[Dialogue] 2020 summit in Canberra

[marykdsouza at gmail.com]

Thank you.  Very heartening.
Mary
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanette Stanfield <rbstanfi at bigpond.net.au>

Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:36:09 
To:Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Subject: [Dialogue] 2020 summit in Canberra


Dear Colleagues, 
 I am most fascinated with the event happening in Canberra this weekend.
 It is the culmination of several months of community forums if you like all around Australia.  
 Shortly after the new Rudd government was elected, they announced a major ideas summit 
 on 10  key policy arenas including climate change, health, rural industries, economic growth, education , indigenous Communities, families, democratic reforms etc. toward 2020.   
 
 A youth summit was held last weekend in Canberra.  100 youth from very diverse backgrounds were chosen to attend.  Before that 500 schools across the country had submitted their ideas.  10 big ideas
 from that summit are now being taken by 10 youth delegates to this weekend.  Young people also went away from event excited about what they could begin acting on in their own communities and networks. 
 
 Now this week a 1000 volunteers chosen from across Australian society are meeting in the 10 major
 arenas to come up with key ideas and directions for the future.  The co-chairs for each group include 
 a respected person in that field plus a cabinet minister charged with responsibility in the policy arena.  
 
 The opening was on tv this morning.  It began with a welcome to country by an Aboriginal elder.
 She reminded those who haven’t always had a voice- that their ideas were just what were needed at
 this time- including women.  The second person who spoke was a young woman who is from a 
 Multi-racial family- one indigenous parent , the other a European Aussie.  Her word was that the story of being Australian has to become larger.  It has to include all the peoples of this great place if a new perspective and future can be created. 
 
 A young man whose family originally came from India to live in Australia spoke of the trends that  
 we are facing. “We are now in a time of globalization- a state of mind where we are fascinated by creating communities of debate and dialogue across the planet.  His most addressing point was that the west no longer dominates the world.  Its model of society in not sustainable for all the peoples of this planet.  India and China are coming into their own.  It is a time when we need to seek new answers.  All certainties are gone.  What is needed is ingenuity and creativity as we face the future.   We can have poisonous debates which are just quarrels about the past and present and endanger the future or we can focus on the challenges for the future.” 
 
 Tomorrow we will begin to hear about some of the big ideas that are beginning to emerge.  Whatever happens, you sense that people in Australia are waking up from a time of cynicism and helplessness 
 to a sense that yes we just might be able to meet the major challenges of our time and be a part of the
 democratic process for change.  As Hawkins says in Blessed Unrest, we are in a time of moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by community (across time and space).  Perhaps the 2020 summit is participating in creating that new world. 
 
 Cheers from down under.  It is an exciting time to be living here. 
 
 Jeanette Stanfield
 
 
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