'Water, the new Petrol' in the media: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

22 de mayo de 2012

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

2011 Doors to Diplomacy Award Winners

Media Note

Office of the Spokesman

Washington, DC

May 19, 2011

The Department of State is pleased to announce the selection of two winning websites for its 2011 Doors to

Diplomacy Award, which is co-sponsored by Global SchoolNet. The awards recognize the web projects

that best teach young people about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. Participants,

ranging in age from 11 to 18, included 341 student teams from 30 countries.

The winning sites are:

Water, the New Petrol -- This site was built by a team from CEP Santa Rosa Brothers Marist School in Sullana, Peru and IES Manacor School in Mallorca, Spain. Their web project aims to raise awareness of the current state of water issues in the world.

The Haiti Ocean Project -- The site, built by a team from Riviera Beach Maritime Academy in Riviera Beach, Florida, focuses on the collaboration between the youth of two countries--Haiti and the United States--and their work on the Haiti Ocean Project, a marine conservation, education, research and eco-tourism project located in Grand Goave, Haiti.

Each student member of the two winning Doors to Diplomacy Award teams will receive a $2,000 scholarship. In addition, the winning coaches will each receive a $500 cash award. Judging was performed by student peers and educational professionals, with the final selections made by a team of Department of State judges from the Bureaus of Public Affairs and Educational and Cultural Affairs. The winning sites will be linked from the Department of State's youth site at http://www.future.state.gov.

Special recognition goes to team coaches Russell Townsend and April Ross, teachers from Sioux Falls New Technology High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who coached 25 of the teams in their first-time participation in the contest. They'll receive an award of $1,000 for their exceptional effort to involve so many students in Doors to Diplomacy.

Global SchoolNet, http://www.globalschoolnet.org, is a non-profit, Internet-based education program. The Doors to Diplomacy Award was specially created for CyberFair, a contest that encourages students and educators to join together to build high-quality, educational websites on a variety of topics. These website entries will be available on the web as learning tools to millions of people around the globe.

Further detail on the Doors to Diplomacy projects is at http://globalschoolhouse.org/doors.

For more information, contact:

Yvonne Marie Andres

Global SchoolNet

Telephone: 760-635-0001

E-mail: diplomacy@globalschoolnet.org

Wanda Ramsey

U.S. Department of State

E-mail: ramseywc@state.gov

PRN: 2011/798

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario

Thanks Doors to Diplomacy!

Hello everybody!

What is our aim? To get our message across to the world.

Thanks to Doors to Diplomacy, many of you will get to read our project, this wouldn't have been possible had it not been for us taking part in this amazing competition. Here is a compilation of some of the exposure we are getting from the media.

OUR PROJECT

In the world that we live in, water is an essential and valuable resource that is not distributed equally. In many developed countries we are not aware of how lucky we are to have a resource that is unattainable for so many people. The countries that have the least resources are usually the countries that have the least amount of water. Throughout history, great civilizations (like the Mesopotamians) always grew out of areas where there was access to water. Now we live in an overpopulated world (at the end of October we reached seven billion people). It is a paradox that in such a globalized world, we still find isolated areas, where people have to walk for miles to get drinkable water. With our project we would like to offer an overall picture of the current state of water issues in the world, and the problems related to it (pollution, shortage…). Our aim is to raise awareness; we would like to reach as many people as possible. This way, together, we can all contribute our small bit, and save every drop of water we can for all.

We think that people talking to people is the way to make people comprehend the depth of any given problem. We see things on TV every day, and we seem to have become immune. This project has been an eye opener for us, and we would like to reach as many people as possible, aiming to achieve a real understanding of this worldwide problem. We are not all lucky enough to have one of our most basic needs covered: we don’t all have access to water. So, isn’t it only fair that we should all reach out and give a hand? And that starts by knowing about the problem. Welcome to 'Water, the New Petrol'.

Gracias, Doors to Diplomacy

¡Hola a todo el mundo!

¿Cuál es nuestro objetivo? Lanzar nuestro mensaje al mundo.

En el mundo en el que vivimos, el agua un recurso imprescindible y valioso que está repartido de manera totalmente desigual. En muchos países desarrollados no somos conscientes de nuestra suerte al disponer de un recurso inalcanzable para muchos. Los países que menos recursos tienen suelen ser los que disponen de menos agua. A lo largo de la historia, las grandes civilizaciones (como por ejemplo la civilización mesopotámica) nacieron siempre en zonas en las que disponían de agua. En un mundo superpoblado (llegamos, a finales del mes de octubre de 2011 a siete mil millones de personas) no son posibles unas migraciones masivas a una u otra parte de planeta; en un mundo globalizado, nos encontramos con zonas totalmente aisladas, zonas cuyos habitantes deben caminar kilómetros para conseguir agua potable. Pretendemos con este proyecto ofreceros una visión global de cuál es la situación actual del agua en el mundo, cuáles son los problemas principales relacionados con ella (contaminación, escasez) con el objetivo de concienciar a la mayor cantidad de personas posible, para que, ente todos podamos aportar nuestro granito de arena, o podamos conservar cada gotita de agua.

Gracias a Doors to Diplomacy, muchos de vosotros leeréis nuestro proyecto, cosa que no habría sido posible si no hubiéramos participado en este increíble concurso. Aquí tenéis una recopilación de las noticias que se han publicado sobre nuestro proyecto en los medios de comunicación.

Pensamos que hablando se entiende la gente, y que así es como se pude transmitir a la gente la gravedad de cualquier problema determinado. Cada día vemos que suceden cosas por la tele, y parece que nos hemos vuelto inmunes. Este proyecto nos ha abierto los ojos, y nos gustaría llegar al mayor número de personas posible, para conseguir que comprendan realmente lo grave que es este problema que nos afecta a nivel mundial. No todos tenemos la suerte de tener cubierta una de nuestras necesidades básicas: no todos tenemos acceso a agua. De modo que, ¿no es justo que todos echemos una mano? Y la forma de empezar, es teniendo conocimiento del problema. Bienvenidos a ‘Agua, el Nuevo Petróleo’.