A Tibetan exile doused himself with gas and set himself on fire during a protest at the Jantar Mantar Observatory in Delhi, a day before a visit by the Chinese president to India. More than 500 demonstrations marched across the city of Delhi, protesting against the visit by the Chinese premier, Hu Jintao, who attended a two-day economic summit in the capital with leaders from Brazil, Russia, and South Africa.

The man was identified as Jampa Yeshi, 27, who had been living in New Delhi for the past two years. Almost 85 percent of Yeshi’s body was burnt from the fire. By the time his fellow protesters attempted to extinguish the flames, his clothes had disintegrated, and his skin was mottled with black patches. He was taken to the hospital.

The Tibetans say that the Chinese crackdown against Tibet is so cruel that there is no other alternative to show their resentment than self-immolation. Dhondup Lhadar, an activist at the Tibetan Youth Congress, said, “Martyr Jampa Yeshi’s sacrifice will be written in golden words in [the] annals of our freedom struggle.”

In recent days, the Tibetan protests against China have increased dramatically with 30 acts of self-immolation inside Tibet over the last 15 months, their agony growing because of Chinese dominance over Tibet. China says that Tibet is an integral part of its territory, whereas the Tibetans say that the Himalayan region has been virtually independent for centuries.

Geographically, Tibet is located in the northeast by the Central Plain of China with Kashmir, India in the west and Nepal, India and Bhutan in the south. China fervently claims that Tibet has been a part of China from the mid-thirteenth century, so it should be ruled by China. China believes that Tibet has remained part of its territory since the Yuan Dynasty.

However, the Tibetans accuse China of suppressing their culture, heritage, freedom of expression, and most importantly, their freedom to worship however they please. The Tibetan government is in exile in India.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, has blamed China’s ‘ruthless policy’ for the acts of self-immolation. The Dalai Lama won the Noble Peace Prize for his efforts in 1989. Beijing faces the heat of resentment, not just from Tibet, but from Taiwan and the Uighur Muslims from the Xinjiang Province in China.

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A matter on many minds is whether the young generation is ready to take up positions of power and live up to society’s expectations. Francesca Martonffy, director at Global Changemakers, says “there is often a misconception, that ‘matters that affect the world’ are something discussed by people ‘in charge,’ in the halls of power of distant world capitals.”

In this exclusive interview with Toonari Post, Martonffy says what the young people do or say is as relevant to the world as the latest meeting of G8 finance ministers. She also speaks about Global Changemakers’ mission to empower young people to create social impact on the societies of the world.

Toonari Post (TP): Tell us about yourself, your studies and your work.

Francesca Martonffy (FM): I come from a family of five sisters and grew up with a sense that what mattered most was using your unique set of skills to give back to the world.

Not surprisingly, I studied political science in university and international security and political economy in graduate school because I thought learning as much about the world as I could was probably a good first step in figuring out how to give back. I’ve worked across sectors – in Washington DC where I helped run an NGO focused on international affairs education, in the policy sphere, at the World Economic Forum, where I was a Global Leadership Fellow and now as Director of Global Changemakers.

While I’ve worked across a large number of issues from foreign policy to education to social entrepreneurship, what drives me continues to be the same values I learned from my mother – learn, give, and grow as much as you can. And never take yourself too seriously!

TP: Global Changemakers was inspired by the fact that young people were not being given a voice at major world events such as the World Economic Forum. Are young people now given a chance to participate in matters that affect the world?

FM: I think there is often a misconception that ‘matters that affect the world’ are something discussed by people ‘in charge’ in the halls of power of distant world capitals. Yet, there are three billion individuals under the age of twenty-five today. Surely, what these individuals learn, experience, and create on a daily basis is as relevant to affecting the world as the latest meeting of G8 finance ministers.

We all – young and old alike – decide on a daily basis how we interact with the world and what kind of impact we make on it. In terms of whether young voices are being heard at major world gatherings, I think institutions are broadening the set of stakeholders with whom they engage and generally doing a better job across the board.

Due to a number of factors, including social media, institutions are finding themselves being held accountable to wider and more diverse sets of stakeholders than ever before.

TP: What is the scope of The Global Changemakers movement?

FM: Global Changemakers is a British Council funded global youth network of social entrepreneurs and community activists from 126 countries worldwide. Its mission is to empower youth to catalyse positive social change, something which it achieves through:learning and teaching; Global and regional summits, community and personal capacity building supported by free online curriculum.

TP: What difference has Global Changemakers made since it came into existence in 2007?

FM: There are currently nearly 800 Changemakers, more than 200,000 young people involved in Global Changemakers activities each year, and four million beneficiaries of projects developed and run by Changemakers. Since its inception in 2007, Global Changemakers has organised and run over 20 regional and global youth workshops across the world – in Amman, Beirut, Cape Town, Doha, Delhi, Gaborone, Harare, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and London, among others.

Global Changemakers have been invited to participate in World Economic Forum events in Cartagena, Dar es Salaam, Sharm el Sheikh, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro and Davos, the Clinton Global Initiative, G20, UN World Climate Conference, UNESCO Peace Summits, Women Deliver, and the launch of the World Bank’s Youth Anti-Corruption network, among others.

Individual and group projects address key global issues and facilitate joint working and create shared values: 193 projects in 78 countries supported to date. The Global Changemakers community is represented at high-level events and disseminates best practices in youth-led development

TP: What challenges have you faced in bringing together young people together from all over the world?

FM: Of course, there are the administrative challenges of tickets and passports and visas which can quickly become all-consuming and quite complex when you’re trying to physically bring together individuals from so many different countries, some of whom have never travelled before. But generally speaking, we haven’t faced too many challenges.

It doesn’t mean that the journey of becoming a Changemaker is an easy one. We’ve had many Changemakers tell us that attending a Global Changemakers summit has been quite difficult because they have been forced to confront certain issues or had their views or beliefs challenged in fundamental ways.

The challenge for us as the organizers has been to ensure that we create an environment of respect and openness where all views are fairly heard and where individuals can draw their own conclusions.

TP: What is your opinion on the current efforts of female empowerment in developing countries?

FM: I think it’s important to start by recognizing how much things have progressed for women in the last fifty years – in developed and developing world alike. Yet women still bear the brunt of many of the issues facing the developing world – lack of access to quality education, poor health, poverty, and limited economic mobility.

In terms of the present efforts, one would have to break it down country-by-country to see what is working, where, and why. Generally, however, most of the new data from development institutions like the World Bank is encouraging. Things are getting better for many women. But there is still much work to do.

TP: Tell us a bit about the forthcoming Euro-Africa Youth Summit in Brussels.

FM: The Euro-Africa Summit in Brussels will bring 60 new Changemakers from 34 countries into the Global Changemakers family. We’re planning five intense days of activities where participants will learn about the key economic, political, and social issues facing Africa and Europe, gain concrete skills like project management and fundraising to better design and deliver their grass-roots work, and connect to other young activists in order to exchange knowledge and best practices.The summit is designed to amp up the current skill set of participants so they return to their home countries able to do even more.

TP: Are there specific requirements for someone to become a member of the Global Changemakers?

FM: Yes. In order to become a Global Changemaker, an individual must be selected for one of our events. Selection criteria are:

• Age (we work with those between the ages of 16 and 25, though different ones of our events target different subgroups in that bracket)
• Track record (individuals must have a proven track record of social entrepreneurship, community activism or volunteer work)
• English (individuals must possess good spoken command of English so that they can share ideas and best practices with their fellow Changemakers)

However, to be active in the larger Global Changemakers community – as over 15,000 are already either on our website and/or Facebook – all you need is an interest in making a positive change. While we will never be able to meet the demand – we have 10-20 times more applications than places available for our events– our wider community and online curricula are a great way for all who are interested to engage and to make effective change in their local communities.

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At the start of 2011, India found itself the subject of concern among economists when the country’s food prices reached another troubling high. At the same time, the Reserve Bank of India signaled an interest rate rise after having increased the rates six times in 2010 – one of the most aggressive tightenings of any central bank. Calls for further moves were intensified by a report by the International Monetary Fund, saying that rates needed to be higher to curb inflation.

Looking back, India was one of the world’s best-performing economies in 2010 and has, alongside China, been considered the ‘engine of recovery’ for the global economy during the crisis. But rising inflation is becoming an increasing threat to this position and the Wall Street Journal warns that the central bank has to be careful in the coming year, since liquidity within the banking system is tight and further rate increases could exacerbate this problem.

According to numbers from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the last five weeks of 2010 showed a continuous rise in food prices which was mainly attributed to higher vegetable prices, particularly onions, after unseasonal rains in some parts of the country damaged crops. The Wall Street Journal reported that the squeeze in supplies – as well as higher demands from consumers and policy failure on behalf of the government – have exacerbated the situation.

In an attempt to control the problem, the Indian government banned exports of onions, which is seen as a politically sensitive staple given its enormous presence in Indian cuisine. Import duty has also been removed and state-run cooperatives selling the vegetable at subsidized prices in local markets have been set up. But still, the price of an onion was predicted to continue its rise – by January up 82% from the year before.

By the start of February, the inflation of the food prices eased to around 13% and by mid-February, the deputy head of the Planning Commission predicted a further ease in the market, claiming that the food inflation would settle itself in a “much more comfortable position” by the end of the fiscal year in March, according to Reuters.

However, the Indian people are beginning to feel the pinch and on February 23, thousands of people gathered in the Indian capital of Delhi to protest against the food prices and unemployment. Carrying red flags, the protesters marched through the streets of central Delhi since early morning and caused massive traffic jams. The rally was set up by trade unions who called nearly 40.000 people to attend a meeting at the Ramlila grounds.

The Indian National Trade Union Congress (Intuc) – which is backed by the governing Congress party – also supported the strike saying it wants to remind the government about its commitments to the poor, according to the BBC.

Previously, the government had shown interest in adopting an Afghani policy that bans lavish wedding celebrations – an extravagant tradition in the region – to tackle the domestic food crisis. As the Indian economy has grown, millions of people have been elevated into what is termed ‘the great Indian middle class’, but as the high inflation rate is hitting India’s poorest hard, the government scramble to come up with policy to promote a sustainable market. India’s Food and Consumer Affairs Minister K. V. Thomas was quoted by Reuter for saying that “We believe we can preserve food grains for the poor and needy of this country by restricting its use at such extravagant and luxurious social functions”.

He continued to explain that nearly 15% of India’s food grains were wasted at these events and to counter these numbers, the government was looking at introducing a bill before parliament to limit the consumption.

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