The Dhillon Marty Foundation (DMF), in partnership with CIDJ (Centre d’Information et de Documentation de la Jeunesse) and MOST (Management of Social Transformations) organized its seventh Annual Conference “State of the Community” in Paris from June 26th to the 29th, 2018. The 7th Annual Conference entitled #ShareYourHumanity brought together cultural institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations from around the world in various initiatives, to engage the public -especially the youth- in social practice art program and intellectual discourse on contemporary global issues.
INTRODUCTION
Technology benefits people. Lives get more productive. Things become cheaper and more accessible. Technology also allows someone in their 20s without a college degree to create an innovation and, in rare cases, become a billionaire. At the same time, people with traditionally steady jobs find themselves unemployed, replaced by that innovation. Nowadays, automation is not only hitting low skill jobs, but also middle class jobs. The fear of losing one’s livelihood can lead to a populism and the destabilization of democracy. It also raises questions concerning the basic goods and the opportunity that really allows people the chance to take advantage of those basic goods. This raises many other questions, such as:
What is the right balance? What is sustainable? Is a global justice possible between rich and poor countries? How to address fiscal inequalities at the national and international level? Is sustainable development enough for environmental and energy transitions? Is an environmental justice possible? How could it include animals and ecosystems? How to change or to have meaningful political institutions? What are the forms of democracy?
But while distributional inequity is crucial of the distribution of global and environmental justice, it is a necessary yet insufficient factor in that definition at the global scale. Among almost 8 billion human beings, almost 868 million are undernourished, 2000 million lack access to essential medicines, 783 million lack safe drinking water, 1600 million lack adequate shelter, 1600 million have no electricity, 2500 million lack adequate sanitation, 796 million adults are illiterate and 218 million children (aged 5 to 17) do wage work outside their household (Pogge, 2012). Globally, while all the wars and most important sanitary and economic crises of the last century, have caused around 200 million deaths, poverty, during an average 20 years period (1995-2015) was responsible for a total of 400 million deaths (Pogge, 2012).
With drastic and unstoppable changes underway, sustaining societies and democracies is becoming more difficult. Global and Environmental justice are concerned by many more issues and fiscal inequalities allow for the richest 1% to own half of the world’s wealth.There are no easy solutions: we cannot stop innovation and automation, but we cannot leave people stranded without hope. We have to work together, as a community of change makers, in order to find real sustainable solutions and ways of thinking our world that can create true justice. DMF hopes to promote critical thinking to help people reflect on ways to improve their own lives, in balance with collective needs. With that mindset, people can help themselves and their communities to strike a balance that can be sustained. Rights of human are not sustainable if we do not extend them to our collective rights and the right of the Earth.
CONTEXT
As reflected in its mission statement, “Seeding a socially and economically sustainable world”, DMF aims to educate and empower global citizens in achieving a sustainable balance between world peace and individual actualization. The Foundation promotes global citizen action focusing on Research, Education and Civic Engagement.
Such initiatives are conducted in partnership with institutions around the world, with particular focus on UNESCO programs and sectors. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) is one of the strategic priorities of UNESCO’s Education Programme (2014-2017) and the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) launched in September 2012. UNESCO’s MOST (Management of Social Transformations) and COMEST (World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology) will partner with us for the 2018 State of the Community Conference. The conference shares many of the same objectives with the following UN initiatives: Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet), Knowledge Society Division (KSD), Universal Access and Preservation (UAP), Diversity of Cultural Expression (DCE), etc.
OBJECTIVES
Create the portrait of our world today, and how we build a sustainable and just future for the earth and its inhabitants.
Build a network and intellectual exchange between diverse professionals and youths, in order to develop a collective vision on how to build policies and methods to nurture/educate the global citizen.
Construct a core discourse for the Foundation’s international, year-round programs in conjunction with our partner institutions and through our online initiatives.
Produce a publication to be released on the UN International Day of Democracy, Saturday, September 15, 2018. This publication will include writings from all the events conducted in June in partnership with DMF to build the discourse of civic values described in this concept note. The aim is not only to engage the public into a social movement, but to influence policies to advance a free and sustainable future.
Help people from all around the world to find innovative solutions that will help make lives better.
Be a true actor for gender, global and environmental justice.