Learning from one another to prepare for a better future
Globetree invited children and youth to come to Stockholm and express what is of life importance for your future. More than 600 participants came in 1986, from Sweden and abroad. They made camp on Gärdet Park outside Stockholm. In a joint presentation in Stockholm's Concert Hall, on the big stage known for the annual Nobel Prize Ceremonies, they preformed their concerns for the future.In the audience we invited various persons of importance for the children's future, planners and decision makers from political parties, from Government, from Industry and from society and culture. Children had brought "Future Trees" which they gave to 20 of the decision makers present - as a reminder of the new generation's concern for the future.
Mrs. Lena Hjelm-Wallén in her function of Chairperson of the Swedish Children and Youth delegation, received the first of the Future Trees. And she was the first of the hundreds who helped to plant a memorial tree on Hötorget square in front of the Concert Hall. That tree, an ash tree, stands to this day on Hötorget, as a reminder of the first Future Meeting.
The children had expressed their concerns, mentioning the importance of friendship, of family, of peace in the world, a good environment, safe food and water. Water was mentioned very often:
"Without water no life on earth," the children said. Later in 1986, Globetree invited a number of Globeroots to help interpret what the children had expressed, to formulate a work plan for Globetree for the next decade. "We must concentrate on water," the Globeroots agreed, "because water is most important for our future, all over the world.
The water theme was worked out by the children who came to the Future Meetings following. In 1990 they created the Uniting Water Ceremony. In 1992 they created the Blue Wave, a practical plan to work with water and environment in the world. And in 1994 they gathered in various harbors at Mälaren Lake and along the Swedish southern coast to witness the departure of the Vega af Bergkvara, the Children's Messenger.
The next Future Meeting will be in 1996, ten years after the first. Not any more concentrated in one place like the first one, but spread in time and over the globe, associated with the voyage of the Children's Messenger.
