Rio+20: Widening Circles and Personal Growth
In this post, delegate Erynne Gilpin shares her experience of the first few days at the People’s Summit here in Rio.
There are over 30 workshops which take place each day in different time slots from 9:30am until 6:30pm – it is impossible to escape the feeling that you MUST attend EVERYTHING. The days are packed and we find ourselves trying to do everything and be everywhere all at once!
Gathering at 'our tree' to decide which workshops we will attend.
Yesterday, I stumbled into an incredible discussion led by working representatives from within the official summit. They are working together to create a Peoples’ Sustainability Treaty on Radical Ecological Democracy. Essentially, what tends to happen at large people’s gatherings is a lot of frustration that although we can:
A) identify the causes of social and environmental injustice
B) identify the effects of these destructive forces and
C) share various forms of addressing these problems;
it proves difficult to build a united citizens movement of all peoples.
it proves difficult to build a united citizens movement of all peoples.
How can this happen?
We need equal effort in Individual Action, Collective Action and International Law.
This workshop worked to formulate a treaty of higher ethics and values – in order to advance the humyn* understanding of humyn rights and dignity. They created the space to discuss how we can advance as a species, challenge ourselves and ultimately reach a level of conscious interconnectivity. We can then work to create institutions or transform existing institutions to also function within these guiding principles.
The leaders of this incredible workshop are working from within and outside of the Summit to continue this discussion. I am extremely excited to be involved in these conversations and will check in again!
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The Global Citizens Movement Panelists:
Tariq Banuri (Former director- UNCSD 2012 Secretariat)
Uchita de Zoysa (Centre for Environment and Development)
Candido Gryzbowski (Director- IBASE)
Orion Kriegman (Great Transition Initiative)
Gustavo Marin (Forum for a New World Governance)
Read stories from our Francophone delegates here!
*Erynne chooses to use spelling which reflects equality in gender, inclusive of everyone.
