United Nations Convention

• Think about the advocacy of Greta Thunberg and Mikaela Loach around climate change and climate justice or Malala Yousafzai’s advocacy for all children’s rights to receive an education.
• We also share it to support youth engagement in social change and healthier school communities year round.

Health Promoting Schools

• The UpLift Partnership is rooted in a global movement and model of Health Promoting Schools, first championed by the World Health Organization and driven by the insight that “health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life.” Involving youth in promoting health in schools can catalyze students’ ability to initiate and bring about positive change in the world — what researchers call their “action competence.” This includes building knowledge, motivation and competencies that align with this year’s International Youth Day theme, Green Skills for Youth.

Building ‘green skills’

• The partnership between these diverse parties is grounded in over a decade of research designed to enhance youth engagement within the Health Promoting Schools model.
• Building green skills helps them to understand the strong connection between health, well-being and nature.

Tranquility Garden

• Prior to this, the school did not have a physical outdoor seating area or place for the students and staff to connect with nature, despite its rural location.
• The Tranquility Garden now provides students, staff and animals with a calming and enjoyable place to visit and play.
• Students and staff planted fruit trees, flowers and shrubs, and built benches for seating to create the garden.

Outdoor shelter, cooking by fire

• Prior to installing the hot tent shelter and stove, few students at the school had the desire to learn outside due to the exposed nature of the outdoor space.
• The outdoor shelter now serves as a space for multiple learning opportunities that connect the students to their environment, like stargazing, cooking by fire and building outdoor education skills.

Farm-to-school movement

• This Go Fresh Salad Bar station is the final piece of a growing farm-to-school movement in their school.
• This funding provided the salad bar infrastructure necessary to support more diverse and nutritious food options at the school cafeteria.

Healthier futures

• As researchers have documented, youth participation in school health promotion enhances youth knowledge, competence, motivation and commitments to health and well-being.
• This, in turn, will help young people become active citizens for a healthier future.
• It is time for youth to have a lead role on the world’s stage, and for more adults to uplift them.

• In a letter to President Biden and the Pentagon, nine members of Congress urged the Administration to “keep all options on the table, including deep-sea opportunities, in assessing polymetallic nodules as a viable resource to secure critical minerals and close national security vulnerabilities.”
  The news comes as American and allied auto and battery makers struggle to secure supplies of critical battery metals that comply with guidelines for incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Additionally, China dominates much of the international critical mineral supply chain on land and is now ramping up focus on seafloor resources known to be the largest estimated source of metals like cobalt, nickel and manganese, presenting a national security vulnerability for the United States…Recently, China has taken aggressive and brazen steps to secure and process seabed resources of polymetallic nodules into strategic planning for national security.
• Currently, Chinese companies hold 5 out of 31 International Seabed Authority (ISA) contracts for exploration and development – more than any other country.”
  In March, China’s state-owned newspaper China Daily recognized TMC’s leadership position in the industry and announced its intention to invest further into the development of technologies to responsibly and economically recover seafloor polymetallic nodules.
• In reply, Secretary Granholm confirmed, “Ongoing R&D on critical battery minerals processing through the DOE Office of Science and the Advanced Manufacturing Office is applicable to potential U.S. domestic processing and refining of metallic marine nodules...DOE is continuing to work with interagency partners to consider all potential sources of critical minerals for the supply chain including the role that seabed nodules could play in the future.”

• “It is now a question of when — rather than if — commercial-scale nodule collection will begin,” said TMC Chairman and CEO Gerard Barron.
• Last Friday’s consensus decision that included Member States who have called for a precautionary pause is a hard-won compromise that reduces this uncertainty.
• We are obviously disappointed that the ISA failed to adopt RRPs by 9 July 2023 as we hoped two years ago.
• NORI will continue to work tirelessly to complete a comprehensive, science-driven environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) of the highest quality.

• NEW YORK, June 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TMC the metals company Inc. (Nasdaq: TMC) (“TMC” or the “Company”), an explorer of the world’s largest estimated undeveloped source of critical battery metals, today welcomed the inclusion of polymetallic nodules in a report requested by the House Armed Services Committee to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy under the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”).
• Entitled “ H.R.
• 2670 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024; and H.R.
• In reply, Secretary Granholm confirmed, “Ongoing R&D on critical battery minerals processing through the DOE Office of Science and the Advanced Manufacturing Office is applicable to potential U.S. domestic processing and refining of metallic marine nodules...DOE is continuing to work with interagency partners to consider all potential sources of critical minerals for the supply chain including the role that seabed nodules could play in the future.”