Global Changemakers

By Thom Woodroofe

Thanks to the help of the international date line, September 12th was the day most of the world woke up to the tragedy of 9/11. It was the start of a violent awakening to the forces of interdependence that define us today. These days September 12th is recognised as Global Interdependence Day.

For me – a young 12-year old in country Australia at the time – the day was so much more defining than I could have possibly fathomed at the time. It came to represent a turning point from which the major events that defined the news cycle of my adolesence would form. The invasion of Afghanistan, the Bali Bombings, followed by the invasion of Iraq, more bombings in London, and so on. You get the point…

In more recent times though the world has shifted from viewing its interdependence through a prism of traditional security to a much more complex paradigm. These days the world is rudely awakened every day to the forces of interedpendence through not only security but the environment, crime, techonology, markets, trade, religion, communications and health. Underscoring this is the range of aptly named challenges confronting the world from a Global Financial Crisis, to Global Warming and the H1N1 Global Pandemic!

The GFC has shown how powerfully interdependent the world can be. Waiting in line at a bank in California today an older middle-class couple stood in front me of with a huge jar of change collected over many years like a small child would eager to buy a new toy. Never had they had the need to bank loose change to help make ends meet they told me. Here in California the GFC isn’t a fancy acronym on the nightly news but a painful reality. Schools can’t afford toilet paper and everywhere people are losing jobs and houses are foreclosing. Even in Africa, far removed from Wall Street, the GFC is having a massive impact and will shrink access to credit markets needed for the kind of development and stimulus we are seeing in the Western world’s response.

Last week I had the priviledge of participating in Demos’ Global Interdependence Day Forum in Istanbul which brought together politicans, civil society, academics, religious leaders and young people to discuss the forces that bind us together and the challenges they give birth to.

Delivering the report on behalf of the youth delegation I set down four key challenges for the forum going forward. 1 – For it to truly embrace young people as the interdependent generation by incorporating them more formally into the final program and providing them with a network to continue their advocacy throughout the year. 2 – To truly reflect the interdependent nature of the world by increasing participation from Africa and South America and better harnessing Web 2.0 to create an open source forum streamed online. 3 – To act in a manner consistent with an interdependent world by making future forums entirely carbon neutral. And 4 – To build the movement into one driven by action back home in local communities.

But what the week showed was that no matter where you live in the world, interdependence will hunt you down. Whether you are in the slums of Nairobi or the lights of Manhattan. As we heard last week, the old reality was independence; the new reality is interdependence.

(See the galleries for photos of Thom and Co. at Interdependence Day in Istanbul.)

Thom Woodroofe, 20, is a British Council Global Changemaker from Australia currently studying in the United States of America. He is the founder of Left Right Think-Tank and the 2009 Young Victorian of the Year. Email thom@leftright.org.au.