This project is mainly about people living in countries most of us hardly have heard about. Since the early 1980s, I’ve been travelling and reporting from about 100 countries, writing books, articles and reports, making radio programmes and lecturing. I’ve talked and listened to people in order to understand their views about the world. During all these years curiosity has been one of my driving forces and I have no plans whatsoever to stop travelling! On the 9th of May 2012 I will be turning 50. Before that date I plan to visit and report from 50 countries that I have not yet been to. Hopefully, I will manage. Since I’ve already visited the biggest and the easily accessible countries, the majority of those on my list will be less-known, non-touristic countries such as Armenia, Rwanda, Suriname and Belarus.
What is Global Happiness?
During the visits, I’ll ask people in each country about what happiness means to them. The idea with the website is to encourage people to contribute with their own ideas about global happiness, thus not only limiting the project to the countries I will be visiting.
Dinner conversation
Food and family is often associated with happiness. Gathering the family for dinner is one thing people have in common all over the world. But what are people talk about? During my travels I hope to engage in dinner conversations with families from all around the world. There might also be other topics that could develop during the project and the aim for the website is that it could grow as new ideas surge.
Partners and sponsors
In order to make the project possible other persons will be invited to take part in the project as fellow travellers or in other ways. In addition, articles, videoclips and radio reportages will be sold and distributed to different medias. Partnership will also be sought with different actors that are interested in the project.
CO2-emission compensation
You can not undo the CO2-emissions from flying, but compensation is better than nothing. All flights done as part of the project will be CO2-compensated. Check out, as one example, the SAS calculator. http://sasems.port.se/EmissionCalc.cfm?lang=1&utbryt=0&sid=advanced&left...
Who is doing this?
I am the founder and CEO of the company Global Reporting, which will also be sponsoring the project. Global Reporting is a media and development communication consultancy company (www.globalreporting.net). Global Reporting is currently editing the magazine OmVärlden (www.omvarlden.se) on behalf of the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). We are also producing a large number of reports, studies and articles for different actors.
I have been traveling as long as I can remember. And I intend to keep on traveling. Just follow and you will see!
David Isaksson
