"BY INVITATION ONLY" - January 2013...

     ...stands under the motto:


What's Wrong With the World?
and
What's Right With the World?


I would simply like to start 
with the way children now see our world.

Last year thousands of young photographers worldwide 
submitted their images to the youth photography contest, 
which aimed to raise awareness of environmental issues. 

Children aged 17 and under were encouraged to illustrate the themes of

 'I love nature' and 'I hate pollution'

Children's Eyes On Earth



"A testament to human activity"
by Maria Surzhenko, 17 years old, Ukraine




Nicolai Valdivieso-Sinyakov, 17 years old, United States




"I love Nature" 
by Isabella Barbaro, 11 years old, UK

"SOS!"
by 8 years old Anastasia Vorobko from Russia
(first prize 2012)




"La Manifestation"
Justine Althaus, 12 years old, France




"Emergency Exit"
Juan Carlos Canales, 14 years old, Spain



 
 Abrar Ahmed, 17 years old, Bangladesh




"Help"
Fariha Jahin, 16 years old, Bangladesh





Evgenija Konopleva, 14 years old, Ukraine



 
Bogdan Timoshenko, 11 years old, Ukraine




Esmeralda Edenberg, 15 years old, Sweden




"Carbon footprint"
by Sepehr Jashmidi Fard, 14 years old, Iran




Andrew Carroll, 15 years, Canada




Raghav Paul, 14 years old, India



 
"Nature's Best Little Helpers"
by Hannah King, 10 years old, US




Joe Grundy, 16 years old, Australia




Cecilia Judeikin, 11 years old, Uruguay

Nikita Hoshko, 7 years old, Ukraine

Enno Forchner, 14 years old, Germany 

*


Yuliya Gumirova, 15 years old, Russia




Abhilash Baishya, 16 years old, India




Rakshita Rana, 9 years old, India




Imran Farid, 16 years old, India




"Grain"
by Sazzid Ahmed, 17 years old, Bangladesh




"Morning at Situ Gunung"
by Michael Theodric, 10 years old, Indonesia




Mirai Sakano, 13 years old, Japan



"The Ibex of the Alps"
by Erik Hess, 16 years old, UK




Simonas Baronas, 12 years old, Lithuania




"Love and care"
Camille Segonne, 14 years old, Costa Rica




 Kristina Bychkova, 17 years old, Italy




Scott Hamilton, 15 years old, United Kingdom


***


1996
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Children collect rubbish from a huge dump outside the city to resell –
 the only way to raise money to feed their families.

and by 2012


not much has changed


"In The Dumps"
by Mary Ann Tablante, 16 years old, Philippines




Michael Theodric, 10 years old, Indonesia




"The Last Breath"
by Kseniya Saberzhanova, 17 years old, Russia



***
*****

My thoughts about 'What's Wrong':

IGNORANCE 

INTOLERANCE

and the worst evil:

GREED

Unspeakable greed and pursuit of profit,
leading to Poverty,


Unemployment


 
 Child labour

Most recent global estimate is that 215 million children under 14 years old
are involved in child labour worldwide,
with more than half this number involved in its worst forms.




 Children are engaged in agricultural labour, in mining, in manufacturing,
in domestic service, types of construction, scavenging and begging on the streets.
Others are trapped in forms of slavery in armed conflicts,
forced labour and debt bondage (to pay off debts incurred by parents and grandparents)
as well as in commercial sexual exploitation and illicit activities,
such as drug trafficking and organized begging and in many other forms of labour.

Child labour tends to be concentrated in the informal sector of the economy.
For some work, children receive no payment, only food and a place to sleep.
 Children in informal sector work receive no payment if they are injured or become ill,
and can seek no protection if they suffer violence or are maltreated by their employer.




 Many of these are “worst forms” of child labour as they are especially harmful,
morally reprehensible, and they violate the child’s freedom and human rights.



Ragpickers in Calcutta

***

Conflicts

Millions have died in resource-fuelled and ethnic wars since the late 1990's

War-torn communities are not just battle-scarred and traumatised
- they have lost breadwinners, crops, cattle, land, homes and businesses.
Their villages and main roads may be littered with landmines which take years to remove
and make it difficult to rebuild schools, hospitals and farm the land.

In recent decades, many of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa and Asia
have been fuelled by profits from the exploitation of natural resources,
including diamonds, timber and minerals.


Access to power and natural resources
Some countries have a "winner takes all" approach to government, 

and the control of wealth, power and natural resources is concentrated in the hands of a few.


Rainforests

 Earth's greatest biological treasures
are being destroyed because the value of rainforest land is perceived
as only the value of its timber by short-sighted governments,
multi-national logging companies, and land owners.



 Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; 
now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests 
could be consumed in less than 40 years.



When a hectare of primary rainforest is cleared and replaced with oil palms, 
this releases around 65 times as much carbon into the atmosphere 
as can be saved annually by using the palm oil as a biofuel. 

Pollution - Climate change

" ...The climate has changed, and the only remaining questions may well be:
a) how bad will things get, and b) how long will it be before we wake up to it.
The only sane people who don’t see this as a problem are those
whose profitability depends on the status quo, people of money and power
 ......who called the effects of climate change “manageable.”

Which I suppose they are, as long as you’re wealthy and able to move around at will.
But it’s not manageable to the corn farmers losing their crops (many are just chopping them down),
the ranchers selling off their cattle, the thousands of people in Colorado burned out of their homes in fires
caused by the worst drought since 1956 or those who will lose their homes or jobs to fire,
flood, drought or whatever in coming years. How will they “manage”?
from:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/the-endless-summer/?ref=kyotoprotocol

*

Access to land and water is likely to worsen with climate change.
 
Food and water shortages and migration because of climate change, 
as well as ethnic/religious conflicts and pursuit of profit,
will certainly increase the risk of war.

*

Now, being aware of all the "Wrongs"
it would be rather daunting not looking again
 at the world's bright side,
the still existing
"Rights"

like


 -1-

Tolerance

-2-

Friendship



-3-

Respect



 -4-

Trust



-5-

Kindness

-6-

Love and Care

***

People who are brave enough
 to stand up for what is right in difficult situations.

and

my big hope lies in our
Young and next generations

"Peaceful Co-existence"
by Darpan Basak, 9, India




"Fields of Green"
by Bianca Stan, 14 years old, Romania

by John Luckyly de Ocampo, 15 years old, Philippines

Hope 

Friendship

and 

JOY

A joyful gift from my "blog friend" Judith to start the New Year!
(Judith from Touch2Touch    here)


*
**
*

to see how each one of the "BIO-group" interpret

"What's Wrong With the World?
What's Right With the World?"



click   here

Photographs with thanks to:

"Children's Eyes On Earth"

http://childrenseyesonearth.org/contest/

"Peaceful coexistence of human and animals"

Images 1,2,3,4,5,6,

by Gregory Colbert

Photo work Ashes and Snow

http://www.ashesandsnow.org/