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It has been nearly seven years since the One Future One Planet initiative was launched and what a journey it has been. One Future One Planet was originally launched in summer of 2011 as a collective initiative to bring people together from all over the world in Dialogue to prepare for the Rio+20 UN Conference that took place in June 2012. These dialogues were called ‘Global Dialogues’, and continue now as one of the cornerstones of our work at One Island.

Eighteen countries and regions actively participated in the original Global Dialogues preparation for Rio+20, which took place between December 2011 and June 2012, including: Sweden, Switzerland, UK, France, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Burundi region, Kenya, Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritius Island, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, the US and Brazil.

We created a national hub in Mauritius, and launched the Global Dialogues on 11 February 2012. ELIA was the first official coordinator for OFOP Mauritius and Indian Ocean Region from February 2012 to November 2012, in collaboration with The Peace Leadership Institute. One Island Institute was formed and took over the leadership role in December 2012 and became then also the project steward for the whole One Future One Planet Initiative internationally. Since the launch of One Future One Planet the Global Dialogues have brought together more thousands of people from all ages and sectors of society. One Future One Planet has grown into a vibrant community in Mauritius and other parts of the world, and is inspiring practical solutions for Sustainable Living. Many more people are now experiencing the power of conscious, collaborative community and the importance of getting pro-active to face our Sustainability Challenges.

The Waves of Change Campaigns, Art for Awareness and other current initiatives explore, demonstrate and share strategies for reducing, re-purposing, re-using and recycling waste, and most importantly, to share with people collectively the importance and urgency to ‘Keep our Island Clean’. The project started with a public clean-up event for Benitier Island on 29 & 30 September 2012, followed by a creative arts project where artists and concerned citizens came together to transform a large portion of the waste that was collected into art, deco, furniture, jewellery, and educational materials for Awareness Raising. For more information click here.

This work is being shared through our One Island Waves of Change Campaign for reducing waste and to ‘Keep our Islands Clean and Beautiful, which will be launched through the upcoming Waves of Change Event funded by the European Union (EU) through the IOC-ISLANDS project.

The Partnership between One Island Institute and IOC-ISLANDS project also continues to grow. One Island has been able to share and teach the methodologies and practices for non-state actor engagement and public-private-civil society partnership, developed by Kimberly King, with the 5 member countries of the ISLANDS Project through the ISLANDS Regional Workshop for Capacity Building and Partnerships for Sustainable Development.

One Island was asked to co-facilitate and help design a series of workshops, which also has as its aim to launch and further establish the ISLANDS Regional Platform for Capacity Building and Partnerships for Sustainable Development. One Island’s role is to facilitate the development of a shared vision for the stakeholders of the platform and to showcase how preparations for the upcoming SIDS 2014 UN Conference can be utilised as a powerful stage to get whole society together in a shared commitment to the Sustainable Development of our region.

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