Spectateur du Monde

After travelling for almost 17 hours, loosing Peter on the way and not having much sleep, we arrived to Lindersvold, Denmark, where the Development Conference was going to take place. It was around 8 o’clock and we were tired, but we had a nice meal waiting for us. We chat for a while and, as time was running, we decided to go to bed because we had to wake up early next day.
On Saturday all the schools from Denmark and DRH Norway had breakfast together. I had the opportunity to talk with some of the people with whom I spend 4 months in England, doing GAIA. It was good to see them again! After a while we all went to the conference room. Tina Whittington, the headmaster from Holsted, introduced us to this year’s theme “Necessities facing solidary humanists in the 21st century”.
After that we were organised in groups to discuss the changes we need to promote in the world. I was the team leader of the Mozambique group and I was quite surprised because they were very pro-active. So, we concluded that everyone should have access to food and clean water, education, medication and the same rights as human beings.
In the afternoon, it was time to hear presentations from the different groups about the most important issues in the world. For example, our school had the theme “Peace and Security” and we gave the example of Angola.
After dinner, we had a guest speaker. His name is Jan Oberg, from the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, and he talked about “The challenges and possibilities facing the world and its people in the 21st century”. He spoke about the USA foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq, despite the opposition of the United Nations. That is why he thinks that USA empire is ending as it as the conditions mentioned by the economic historian Arnold Toynbee for civilizations to fall.
On Sunday we started the day talking about Humana People to People, its charter and its projects. After that we discussed in the groups the most important qualities a DI should have (patient, persistent, hard working, flexible, solution finder and so on). In the end of the morning it was time to talk about HIV (facts and figures) and the TCE (Total Control of Epidemic). For that we had two guests that visited the project in Zimbabwe.
After lunch we talked about how a DI can take part in the fight against HIV and then it was time to prepare our TCE Action that it was going to take place on Monday. In the case of my group, we did posters, prepared a couple of songs and also a short play.
In the evening it was time to relax. So, we all gathered in the dining room to drink coffee/tea and sing.
On Monday morning each group went to a different city. The goal was to collect 60000 kronas, more or less, but it was raining a lot and many people didn’t stop. After dinner the results were announced. We reached half the goal, but if we think that 1 dollar is enough for a person to have access to this program for a year, then it is quite ok.
The Development Conference finished and it was time to say goodbye. However, it took us almost 24 hours to arrive to our school, due to a small incident (our bus lost two wheels on the way to Copenhagen) and also because we waited seven hours in Oslo.
In the end, I think that the highlight of this conference was the speech from Jan Oberg that was able to catch everyone’s attention and made us think more widely. Besides that, I was happy to see some of my friends and to know how everything is going on. Who knows when am I going to be with them again? The future is a question mark for all of us, so it is good to be able to enjoy some time with the ones that shared with us moments of joy and also frustration during this program.