I was fortunate enough to be one of the six seniors chosen to represent my school at the EARCOS sponsored GIN Conference at the Western Academy of Beijing from April 3rd to 6th.

Having fun at the Beijing International Airport upon arrival

After being chosen by the administration and some teachers for this, the six of us were assigned to read the book “High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them” by Jean Francois Rischard. As the name suggest, the book identifies the 20 urgent global problems that we are faced with today and presents his thoughts on how to solve those problems by creating small groups of individuals all around the world who are ready to meet the challenge. His message is basically that the best way to solve the global issues is to think globally but act locally, within our own communities, and that this will make a difference.

Our next step was to choose a global issue that we would present to other international school students from the Asian region at the conference in Beijing. After much discussion and debate, we all decided on the issue of poverty. We worked hard to research and create two 45 minute seminars; the first dealing with why poverty is the most important global issue, and the second with how we, just normal students with a mission, can help to eradicate it.
Continue reading ‘Global Issues Network Conference Beijing 2008′