POP Festival 2021 Workshops

The POP Festival 2021 will feature a range of capacity building workshops in the course of 6 days. Covering themes of meditation, carbon footprints, artificial intelligence, addressing plastic pollution, protecting marine environment, impact investment, and so on, each of these workshops will last between 60 and 120 minutes and will equip one in leading grassroots initiatives.

GET OFF THE BENCH WORKSHOP

(120 minutes) 

Do you have an idea that would help make the world a better place? This workshop is designed to help you take that great idea out of your head, onto paper and into action. You will be guided through a process that helps you identify and understand your personal driving force, and also what might be stopping you from taking action.

  • Have a manageable breakdown of your project
  • Identify the thing that drives you
  • Identify an easy first step
  • Leave believing that you CAN

Day/Time: June 5, 2021 - 1:00 EST/ 5:00 GMT/ 15:00 Melbourne Time/ 10.30 AM IST

Organized by: Kerryn Vaughan, Get Off the Bench, Australia

PLASTICS AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

A theoretical masterclass about plastics, circular economy myth busting and how plastics could play a role in this transition.

  • Knowledge transfer
  • Getting to know local realities and talk about them with participants
  • Inspire people to generate change and speak up about what they need (definition of barriers and opportunities)

Day/Time: June 5, 2021 –14:30 CST/ 15:30 Chile

Organized by: Mark Minneboo, Regional Director, Plastic Oceans, Latin America

BLUE CIRCLE AND BLUE CLUB WORKSHOP

(60 minutes)

The Blue Circle forum aims to bring young people from around the globe on the same ‘virtual’ table to discuss and brainstorm key actions, solutions and policies that can be implemented as a response to tackle the global plastic and ocean crisis.

This year the workshop will focus on the theme of ‘Incorporating ocean literacy as a part of school learning.’ Through the workshop the participants and Blue Circle Youth leaders will work closely together to create strategies for programs/clubs that can be incorporated within schools to advance ocean awareness and literacy.

Our proposed outcome is to have participants register their schools with the Ervis Foundation, so that we can work together to launch the programs/clubs within their schools.

Day/Time: June 6, 2021 - 5:00 AM EST/ 9:00 AM GMT

Organized by: Priyanka Prakash, Program Director, Ervis Foundation

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CLIMATE ACTION

(90 minutes)

For climate advocates with a passion for technology, this workshop will explore the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning to promote climate resilience and advocacy. 

Day/Time: June 6, 2021 - 11:00 AM EST/ 15:00 GMT/ 10:00 AM CST/ 20:30 IST

Organized by: Om Desai, Siddhant Desai, and Ansh Patel, USA

HACK YOURSELF: THE ATTENTION ECONOMY AND YOUR MIND-BODY CONVERSATION

(120 minutes)

An interactive session exploring practical tools for being aware of your mind-body conversation...cultivating curiosity, exploration, imagination, intention, and how this relates to the attention economy. This is especially useful to young people today as we deal with a high demand for our attention through social media, news, school, family and many multiple tasks and stress due to the pandemic.

  • Become aware of the value of your own attention
  • Acquire practical tools to bring your attention to awareness and awareness into wholeness 

Day/Time: June 6, 2021 - 14:30 EST/ 18:30 GMT

Organized by: Dr. Patricia Klauer, Entrepreneur and Data Strategy Consultant, Information Technology Adviser, Entrepreneur, Future Capital, Mexico

DOING PROFITABLE BUSINESS WITH IMPACT

(90 minutes)

The workshop is about how to be a successful entrepreneur, or grow your existing business or incorporate sustainability and impact into it. We will go through not only on how to convert your ideas in reality but also how to get it funded.

  • At the end of the workshop, everyone will know how to create a successful and meaningful business, solving environmental and social issues while generating high returns.

Day/Time: June 7, 2021 - 12:00 AM EST/ 4:00 AM GMT/ 9:30 AM IST

Organized by: Ben Banerjee and Svetlana Banerjee

EDUCATION ON CLIMATE POLICY TO ACHIEVE CLIMATE ACTION

(60 minutes)

EDUCATION IS THE ONLY ANSWER TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE

The reason we are here in this global climate crisis is because of our collective action that came from a place of ignorance and so in order to reverse the crisis we need positive collective action that comes from a place of awareness. Understanding climate policy is important because climate change affects all of us and we cannot entrust our wellbeing and future only into the hands of a few and expect change. We have to get involved as much as possible.

  • Understand where climate policy is today/ country specific targets
  • How individuals can contribute towards influencing climate policy at local level
  • Why climate policy themes should be taught in all B-schools

Day/Time: June 7, 2021 - 03:00 AM EST/ 7:00 AM GMT/ 12:30 AM IST

Organized by: Carbon Initiative Forum

COLLAPSING MARINE BIODIVERSITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BLUE ECONOMY

(120 minutes)

This workshop aims to highlight the many ways in which accelerating climate change, overexploitation and mismanagement, and ever-growing marine pollution are transforming the marine biodiversity across the world’s ocean basins.  The workshop will discuss the wide-ranging adverse impacts of the ongoing changes in the marine food-web on the Blue Economy of nations around the world, and how the young people can affect change and contribute towards building a sustainable Blue Economy that protects and preserves our planet’s incredibly rich ocean biodiversity.  

By the end of the workshop the attendees would have learnt: 

  • The multitude of ways in which climate change and other human interventions are changing the distribution of marine species in the world’s ocean basins and the socio-economic consequences of this redistribution. 
  • The opportunities and mechanisms through which they can contribute towards mitigating the human-caused stressors and conserving the rich ocean biodiversity.

Day/Time: June 7, 2021 – 7:00 AM EST/ 16:30 IST

Organized by: National Maritime Foundation, India

USING THE LAW TO FIX THE CLIMATE

(60 minutes) 

Led by expert environmental barrister William Wilson, this session will look at how laws are made, how they are enforced, and what you can do to use them to fix the climate.

This session aims to inform, engage and inspire young people, and will leave them knowing more about 

  • Making Laws to Fix the Climate 
  • Enforcing Laws to Fix the Climate

Day/Time: June 8, 2021 – 5:30 AM EST/ 15:00 IST

Organized by: COP26 and Beyond

Interactive Workshop with Indigenous Youth in Venezuelan Amazonia

(120 minutes)

Faced with the serious and extraordinary social and environmental pressures that currently fall on the Venezuelan Amazon, indigenous peoples experience an aggressive violation of their social and territorial rights. Fundamentally, these pressures are being generated by illegal miners, irregular armed groups (FARC and ELN) and an irrational extractive and assimilationist policy on the part of the State.

Faced with this adverse outlook for indigenous peoples and their territories, it is very necessary to generate spaces for discussion, defense and activism for their specific rights, as well as generating alternatives for healthy development based on the material and cultural resources they have. In this context, the Research Group on the Amazon (GRIAM), has proposed to hold an initial meeting with indigenous youth from the north, south, and southeast of Puerto Ayacucho - Amazonas, in order to generate a healthy discussion on the different community problems, already Starting from this, generating development alternatives to face these social and environmental effects.

Within the framework of these discussions, the idea is to form the "Movement of Young Indigenous Defenders of the Amazon", which will have as its fundamental objective the permanent discussion of the issues that affect them, activism in the defense and claim of their rights, and very especially, the generation of alternatives for community social development. 

Day/Time: June 7, 2021 - 12:00 PM CDT

Organized by: Luis Betancourt and POP Movement

CLIMATE ADVOCACY TRAINING

(60 minutes)

The Triangle Youth Group from Citizens Climate Lobby will train participants on how to advocate for climate policies. 

Day/Time: June 7, 2021 –17:00 EST

Organized by: James LI, Sydney Manson, Jordyn Brown, CCL Triangle Youth Action Team Co-Leader, Citizens’ Climate Lobby

MINDFUL ZEN AND YOGA WORKSHOP FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND PEACE

(80 minutes)

This workshop focuses on building mental health and finding peace within ourselves. It involves a 15-minute lecture on yoga and mindfulness, 20-minute yoga practice, 5-minute relaxation, 40-minute Zazen practice, and 10-minute Q&A.

  • Learn how to build inner peace and how to take care of yourself mentally and physically through yoga and zazen practice.
  • Experience how to apply the learned knowledge in practice and gain it for yourself as a living skill. 

Day/Time: June 10 - 5:00 AM EST/ 6:00 PM JAPAN/ 14:30 PM IST

Organized by: Ms. Midori Kawano, Yogamarakata; Soin Fujio, Japanese Rinzai Zen priest

IMPACT INVESTMENT: MAKING USE OF FINANCE TO CHANGE THE WORLD 

 (90 minutes)

Learn what is Impact Investment, its players and the role it plays in our daily life. Understand the difference between sustainable and impact investment, learn about its implementation in all sectors, including its unique characteristics and practical examples. Understand the reasons why the Youth should be well aware of this amazing and explosively growing sector.

  • At the end of the workshop, everyone is clear of what Impact investment means 
  • Why it is necessary for all to adopt it in their future profession and lifestyle.

Day/Time: June 10, 2021 - 8:00 AM EST/ 17:30 PM IST

Organized by: Ben and Svetlana