The Basel Peace Office, Youth Fusion and the President’s Department of the Canton of Basel-Stadt are pleased to announce the finalists of the Basel PACEY Plus Award 2021, a prize honouring and supporting youth-led projects to advance peace, climate protection and disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament.
“Young people in Europe and around the world are standing up to demand policy progress on the climate crisis, nuclear abolition and ending war,’ says Prof (em) Andreas Nidecker MD, founder of the PACEY Award. ‘They clearly see the threats to current and future generations and are taking action.”
Two prizes of €5000 Euro each will be awarded on January 19 to exemplary youth projects or youth initiatives which advance effective policy action to cut carbon emissions, enhance the transition to renewable energies, address and resolve international conflicts, abolish nuclear weapons, reduce weapons budgets and investments, and/or support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. One of the awards is for a European youth project and the other award is for a global youth project or from outside of Europe.
“We received nominations of many inspiring youth projects and project proposals from around the world,’ says Ms Marzhan Nurzhan, Deputy-Director of the Basel Peace Office and Co-convenor of Youth Fusion. “The six finalists are just a sample of the quality and level of youth action on these important issues for humanity and the planet.”
The finalists for the Europe project are:
- Towards the enforcement of the right to peace, a project proposal from Platform for Peace and Humanity(Slovakia) to establish a Global Coalition of Youth Ambassadors for the Right to Peace, which would advocate in countries of the ambassadors as well as at the UN to strengthen the Right to Peace as a human and legal right.
- Enhance Peace, a project of Religions for Peace European Interfaith Youth Network to hold a series of online workshops for youth, women and religious leaders across Europe on peace, environmental peacebuilding, inter-religious dialogue, intergenerational dialogue and the UN Sustainable Development Goals;
- Mock parliamentary resolutions on nuclear disarmament, a project of Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaireand "Le Parlement des Etudiants" to bring together youth from all over France to represent different political parties, and act out the legislative process of passing a law encouraging nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation at the French parliament.
The finalists for the Beyond Europe/global project are:
- World's Youth for Climate Justice, a youth-led campaign to achieve an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations to reduce carbon emissions to protect future generations.
- Keep it in the Ground for Peace, a project of Youth for Environment and Sustainable Development advocating to keep fossil fuels in the ground to help reduce carbon emissions and to prevent fossil/fuel based conflicts.
- Nagasaki Youth Delegation, a nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament training program for youth from Nagasaki, one of the two Japanese cities attacked with nuclear bombs in 1945. The program includes selected members travelling to observe meetings of States Parties to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and participate in related international civil society events.
The six projects will be presented to an Intergenerational forum on peace, the climate, nuclear disarmament and the pandemic which is being held as a virtual (online) event on January 19 in conjunction with the Basel Peace Forum 2021. The Intergenerational Forum will facilitate dialogue between youth activists, legislators (parliamentarians and city officials), academics/experts and UN officials to build cooperation on the issues. Participants in the intergenerational forum will also vote to decide the two winners of the PACEY Award.
“The COVID pandemic has reaffirmed that in different perspectives nuclear weapons and armed conflict are detrimental to public health, meeting human security needs and securing a sustainable future,” says Mr Lukas Ott, Head of Cantonal and City Development Unit in the President’s Department of the Basel-Stadt Canton. “City leaders, parliamentarians and governments need to engage with youth in order to ensure the development and implementation of effective policies at local, national and international levels.”
Further information:
The Basel PACEY Award is made possible by the support of the President’s Office of the Basel-Stadt Kanton and the personal support of Prof. Andreas Nidecker, MD, President of the Basel Peace Office.
The Intergenerational forum on peace, the climate, nuclear disarmament and the pandemic is organised by the Basel Peace Office, Youth Fusion and the Office of Cantonal and Urban Development, Department of Presidential Affairs, Canton of Basel-Stadt, Switzerland. Click here to register. For more information please contact info@baselpeaceoffice.org