MY World reaches 5 MILLION votes – The Celebration!

September 25, 2014, NEW YORK

Blog by Caya Johnson, Global Youth Advocate

THANKS A (FIVE) MILLION TO ALL MY WORLD PARTNERS!

If you were unable to attend, please enjoy the web-stream and picture album of the celebration

The evening of 25th of September during the UN General Assembly week brought together MY World friends from far and near, in person and via live web-stream – and these MY World friends had 5 million reasons to celebrate!

The hard work of dedicated MY World partners brought the voices of 5 MILLION PEOPLE from 194 countries into the United Nations.  MY World has had very extensive support from a range of partners, over 700 organizations, including NGOs, heads of state, faith groups and youth movements who are still currently participating in its roll out and this collective achievement provides the perfect backdrop for a MY World Partner Recognition Event and MY World Award Ceremony which took place in New York during the UN General Assembly week.

This global survey, thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of all is now the largest survey of its kind ever undertaken.

Master of Ceremonies Femi Oke brightened the evening by bringing out the best stories and insights from all the guests and award winners about MY World’s global journey.

Among the many stories of the evening, Zoleka Mandela shared how she contemplated trading innocent kisses for MY World votes in a primary school in South Africa, Aakash Shah revealed how he convinced a textbook manufacturer to include the survey in the back of textbooks in India, film director Richard Curtis discussed his role in spreading word about the MY World survey, and Amina J. Mohammad,  the Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning, shared how all these voices from around the world are influencing the post-2015 agenda creation in New York.  And with new commitments from Nigeria and Morocco to collect over a million votes, the evening revealed that the MY World journey is far from over.

As Richard Curtis stated in his chat with Corinne about the future of MY World,

“This is just the beginning of a very long journey, and it is journey which is going to depend not upon the politicians, but upon millions of people fighting for their rights.”

Most importantly, the event was an opportunity to thank all MY World partners. From the amazing innovation shown by Action for Pune Development in India, to the dedicated volunteerism of the Millennial’s Movement in Peru, all the way to the Youth Institute of Mexico City’s outstanding achievement of collecting over a million votes, the evening provided a way to award the incredible work of MY World partners around the world.

Not only did the 5 million MY World voices reverberate around the UN during General Assembly week and impact the UN development agenda,  the survey results are also an emerging powerful advocacy tool – Mexico City, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are already incorporating voices of their citizen collected through MY World into local policies and partners such as Youth Revolution Clan of Pakistan are preparing to use the survey to advocate locally.

MY World continues and the UN Secretary General, addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations the day before, said “More than five million people have now voted in the My World survey. I encourage millions more to log on and chime in.”

Our work continues.

Congratulations and a special thank you to the following partners who received awards for their outstanding work with MY World:

Outreach Award

YOUTH REVOLUTION CLAN which reached out to over 600,000 people in Pakistan.  Watch a video about their incredible work, and read about their outreach work.

Communications Award

TELEFÓNICA, Spain for featuring the MY World survey in over 400 stores in Spain, as well as its headquarters, encouraging their customers and employees to share their voices with the UN. Read more about Telefonica’s role in MY World.

Volunteerism Award

THE MILLENNIALS MOVEMENT of Peru, for the dedication of community volunteers in empowering the voices of over 10,000 people. Watch a video about their volunteerism, and read about the organization’s work on post-2015.

VIO NETWORK OF KENYA for motivating young volunteers to get the word out about the MY World Survey during the International Youth Day Celebration in Kenyatta.

Innovation Award

ACTION FOR PUNE DEVELOPMENT, a Pune, India youth organization who engaged young people in bringing the voices of over 600,000 people to the UN.   Read more about their work.

Outstanding Achievement Award

YOUTH INSTITUTE OF MEXICO CITY (INJUVE) for their incredible work mobilizing youth to collect the voices of over a 1.6 MILLION people.  Learn more about the work of INJUVE related to MY World.

Evidence Based Advocacy

DPU INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE AND THE UN COUNTRY TEAM OF THAILAND, the NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE COUNCIL OF SRI LANKA, and the GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA for their amazing work utilizing MY World survey results for policy advocacy at the local and national level.

Special Recognition

DPI CHINESE LANGUAGE UNIT and UNDP COLOMBIA for their outstanding work to promote and support the MY World Survey.