{"id":3513,"date":"2021-06-06T17:30:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T15:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/?p=3513"},"modified":"2022-04-05T14:46:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T12:46:33","slug":"wpdi-ceo-founder-forest-whitaker-participates-in-the-2021-les-napoleons-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/fr\/news\/wpdi-ceo-founder-forest-whitaker-participates-in-the-2021-les-napoleons-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"WPDI CEO & Founder Forest Whitaker Participates in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 6, 2021\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 Last week, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative\u2019s (WPDI) CEO and Founder, Forest Whitaker, participated in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit to deliver a keynote address and exchange with young humanitarian activists working in vulnerable urban areas of France. Held in Marseille, France, the summit\u2019s theme of \u201cEmancipation\u201d focused on some of the world\u2019s most daunting social struggles and explored avenues of action to bring about transformative change.<\/p>\n

\"Forest<\/p>\n

In his remarks at the summit, Forest stressed how the COVID-19 pandemic made large segments of people \u2013 many for the first time \u2013 aware of rampant inequalities that exist around the world. \u201cOur time in isolation forced us to reckon with a clear awareness of all the people who aren\u2019t free today. Billions realized that they were trapped in a system that doesn\u2019t work and saw that they needed to emancipate themselves from economic constraints,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0he said, adding that, for young people especially,\u00a0\u201cAs traumatic as the past year has been for many throughout the world, youths are probably the group that suffers the most from the social injustices that were created and heightened by the pandemic. They didn\u2019t just lose freedom \u2013 they lost opportunity.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

He told attendees how, for him, the summit\u2019s topic of emancipation was personal.\u00a0\u201cThe desire to find emancipation isn\u2019t foreign to me \u2013 in fact, it\u2019s the story of my own family. For my grandfather, racism was a fact of life. As he saw the world, emancipation from fear wasn\u2019t an option. My parents disagreed and looked to the future, changed their perspective of the world, and searched for possibilities.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0Forest\u2019s remarks also spoke to how, in his opinion,\u00a0\u201cthe planet has already started its emancipation \u2026 Now, we\u2019re entering a new phase, like the one my parents saw for our family \u2013 we must be propelled to make the change we want to see.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

In looking ahead, Forest also touched upon the importance of empowering youths as a crucially important way to address the most pressing challenges humanity faces. Drawing on WPDI\u2019s work \u2013 which has directly impacted more than 1.3 million people around the world since its founding in 2012 \u2013 he told the audience how\u00a0\u201cThrough my work with WPDI, I\u2019ve learned that empowering youths is a key investment for addressing the roots of many of our world\u2019s problems. Youths are our propellers of change, and rightfully so: the world belongs to them twice, both today, and tomorrow.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

After his remarks, Forest also met with a group of youths working to improve the prospects of their peers from vulnerable urban areas of France, notably through NGOs sponsored by our partner, BNP Paribas. Together, they further exchanged about the summit\u2019s themes, emancipation and the struggle against inequality, as well as their important work in their respective communities. Etienne, an English teacher in a secondary school located in a low-income area of Marseille, mentioned how he, as a teacher,\u00a0\u201cbelieves that youths are the future of our societies \u2026 I\u2019m inspired to hear that we can harness concrete solutions to our challenges.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0Another, Gladys, spoke about her dreams for starting her own NGO, telling us that\u00a0\u201cI want to help improve what I see in my community \u2026 This is my dream, and I\u2019ll make it possible.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0Sharing with them his experiences with the young people WPDI supports in Africa and the Americas, Forest Whitaker concluded this rich discussion on his admiration for the power that youths hold to transform their world in a spirit of solidarity and generosity that the world of adults should heed to for the future to be a better place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 6, 2021\u00a0\u2013 Last week, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative\u2019s (WPDI) CEO and Founder, Forest Whitaker, participated in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit to deliver a keynote address and exchange with young humanitarian activists working in vulnerable urban areas of France. Held in Marseille, France, the summit\u2019s theme of \u201cEmancipation\u201d focused on some of… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-advocacy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWPDI CEO & Founder Forest Whitaker Participates in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit - WPDI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wpdi.org\/news\/wpdi-ceo-founder-forest-whitaker-participates-in-the-2021-les-napoleons-summit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WPDI CEO & Founder Forest Whitaker Participates in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit - WPDI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 6, 2021\u00a0\u2013 Last week, the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative\u2019s (WPDI) CEO and Founder, Forest Whitaker, participated in the 2021 Les Napoleons Summit to deliver a keynote address and exchange with young humanitarian activists working in vulnerable urban areas of France. 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