#PushYourPresident

You are reading the campaign format of #PushYourPresident written by the Dutch group Young & Sustainable from the Dutch National Youth Council (NJR). We believe our idea is worth spreading and we encourage you to get involved! Either it is by spreading our idea, or getting engaged yourself. We believe we can make a difference, together.

In the summer of 2012 the Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 will be held inRio De Janeiro. We believe that we, as young people, are the stakeholders of the future and therefore our interests must be safeguarded. Moreover, we do not only want our interests to be safeguarded,  we also want important decisions to be made inRio. This can only happen when decision makers are present. Therefore, we initiated the following campaign:

#PushYourPresident: A grassroot action initiated by young people from all over the world

How we started: #DusRuttenaarRio!

The Dutch Youth Representative Sustainable Development to the UN Liset Meddens initiated the campaign #DusRuttenaarRio. Bottom-up we want to show change: sustainable ideas, inspiration and action are embedded within our generation.

We created an online and offline campaign to motivate our president, as decision maker and representative of the people, by young people to be present atRio. We collect messages in the upcoming months which we will hand over to the premier at different moments. We ask young people to finish the sentence “#DusRuttenaarRio” – which means “SoRuttegoestoRio” (our premier is called Mark Rutte).  For instance:  Young people are the future, their interests should be safeguarded #DusRuttenaarRio!

Our online campaign is composed of a webpage where we show our activities, pictures and short movies of role models speaking out why our president should go toRio. Besides, we have a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube account which we also use to promote our campaign and collect messages.

In our offline campaign we collect postcards where youngsters can write down their message. Both the online and offline messages will be handed to our president. Our idea is that everyone can join; either you have social media or you don’t – our campaign starts small but hopefully  will spread fast throughout theNetherlands.

By the overwhelming reactions we received in theNetherlandsand by international youngster as well we decided to write down what we did and will hopefully thereby provide you with the tools  necessary so you can initiate your own #PushYourPresident campaign!

Goals!

#PushYourPresident services multiple goals:

Education: Knowledge is power! Creating awareness about theRio+20 conference by as many youngsters as possible. By this campaign young people know about the campaign and learn why it is important they get engaged in regard to their future.

Inspiration: Empowerment! Individually their voices me be small, but by showing their collective   impact is huge youngsters will feel empowered. Moreover, when the  president will go toRio it would     automatically mean sustainability as an agenda point will move up the national and international agenda.

Transformation: Change! Firstly  we want youngsters to motivate their premier to go toRio.      Thereby saying; it is our main goal that the premier is actually attending Rio and will represent the interests of  young people. We have different ideas about how the interests of youngsters can be represented; if you are interested how – feel free to  contact us!

How to reach so many youngster?

We need to admit, facebook, twitter and other social media accounts have there limitations. Not everyone is as active on social media as we are and most people our age certainly do not share our interest in sustainable issues – so how to reach them when you already exhausted your own youth network?

We came up with a few solutions:

Networks! We wrote in 2 pages  who we are, what we do and why we need the help of other organizations. By spreading and promoting our campaign in their networks they can be a huge assistance.  Count how many people you know, and how many they know, and experience how much people you can already reach!

Moreover, we discovered many organizations do want something withRio, but have absolutely no clue what to do. #PushYourPresident is easy, simple, requires only  a little time and is easy to step in. For this reason many organizations feel it is very appealing to join.

To physically meet young people we give guest lectures at high schools, colleges, and universities about climate change andRio+20. We advice you to make a short livid class;  by our experience that works best! We have our own lecture program so if you need any advice, just get in touch!

Lastly, we try to be present with a delegation at every climate/Rio+20/sustainable event aimed at young people possible to get in touch with other youngsters and tell them about our #PushYourPresident campaign.

Great all this information; but what now?

We feel Rio+20 can only become a success if as many decision makers as possible attend Rio and will, at Rio, safeguard young peoples interests. We cannot do this alone, but to reach this goal we need your help!

Start #PushYourPresident in your own country and thereby be the source of change which will make the difference in Rio! GO RIO+20!