Wednesday 16 December

Even though we aren’t leaving Copenhagen until Saturday, today was our last day at the Bella Centre. The access for civil society have been very much restricted because there aren’t space for all 40.000 accredited persons inside the centre. This makes many of the NGO representatives very frustrated, since it means, that we won’t be present during the last and most important parts of the negotiations.

Today there was quite a lot of drama at the Bella Centre. In the morning a huge group of activists tried to enter without accreditation and the police had to use pepper sprays and violence to fight them. Many people where arrested. Within the walls we were only able to hear a lot of helicopters and sirens. In one of the plenary sessions two activists went on the stage in the middle of a speech and the security staff had to drag them out. Later a whole group of youth made a “sit in” in one of the main hallways, and they were also dragged away.

Support from The UPS Foundation

Our press conference took place today at the Green Peace Rescue Station. That is a giant globe placed outside the Centre, with space enough for various activities inside.

The people present at our event had the pleasure of meeting Eduardo Martinez from the UPS foundation, who have supported WAGGGS. There was also a representative from the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) and both of them where very impressed by the stories that Gabi from Hungary and Luiza from Brazil told, about environmental projects, they have been with girl guides doing at home.

Later in the afternoon we made our first real WAGGGS-Action. We sang a song called “1 voice” with moderated lyrics, so it fitted the climate conference. We tried here by to symbolize that we are 10 million Girl Guides worldwide, all speaking with one voice: “We can save the world!”

Written by: Rima, Mirna, Nanees, Ostara and Julie