MAKING OUR WORLD A BETTER PLACE CAN BE ACHIEVABLE. what change are you bringing in your community?

MAKING OUR WORLD A BETTER PLACE CAN BE ACHIEVABLE.

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The idea of changing the world can be daunting. It is not only easy but understandable to think, I'm only one person; what can I really do? However, if every person thinks that, nothing will get done. But if everyone did just one thing to make the world a better place today, billions of acts of kindness, social responsibility and generosity would take place and wouldn't that alone change the face of this planet?

The world is an awfully big place and there are accordingly a huge number of things that you can do to make it an even more incredible place to live. But sometimes having so many options can be overwhelming and there may be ways that you can help that you never thought about before.

I said to myself " I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and just because I cannot do anything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. But I told myself I can do something good. Then, I thought of so many things like volunteering with a local organizations before moving on to international organizations which is a great way to improve the world around me. I'll be able to do the most direct good and see the impact on the people that I have helped . If I have a practical skill or can learn one,  using that skill will offer the most good (skills like promoting peace with people affected by conflicts and violence or leadership trainings are good examples).

There are so many ways through which youths can engage themselves. Looking at it, I can Tutor disadvantaged kids, work at international organizations(related to promoting peace and love, sustainable development goals) as a volunteer.

Also I can reduce my impact which is another way I can really make the world a better place. To reduce the negative impact I have on the world around me. Being good stewards of the world has a significant and positive impact on my environment and helps me to preserve the planet for the next generation.

I can be consistent about recycling. Reduce the waste I produce and compost. Conserve water and grow some of my own food.

 I notice how my happiness and well-being are interconnected with other people and the natural environment. Learn how I can leave a legacy of sustainable happiness.

I can be civically engaged. I exercise my right to vote. Bad politicians and policies can have an incredibly negative impact on our community and our environment. By not voting and letting our voice be heard, you are allowing opportunity for bad policy to rule. Be engaged in your city, states, and country by voting and talking with the politicians you support, as well as educating others on important issues.

Another way of making an impact is that I have to take  pride in where I live. Take care of and take pride in the area where you live. This preserves the area not just for you but for everyone else in your community. If you have the opportunity to help, take it because not everyone will have the chance. You should also find ways to improve the environment where you live.

I can be nice. A lot of the time I can get so caught up in working to improve the globe as a whole that I forgot that there are lots of things that I can do every day at home that will have a positive impact too. One of the best things I can do easily and every day is to treat others how I want to be treated. I can buy something nice for someone as often as I can. This can be small things like making someone a birthday present, or big things like driving someone around until they get their car fixed, and doing a portrait of them as sign of friendship (like I do always). When we work together, everything runs more smoothly and we're better able to further invest those gains in benefiting the rest of the globe.

I believe strongly that our motivated, enthusiastic youths  are born to win, they are born to reign in their lives because they are no ordinary youths. The youths are destined for greatness because

EVERY POSITIVE CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU! All thanks to United Nations Youth Association Network (UNYANET) and also AYAP for this understanding.

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IPMAN leadership crisis

kerosine queue www.irehlivenews.blogspot.com

The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has fixed September 22, 2016 to hear the appeal filed by Chief Lawson Obasi, challenging the judgment of an FCT High Court that restrained him from parading himself as President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigerian, IPMAN,
Justice Valentine Ashi of the FCT High Court had about two years ago entered judgment in favour of Dr. Chinedu Okoronkwo, as National President of the association.
Justice Ashi in the said judgment restrained Lawson from parading himself as IPMAN President.
The plaintiff, Chinedu Okoronkwo, had in a suit number FCT/HC/4141/2014, urged the court to restrain Lawson from the act.
Meanwhile, Okoronkwo -led leadership of IPMAN has asked the Court of Appeal to strike out the appeal for lack of diligent prosecution.
The appellate court has already fixed September 22, 2016 to commence hearing in the appeal after awarding N20, 000 cost against the appellant for filling his proceeds out of time, in favour of Okoronkwo.
It will be recalled that IPMAN has been going through leadership tussle over which factional national president should be recognised.
As a result of the crisis, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, sometime ago shut down NIPCO, a subsidiary of IPMAN, leading to total paralysis of commercial activities and threatening distribution of petroleum products across the country.
The crisis reached a crescendo two weeks ago following the decision of a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which declared Chief Obasi Lawson as national president of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN.
The litigations occasioned by the serial crises in the petroleum marketers union initially started in 1999 when the Alhaji Felande-led faction seconded by Obasi Lawson and Aminu Adulkadir engaged themselves in a succession battle over who takes over from Engineer Runsewe.

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CLIMATE CHANGE : PROJECTING INTO THE FUTURE

Understanding evidence from the past is important. So is making sense of recent trends. The real challenge, however, lies in understanding the complexities well enough to predict climate change.
Is global warming a scientific certainty or just a political liability? Why is the continued destruction of the Amazon rainforest relevant to the chemistry of global warming? The answer has to do with how Earth’s climate system is regulated and responds to change. There are many parts to the climate puzzle including incoming solar radiation, outgoing radiation from the earth, wind, and water currents, atmospheric gases, clouds, snow, and ice, volcanic gases and human activities. To fully understand global warming, we need to consider the rate at which changes is taking place and whether the climate system can respond at a similar rate. For example, we know that the Amazon rainforest is vanishing at these three times the rate it was less than 10years ago. By some evidence, 80% of Brazil ancient forest is already gone. How will these rapid changes affect the “steady-state” balance of climate regulation?
Observed warming of surface air temperatures between the 1890s and 1940 led some scientists to suggest that the American Dust Bowl was an early sign of the Greenhouse effect at work, following a 30-year period of slight cooling that started in 1940. During the year 1957 the U.S Oceanographer Roger Revelle alerted the world to the problems that could be caused by ever-increasing amount of Greenhouse gases; those gases are capable of absorbing and reemitting infrared radiation, to the atmosphere. Since that time, there has been a steady increase in the amount and reliability of data gathered about the role CO2 and other gases play in global warming.  The balancing act of energy exchange between our earth and its atmosphere is a natural and beneficial process that helps to maintain the existence of life on our planet. Without the protective layer of our atmosphere, earth could become very hot from incoming radiation. Without the atmosphere’s ability to reflect earth’s radiated heat back towards the surface, our lovely orb could become an ice planet of direct loss of heat into space. The current average temperature of our planet, about 15 C (59 F) is about 33 C warmer than that what could be expected from its distance from the sun.
Concern about an enhanced greenhouse effect is based primarily but not solely on increase in atmospheric CO2. Several other gases are concern all of which have been increasing because of human activities. For example, we know that methane, CH4 has much lower concentration in the atmosphere than CO2 and also a major component of natural gas. But is at least 20times more effective than CO2 in its ability to trap infrared energy. It is observed that the ruminant of the earth releases a staggering 73 million metric tons of methane each year. A similar chemistry is carried on in the guts of termites, making them a major source of the Methane. And there is more than half a ton of termite for every man, woman, and child on the planet. 
There is a possibility that global warming may exacerbate the release of methane from ocean mud, bogs, peat lands, and even the permafrost of Northern latitudes. In this area, a substantial amount of methane appears to be trapped in “cages” made of water molecules. The methane trapped in this way is referred to as methane hydrate. The CSIRO has been taking series of ocean core drilling to gather evidence about methane hydrate and its role in global warming. If carbon dioxide is properly sequestered, it cannot reach the troposphere and contribute to global warming.

RESPONDING TO SCIENCE WITH POLICY CHANGES
The debate over climate change has subtly in the last 10 years. The focus is no longer on whether there is an observable increase in global temperature. Climate scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that very likely there is an anthropogenic link. The focus now is on understanding the causes of such increases and means to preventing projecting changes. There are two related question. What can we do and what should we do about the possibility of significant climate change caused by global warming? One thing is clear; given the recent results from improved climate modeling, we will start seeing even more definitive climate change within a decade or so. But can we prudently wait that long, or is prompt action essential? Whether to act and how to act are not just scientific issues. What determines our response is a complicated mix of science, perception of risk, societal values, politics, and economics? Many believe that a case has been made for action now and are already implanting changes to reduce greenhouse gases. Others prefer to study the situations in more details before deciding on a course of action. Perhaps there are even those who would not act at all, believing that climate change is inevitable and just part of a long term natural cycle. Taking a comparable per capita value for China and India are about 0.6 and 0.3 tons respectively. Even so, the People’s Republic of China ranks second behind the United States in total carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuels. If China were to succeed in raising its per capita gross national product to only 15% of the U.S figure, the increase in CO2 production would approximately equal the current American Annual emission from burning coal. The IPCC has estimated that by 2010, the developing countries plus the nations of the former Soviet Union will produce about half the world’s CO2.
In my opinion, is our world warming to unintended climate effects? To access and reverse such effects, much will depend on the quality of information gathered and how it is used to make sound economic and environmental decision.  To reverse the change already done and to prevent more, all these communities must respond with intelligence, compassion, commitment and wisdom. It is instructive that even in the absence of threat such as global warming, many suggestions for change would contribute to sound, prudent and responsible stewardship of our planet. 

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MY INTERVIEW WITH RUBEN TUMERT HANSEN.

Ruben Tumert Hansen is an officer of Internal Communications And Digital Assets at United Nations Youth Association Network (UNYANET), President at UN Student of Stavanger. 
Today we shall be discussing his role as an Internal Communications and Digital Assets officer at UNYANET and also as a President of UN Student of Stavanger.

Here we go!


Ireh Kingsley : Hi Ruben, Welcome to the cruise interview.

Ruben : Thank you Mr Ireh  Kingsley. The pleasure is all mine.

Ireh Kingsley : So Ruben, You are currently the president of the UN Students of Stravenger. How did the organisation came about?

On the right we have Ruben Tumert Hansen (president of student of Stavanger) with his colleagues. 

Ruben: Yes, that is correct. It came about when a group of students decided they wanted to learn more about the UN system and about running a student organisation. We contacted the local United Nations Association, and we contacted similar UN Student organisations to check what they were doing, but mostly we started just by ourselves, signing a document saying who we are, making our bylaws, and started planning our events.

Ireh Kingsley : That's great! So your position as the officer of internal communications and Digital assets at UNYANET, how did it came about? And why are you so passionate about the UN and UNYANET works?

Ruben : That came about because over time, both within UNYANET and elsewhere, organisations often struggle with having a core that is very involved, and a wider mass of members who don't know how the organisation works or how to get involved, and to have a workflow and some resources that will be available to those who are interested without having to go through sending emails asking questions. It is my hope that we can achieve greater involvement from a greater number of our members, and increase the activity within the organisation as well as the activity between member organisations. As for my passion on UNYANET and UN matters, I sometimes have to force myself to have any belief in a better world. Typically after reading comments sections on blogs and news articles. So UNYANET is a place where I can get involved with youth who also work for betterment on a global scale, and not always feel it is an uphill struggle.

Ruben Tumert Hansen with the UNYANET member during the UNYANET General Assembly 2015 held in Romania.

Ireh Kingsley : Wow! And i know you are creating ripples in the world of Internal communications and Digital assets. Please can you enlight us more of what internal communications and digital assets is all about? And also can it bring about a sustainable development?

Ruben : Sustainable development of the organisation? I certainly hope so! That's one of the benefits of keeping communications to a platform where it will be available and searchable in the future, and where we don't have to discuss the same issues again and again whenever old experience leaves and new people come in.

So, my task is the facilitate the use of various tools for how we work internally as an organisation, to develop guidelines for this usage, to maintain a library of our assets (mainly photography and video thus far) and make sure both that this is available for our use and that we follow copyright rules when we do use these assets.

Ireh Kingsley : Ok. Can you tell us more about Slack.com. How did it come about? And how do you see its improvement in the next 15years?

Ruben : Slack is a tool, and is run by an external company which I have no affiliation to. If you know Flickr though, it's the same guy who made Slack. It's pretty new, but growing quickly. It is also free - and free in a way that I can be confident about, as they do not steal your info or sell you ads like Google, Facebook and Apple - but rather allows free use up to 10.000 messages, or unlimited in the case of non-profit organisations, and get their money from commercial companies using their tool.

The way it will help UNYANET to grow is by encouraging more transparency. It is a platform where we can have easy access to what the different work groups are doing, and we can easily find what has been decided before - unlike Facebook where old information is very difficult to find. There are more benefits though I think it is a very long answer if I continue :P

Ruben Turmert Hansen with the UNYANET board members and volunteers in Romania 

Ireh Kingsley : Hehe. The question seems to have a very long answer.
What was the most achievements you ever cherished as a youth? And why are your dreams moving towards world peace?

Ruben :Haha let me think about that one for a little bit. OK  ;) Still thinking, here.  I will say is Difficult considering your achievements for a norwegians - we are culturally coded to be modest about achievements :P

Ireh Kingsley : Wow! That's impressive. Can you tell me what techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organised?

Ruben : Wild panic as too many deadlines approach seem to work pretty well for me.

Ireh Kingsley : Do you think a leader should be feared or liked?

Ruben : A boss is the kind of person who wants to be feared. A leader is the kind of person who inspires ;)

Ireh Kingsley : Here is a brain teasing question. Tell me 10 ways to use a pencil other than writing?

Ruben : Wow, ten? You really want the long answers, eh?

Ireh Kingsley : yeah yeah ✌

Ruben : I guess number ten, if I ate meat, I'd skewer a baby duck and roast it. Number nine - drawing. Number eight, chewing to calm your nerves. Number six, scratching your back. Number five, counting so you don't miss point seven. Number four, use a lot of them to build a model cabin. Number three, self defence in case someone attacks you with a banana. Number two, see what someone wrote on a block of note paper after they tore off the page. Number one, use as a hair pin

Ireh Kingsley : Thank you for you time. I hope you will love to do this one more time?

Ruben : One more time? 😛

Ireh Kingsley : yeah ✌ yeah! So how do you think I rate as an interviewer?

Ruben : Haha difficult to judge without knowing the kind of setting the interview is for and also because of us doing it in writing rather than orally, but I'd say you asked interesting questions, you avoid the mistakes inexperienced interviewers might make such as too much leading questions or simple confirm or deny questions, and you keep a pleasant tone :).

Ruben Turmert Hansen 

Ireh Kingsley : Thank you Ruben for the nice gesture! So, what are you going to tell the youths out there who look up to you as their role model?

Ruben : Make your voice heard ;)

Ireh Kingsley : great!  Thank you so much for your time again. Indeed is really a privilege chatting with you.

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VIOLENT EXTREMISM - Insight in Countering Terrorism.

VIOLENT EXTREMISM - Insight in Countering Terrorism.

Currently, there are 600 million Young people that live in fragile and conflicts affected settings which provides the framework for radicalisation and violent extremism among youths, especially among young women and men. 

Government should focus on using physical and military might instead of combating ideology. It is said that the United Nations are working effortlessly towards achieving these goals. But, I believe action speaks louder than words. The United Nations, and international community do a lot of talking and implementing is less which is really bad. Because, if the United Nations continues in this ideology, they will not make any head way in combating violent extremism. The more the ideology, the more the violence. But when action comes into picture, there will be absolute tranquility among nations facing these impending dangers.
VIOLENT EXTREMISM - Insight in Countering Terrorism-

I had to discuss this issue with my colleague Ruben Turmert Hansen from Norway. He is the officer of internal communication and media asset at the United Nations Youth Association Network (UNYANET) where I blog. After reading my article on "Youth Countering Violent Extremism" on the African Youth Advocate Platform (AYAP) Tanzania.  He said to me "I was definitely spot on about working against the causes rather than the symptoms, which is a concept so many people in so many areas fail to remember.  I asked him "what are those symptoms?  He said "like I said in my article,  if we remove the terrorists, the organization will just replenish their ranks. So, the causes of people being drafted into terrorist organisations can stop the symptoms, which include terrorist attacks from happening. I told him "Great! That's the key role in reducing terrorist groups from attacking.
 VIOLENT EXTREMISM - Insight in Countering Terrorism.

I hooked up Seleman Kitenge from Tanzania. He is the director of communication and media at  African Network Of Youth Policy Experts (AFRINYPE). He said " The issue of terrorism is a bit complex, so if you ask me, I would say we address the social injustice in the society which influences people to be drafted into violent extremism. But also the public and private sector need to work together especially on the issue of creating jobs. If the youths are jobless, they can be easily tricked to join terrorist groups. He also added that "education should be provided not just normal education, but education which will promote a sense of tolerance and understanding of other religions and beliefs. In this way, it will be more easier to address the issue of violent extremism. He also made it known that terrorists nowadays uses social media and the media at large to promote their agenda and ideologies. So the same procedures should be applied by different stakeholders to address these issues.
In my opinion, hate speeches can also influence people to engage into violent extremism, especially the issue of islamophobia.

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