Youths take on challenge to tackle global issues
More than 300 high school students from 40 schools across the globe gathered this week at the Western Academy of Beijing, one of the capital's leading international schools, to discuss how they can "change" the world by helping to solve global problems.
It is the first time an Asian country has hosted the Global Issues Network conference, which was set up in 2006 by teachers and students from six international schools in Europe. It aims to help students realize they can make a difference by empowering them to work with peers to develop solutions to global issues.
The idea for the conference came from the book High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them by Jean-Francois Rischard, former World Bank vice-president for Europe, which presents a series of challenges that can be solved only through global cooperation.
