International Children’s Summit Gives Young People a Global Insight

“You know how grown-ups fight all over the world in wars? Well, if us kids can get along, they should be able to get along.”

Jamar Andrews, a 14-year-old South-Central ninth-grader, speaks from a new global viewpoint. He and two of his history classmates, Lami Glenn and Juan Galvez, then eighth-graders at Bret Harte Preparatory Intermediate School, were among 13 North American students who took an eye-opening trip to Paris in June of last year. They met with more than 600 other children from 40 countries, sharing ideas and discovering common ground.

The event was the “1997 International Children’s Summit,” an annual noncommercial goodwill event presented by Disney Magazines in Europe, in cooperation with UNESCO, the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The trio had won a spot in the U.S. delegation with their entry in the “1997 U.S. Children’s Summit Contest,” in which young people were asked to create a visual or written image of their “ideal school.”

Applications for this year’s competition, with the theme “Growing Up,” are due Feb. 16.

To win last year, Glenn, 14, said, “We basically came up with an idea for a school where people are treated equal, as the Constitution has guaranteed us.” In addition to Glenn’s historic view, Andrews wrote that no matter what people look like on the outside, they’re the same inside, while Galvez cited Martin Luther King’s messages of nonviolence and equality. Their impassioned “Declaration of Unity” was one of six winners among 7,000 submissions.

This year’s children’s summit competition is open to ages 7 to 14, working in teams of two to design a project to help their community “grow up” to be the best it can be.

The projects can be inspired by the summit’s sub-themes: education, nutrition, sports, relationships and children’s rights.

Entries must be postmarked by Feb. 16; five winning teams, 10 children in all, will be announced April 6. Winners will represent the United States at the 1998 Children’s Summit at Disneyland Paris May 4 to 8. They will share their projects, attend workshops, visit UNESCO headquarters and create a 20-year time capsule with objects from each country.

“We underestimate the intelligence and intuition of young people,” said Elana Rosen, executive director of the Just Think Foundation. The nonprofit organization, dedicated to promoting media literacy and critical thinking skills, presents the U.S. arm of the summit competition in partnership with Disney Adventures Magazine. This year, the national Points of Light Foundation is also involved.

“We are one planet, yet there are not that many things that knit us all together, other than movies and rock stars,” said Chuck Champlin, director of communications for Disney Consumer Products and the motivating force behind U.S. participation in the summit.

Champlin noted that Disney’s involvement, though considerable, has been deliberately low-profile.”[What’s] important to us is the UNESCO sponsorship and its mandate to increase tolerance around the world,” he said.

For Glenn, Andrews and Galvez, the experience was profound. “I thought the world was a bad place,” said Galvez. “But seeing all those kids, they made me change my way of thinking.”

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* Deadline: Feb. 16. Information and entry forms: (800) 728-0430; December issue of Disney Adventures magazine; and at www.just-think.org/form98.html