The Global Dialogues for the Rio+20 UN Conference was launched by ELIA and a team of local volunteers on 11 February 2012.

The first Dialogue was a very inspiring experience. Many participants expressed that it was different from what they had expected and appreciated the value they got out of it.

From the visioning exercise, a view from the future emerged. Each participant contributed to the shaping of this future by sharing their experience of the visioning. One of the common experiences participants shared is how free they felt during this exercise to breathe, share and just be themselves.

“Harvesters” played a very important role throughout the event. Knowing the structure of the process, they helped the small working groups to put down their ideas on the large sheets of paper at each table. Drawing, writing keywords and connecting the dots offered a direct record and allowed the conversations to build from previous ideas and realisations. After these, all harvesters came together to synthesise what was said across the small groups, and represent it graphically for the group sharing: an amazing job done in just 40 minutes!

During the formation of action-groups, people focussed on solutions for a sustainable world. This focussed itself around collaborative actions, through which many creative ideas were shared.

 We are grateful to everybody who contributed to this amazing launch.