Three weeks of Seal the Deal! events on Orissa, India
Orissa 17 November – 5 December. In just three weeks, the Centre of the
Environment and Public Policy (CEPP), a UN campaign partner, organized eight
Seal the Deal! events in Orissa,
India. Let’s
have a look into their busy calendar of the past weeks:
17/11/2009: On the
occasion of the release of the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World Report
2009, 70 participants signed the Climate Petition including a group of young
creative arts students.
19/11/2009: School students (Standard VII and VIII) of the SAI International School, Bhubaneswar participated in the campaign. ‘The Final Tide’, a short documentary produced under the United Kingdom Environment Film Fellowship (2009) was screened to initiate further awareness among the students about sea level rise and its impacts on lives and livelihoods in many parts of the globe. Concepts of ‘handprint’ as positive actions to reduce our carbon food prints were discussed.
20/11/2009: Around 80 to 90 students gathered as part of the Regional Science Meet of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas at the Regional Museum of Natural History (RMNH) at Bhubaneswar. An UKEFF documentary ‘The Changemakers’ and an UKEFF documentary was screened along with a ‘Snake Show’ to make the students understand and appreciate the role of non-polluting and green sources of energy for our day to day requirements.
20/11/2009: The KIIT
School of Rural Management (KSRM) commemorated its third foundation day and Dr.
Robert S. Ziegler, Director General of the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI), Philippines
delivered the foundation day lecture on ‘Food Security in a Changing World’.
Students and participants signed the climate petition and discussed about the emerging challenges
of food security amidst climate changes and declining productivity.
02/12/2009: At the School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, students and faculties gathered to discuss the changing patterns of vector-borne diseases due to changes in weather patterns and seasonal cycles. ‘India’s Rising Fever’, an UKEFF documentary on climate change’s impact on malaria was screened followed by a discussion led by Prof. Peter Leuthy, a visiting professor from ETH Zurich, who previously worked with the WHO on malaria programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Around 42 members signed the climate petition.
04/12/2009: At the Department of Geography, Utkal University (Bhubaneswar) around 100 students and faculty members come together as part of the Seal the Deal! Programme. ‘Climate’s First Orphans’, an UKEFF (2005) documentary that was filmed in the disaster affected regions of Kendrapara in Orissa was screened followed by a panel discussion on ‘Climate Change and Human Development’. The primary focus was to highlight the uncertainties and complexities associated with climate change and the urgency to take a decisive action on this.
05/12/2009: On the
occasion of International Volunteer Day 2009 themed on ‘Volunteering for Our
Planet’, a team of young volunteers was flagged off for the Seal the Deal! Campaign
by Mrs. Neelam Shah, Director, Swapna Motors Pvt. Ltd. Swapna Motors Pvt. Ltd.
has been supporting this campaign by providing the campaign team with two
vehicles to move around and visit different places. Subsequently the team
joined a group of around 500 young volunteers who gathered as part of
International Volunteer Day celebrations and campaigned among them about the
Seal the Deal!
05/12/2009: At Pal Heights, one of the popular and busy shopping malls in Bhubaneswar, volunteers campaigned among the customers and visitors. Many came forward to listen to and participate in the Seal the Deal! Campaign and signed the climate petition as well. The entire series (4 nos) of the UKEFF 2009 was simultaneously screened to generate more public interest about and participate in climate change actions. Through this a systematic and informed public engagement in climate change issues could be supported for concerted actions at various levels in society.
