For more than a year now, the Pugwash Conferences and International Student Young Pugwash have been assisting efforts to create a Global Youth Center in Hawaii. With the participation of key people at the East-West Center in Honolulu, and in the Hawaii legislature, Jeffrey Boutwell and Juan Pablo Pardo Guerra in particular have been helping to conceptualize such a Global Youth Center and how it might serve as a future institutional base for International Student Young Pugwash.
In January 2007, Jeffrey Boutwell spent three weeks as a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center to work with a wide range of individuals in supporting legislation in the Hawaii House of Representative and Senate that could appropriate initial funds for the Global Youth Center. Working with Charles Morrison and Roland Lagareta (President and Chair of the Board of Governors, respectively, of the East-West Center), Boutwell met with individuals associated with the East-West Center, the Matsunaga Institute for Peace at the Univ. of Hawaii, the Pacific Forum CSIS, the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council, and other groups.
Other key supporters of the Global Youth Center include those in the Hawaii legislature working to appropriate initial funds for its creation, in particular Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, Rep. Rida Cabanilla, Sen. Russell Kokubun, Rep. John Mizuno, Sen. J. Kalani English, and former Rep. Dennis Arakaki.
The House and Senate appropriations bills were introduced in late January 2007 and have passed initial readings in the House and Senate International Affairs committees, and will move to the Higher Education and Finance/Ways and Means committees for consideration.
We will post updates on the progress of the GYC, and for those interested in helping provide testimony for the legislation, or in other ways,
Please contact the GYC coordinator, Dr. Teresita Beranales, at tgb103@hawaii.rr.com
