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.
Myself and my two partners were in charge of the former, “Why?” presentation and I specifically chose to present the factors of poverty with one of my partners analyzing the links of these factors to the other global issues. My second partner informed everyone about what poverty is in a different sense and that poverty exists everywhere, not just in places in Africa but even in the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong, where we live.
I was not much involved in the second presentation in terms of the actual presenting but it dealt with how we can help to eradicate poverty through a system of bringing together businessmen, lawyers, doctors and other people with great wealth together to raise money and understand the situation of the poor, in turn changing their mindsets and ideally the ethics of businesses everywhere.
One of my partners also created a video showcasing the ugly nature of poverty (link at the bottom of this post). Everyone who saw it at the seminar was very moved and I honestly think it is a very powerful slideshow.
Now that you’ve got a somewhat clearer idea of what the trip was all about it would be important for me (and maybe only for me) to give a day by day breakdown of the actual trip to Beijing.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
We went to school in the morning with our suitcases and stayed pretty much the whole day. About 45 minutes before the final bell, we hopped into taxis with the two teachers (well one principal, one teacher to be exact) that would be coming along and went to the airport. Did all the usual airport stuff, took China Air to Beijing, arrived in Beijing. I have to tell you the new (as in like a few months) airport terminal in Beijing is just amazing. It’s huge, airy, aesthetically very pleasing. By the time, we get to the Holiday Inn Hotel Lido by bus from the airport, it’s around 9 PM. No time for anything so we went to our rooms (which were very nice and spacious) and chilled, worked on our presentations, watched TV and played FIFA on my laptop. Well that last one was just me and Johnny. Anyway, went to bed.
Friday, April 4, 2008
In the morning we ate a buffet breakfast at the hotel (once again, very nice) and took a bus with everyone else at the GIN conference to the Great Wall of China. This was my second time going there but this time we had a lot more fun. We took a cable car (well more like a shabby ski lift then anything else) up to the Wall and took a luge (bobsled sort of thing) down. It would have been more fun if the bloke in front of us wouldn’t mind growing a pair of balls and going faster than a snail. But it was all good. This Great Wall trip reminds me of the Coke in China (I bought one there), it tastes very different, almost like medicine.
Taking the luge down from the Great Wall
Anyway, after the Great Wall we took the bus back to our hotel (about a 2 hour drive), changed from casual into more formal attire and went to the Western Academy of Beijing. Now let me tell you, WAB is the most beautiful school I have ever seen. The facilities are breathtaking, it’s an Apple school (that means there are Macs everywhere, and pretty much only Macs). Enough said before my mouth waters, just spare me the envy and look at the website above.
We registered, got a bunch of freebies, offset our carbon emissions, and went to the school hall to listen to Rischard. His keynote speech was inspirational, professional, enlightening and just pure fantastic. I hope someone uploads a video of it on the internet so you can see. But seeing him in person is just “wow”. We also had a live webcast with Jane Goodall, another keynote by Austin Gutwein (he is only 13 but a true leader of the future) who created “Hoops of Hope” and some other fun and educational activities.
Talking to Jane Goodall via iChat
After all this, we went back to the hotel, had fun and went to sleep.
After a hard day’s work…
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Our big presentation day. Our two presentations happened to be in the first two time slots. The way the conference worked was there were maybe ten 45-minute mainly student-led presentations going on at the same time and students had a choice of which they wanted to go to. For our first, “Why?” presentation we expected very low turnout but we ended up with an overcrowded English classroom eager to learn about why poverty is the most important global issue. I thought we did well, the audience seemed to like it.
The second presentation didn’t have quite the same turnout but was still a hit with the audience having a good discussion about how exactly we can help to eradicate poverty.
After these first two sessions, we went to the hall again to watch a dance performance by the high school performing arts class, and a keynote by John Liu on the rehabilitation and complete restoration of ecosystems which were previously assumed dead and that was once again very inspirational and breathtaking to say the least.
We were then able to watch two presentations by other schools. The first one we (one of my partner’s and I) attended was about the illness of cerebral palsy by juniors from Tianjin International School. I learned quite a bit about the illness and I liked how it had the personal touch of the students actually interacting with a boy who had cerebral palsy back in Tianjin and telling us of their experiences with him. The second presentation we attended was amazing in the fact that it was put on by eight graders from Shanghai American School. It was very professional and they were very knowledgeable in their topic on Labor Migration.
After those two presentations, all 300 of us or so went for dinner in the school gym and were given a moving speech by Hafsat Abiola which concluded with a standing ovation. We were then entertained by a troupe of hard-of-hearing Chinese dancers who put on an amazing show (YouTube link to the same art troupe performing somewhere else).
Then, it was off to the hotel. After changing back into our casual wear, we had the pleasure of going to a Sichuan restaurant across the road from the hotel. The food was delightfully good but a bit spicy (…I actually cried after accidentally eating a very hot red pepper). Half of our school group went shopping at a nearby street market and the rest of us went back to the hotel and realized that we should have gone shopping instead. My roommate and I watched Superman, played FIFA and did nothing much else. At 1 AM we decided to go the bowling alley and I ended up losing badly (I was dead tired and I’m not good at bowling to start with). We then went back to our rooms and watched “Step Up”. I finally went to bed at something like 3:30 AM.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Our hotel room right before we left
This was actually the final day of the conference but the eight of us unfortunately missed out because our school had booked early Sunday flights which were not changeable. It was a somewhat nice change because we did not have to wake up at 6:30 (instead I woke up at a cool 9:30) and spent the morning packing. We left at around 10:30 and flew back to Hong Kong (3 hours or so). One of my friends had the wise idea of putting her laptop in her check-in suitcase and having neither arrive back in Hong Kong. I think she might get it back sometime…
Conclusion
All in all, I must say it was a great conference. So much happened it’s impossible for me to write it all out and I’m getting tired. We now have a lo of inspiration and ambition to help solve these global issues and we already in the process of involving the school in our bid to eradicate poverty, at least on a small scale in Hong Kong.
More
“How?” Presentation [.ppt] – Coming soon
GIN 2008 Conference Program [.pdf]
My photo set of the trip at Flickr
YouTube video of poverty by Shi Yi
Tags: beijing, china, earcos, earth's hope, gin, global issues network conference, high noon, wab, western academy of beijing
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Oferte turism Grecia in Perama cele mai avantajoase preturi de turism pe litoralul grecesc all inclusiv, o vacanta sau concediu in Grecia antica. Incearca ofertele de turism si descopera peisaje Grecia.