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In 2005 UNESCO declared a decade of “Education for Sustainable Development”, running until the year 2014, with a goal to establishing education for young and old in which sustainability and the future of mankind on earth plays a central role. As the end of March this year marks the half-way point of this decade dedicated to education, representatives from every state will come together at the UNESCO World Conference in Bonn in Germany to discuss what was achieved and not achieved, as well as how to proceed in the future.

To ensure that young people do not miss out on the big decisions that are made, the international youth future forum “Vision-Values-Action” was held in Bad Honnef. Many different organisations made the conference possible, such as the Catholic Social Institute (KSI), the Bundeszentrale Politische Bildung (Centre for Political Education, BPB) the Earth Charter, the Ecumenical Initiative One World (Germany), and of course the World Future Council. More than 140 young people aged from 18 to 28 came together for three exciting days to actively influence the World Conference and therefore also their own future. The declarations made at the end of the future forum were clear, something which was reflected in calls that said “WE CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER! WE MUST ACT NOW!”

Three Councilors from the World Future Council participated in the conference and shared their expertise. Aside from their participation in the various talks, on Saturday morning a discussion panel was held where they told their personal stories and explained why it is worthwhile standing up for our future, as well as why they have done so for many years. The three Councilors Dr. Rama Mani (Sri Lanka), Prof. Hans-Peter Dürr (Germany), and Prof. Manfred Max-Neef (Chile) also mingled with the young people and had exciting discussions with the participants until late in the night. Aside from the Councilors, Campaign Manager at the WFC, Maja Göpel, an expert in the area of future justice, was there with help and advice for all the participants. Furthermore the exhibition of flags, the “Corridor of Hope”, showed all participants at the future forum in a very clear way that there are many more kids and young people out there who are working towards a sustainable future and stand up for what they believe in.

The calls of the young people have been noted and they really are impressive. At the end of March they will be delivered officially to UNESCO. Aside from the calls for change, a film-team also created a short documentary on the conference in English, which will be shown at the World Conference. You can watch it on the World Future Council webpage http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/recent_events.html. You can watch more pictures of the conference at the webpage of the KSI (http://tagen.erzbistum-koeln.de/ksi/) as well as of the BPB (http://www.bpb.de/).