Reverse the Trend:Save Our People, Save Our Planet

Dear Friends,

We would like to thank you for supporting our youth activists. We have just returned from Vienna, Austria, where we convened a series of side events on the significance of nuclear justice. Specifically, we convened side events on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and youth empowerment through the creative arts.

On 2 August 2023, the Republics of Kiribati, Kazakhstan, and the Marshall Islands, as well as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Reverse The Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet, and the Marshallese Educational Initiative held a side event at NPT PrepCom entitled “The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.” The speakers were the Permanent Representative of Kiribati; Counsellor to the Mission of Kazakhstan; Executive Director of the Marshallese Educational Initiative and RTT Advisor;  President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; and  Professor of Peace and International Development at the University of Bradford. 

On 3 August 2023, the Republics of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands as well as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Reverse The Trend (RTT), Marshallese Educational Initiative, and Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace hosted a side event entitled “Youth Empowerment through the Creative Arts.” The speakers were the Permanent Representative of Kiribati; Executive Director of the Marshallese Educational Initiative and RTT Advisor;  Program Manager for the Marshallese Educational Initiative; Youth Ambassador for the Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace, and RTT Canada’s Youth Coordinator. 

We also co-sponsored "In Discussion with Global Youth: Inheriting the Experience of the Hibakusha," with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Soka Gakkai International, Youth for the TPNW, and Nyuklia Eureka. 

In addition to our side events, we engaged in bilateral meetings with various delegations, including Algeria, Austria, France, Ireland, Mexico, and the United States. At these meetings, we discussed the imperative need for a world free of nuclear weapons, nuclear justice, and the significance of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

We also convened a significant exhibit with the Republics of Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan, NAPF, RTT and the Marshallese Educational Initiative. The exhibit featured a series of powerful paintings by Marshallese youth on their perspectives about the legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. We would like to thank our strong partner, the Marshallese Educational Initiative for encouraging Marshallese youth to create these paintings and facilitating a series of creative arts events.

Building upon our strong views about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, two youth delegates delivered the international youth statement. The statement called for states parties to take the following actions:

1. Fulfill the legal obligation of nuclear disarmament bound by Article 6 of the NPT, by taking concrete actions to reduce the current highest risk of nuclear weapons use;
2. Promote the discussion with regard to the complementarity between the NPT and TPNW in national governments to further the obligation of nuclear disarmament;
3. Recognize the humanitarian impacts and environmental harms caused by nuclear weapons;
4. Provide resources and tangible support for communities affected by nuclear weapons activities;
5. Foster an environment in which discussions about nuclear disarmament involve youth from all regions, reducing nuclear-weapon states’ ability to control the narrative, encouraging global participation in the total elimination of nuclear weapons;
6. Ensure the participation of youth in all the decision-making processes to reflect youth voices in nuclear policies of the states parties;
7. Reduce military spending on nuclear arms and development and reallocate the resources to other means like peacebuilding;
8. Relate with the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) to strengthen the idea of peace and disarmament from the youth angle.

We are now moving towards both the UN General Assembly and the 2nd Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We are planning a series of events and would appreciate your assistance. We will share more in our next report. 

Links:

• Our Activities at the 2023 NPT PrepCom
• International Youth Statement
• Video from The Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Event