just a clap away
http://www.clapmotion.com/
The fun way to make stop-motion movies.
Create a shot without touching the camera
only by clapping your hands. Clapmotion
develops project based thinking, artistic,
creative and teamwork skills. Stop-motion
animation also important in science
education, it helps for the deep
understanding of the basic “mechanism” of
movements.
Ages: 6 and up
Chrome
D e m o :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We6mp
GBEWIE
94
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