UN SDG Action Campaign

Inspiring SDG initiatives in Bangkok

Katina Grigoraskos, MY World ASEAN Advocate in Thailand has gathered stories of humans that are making the SDGs a reality in their local communities. Meet 5 initiatives that are acting to achieve goals related to sustainable cities, consumption and climate action!

MyWaste project

MyWaste project is a school recycling program creating by Soravit Thummawatwimon, Maylin Wongjarupun, and Pantach Anantapong in Bankok, Thailand. The MyWaste project aims to improve responsible consumption and production, sustainable cities and communities.

With their project, they give students an incentive to recycle through an easy-to-use reward system where students can collect points for every time they bring in waste to recycle, which can then be exchanged for rewards. They are encouraging students to be responsible and conscious in their consumption through various means trying to build a sustainable school community.

“Our school had already established a recycling program where students bring waste to recycle every Friday. However, the amount of trash brought in by students was in decline throughout the years, especially by middle and high school students, due to lack of regulation and motivation by the school”

These three students are now able to raise more awareness in students and increase the amount of waste recycled at their school. In the near future, they would like to maintain and expand MyWaste further through, making their school 100% free of plastic water bottles.

By creating a sustainable community, they are not only creating a community where everyone has a good quality of life or a safe and secure community, but also an environmentally friendly community. They also put threatening problems we face as top priorities as well such as urban population growth, unemployment, public health, criminal activities, and pollutions.

With the implementation of MyWaste, Soravit, Maylin and Pantach hope to improve other SDGs along the way such as climate action, life below water and life on land.

Better Moon Cafe

Better Moon is a little space located in a local area of On Nut, Bangkok. This cafe aims to constantly develop and serve healthy food for the locals. The Better Moon team focuses on environmental issues, especially the pressing issue of plastic waste in Thailand.

Their creators cooperate with Refill Station, Thailand’s first bulk storefounded at Better Moon. Customers can come to the cafe and learn about low-waste lifestyle tips such as stainless straws, and unique rooms with reused furniture, workshops, activities, and more.

“We go to a lot of camps and do a lot of activities on environmental issues and when we go back to our daily lives, we see that nothing changes. In Thailand, there is not much infrastructure to support change. We made this cafe to support this kind of lifestyle for people”, Pear, Manager at Better Moon and Refill Station

Better Moon Cafe and Refill Station try to reduce as much plastic as we can for the operation and facilitation of customers to get their own utensils and food outside: “We use compostable packaging for delivery and a design that is compatible for the main room. Our partners also have to return glass bottles and use only eco-friendly packaging”, says Pear.

“We want to help change people’s minds, make them comfortable to be here, in the environment here. It’s based on a trust system and the customers can serve themselves”

The most important SDGs for the Better Moon’s team are to have a responsible production and consumption, sustainable cities and communities, good health, life on land and underwater and climate action.

Youths for SDGs

Prima Pupornchai is the founder of Youths for SDGs when she realised that involving youths to learn about and work towards the SDGs is an important step in building a strong foundation for sustainable growth and development.

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event tries to inspire students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in their communities.

Prima Pupornchai, Founder of Youths for SDGs

“I initiated an event empowering international high school students across Thailand to learn more about the SDGs and what they can do to to help achieve them, called Youths for SDGs”, Prima Pupornchai

The first event of Youths for SDGs took place on 3–4 November 2018, at Wells International School in Bangkok, Thailand, forming a network of 150 students, who shared the same passion for the SDGs. The event raised awareness about global issues, developed partnership across youth from different schools, and encouraged youth to be change makers.

In the event, students exercised their creativity in coming up with solutions to real-world issues that Thailand is currently facing. The activities included were breakout discussion sessions, SDG activity games, and a case challenge to solve. The event successfully brought together youth to learn and work together towards the SDGs.

Prima would like to contribute to this change providing quality education and creating partnership toward the global goals.

Greenhawks club

Since young, Ruby Song was tough and raised in the belief that climate change and global warming were not a big issue. However, everything changed when she joined an environmental club called Greenhawks.

Ruby Song joined an environmental club name Greenhawks not only to
minimize my ecological footprint but also to raise awareness of environmental issues. After five years, she became a leader of this amazing club and we have expanded since then.

Ruby Song, winner of the EARCOS Global
Citizenship Award

“I have encountered that climate change is a big issue that has to be dealt in an alarming point, and realised I was harming the Earth”

Greenhawks deals with all kinds of environmental problems such as recycling, gardening and even food waste. To raise a concern regards excessive consumption of plastics and papers in our society, they have participated in big events such as Trash Hero, Paper Ranger, collaborated with Wells Thonglor and Wells primary school to educate future youths about 3Rs: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle! They have also collaborated with other groups of students acting toward reducing the use and disposal of single-use plastics.

School of Global Studies at Thammasat University

Chris Oestereich is a lecturer at the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University. Chris teaches courses related to social innovation, sustainability, and social enterprise.

He is also the co-founder of the Circular Design Lab, an organization running by volunteers that are developing a design framework that combines design processes with systems thinking in aiming to teach communities to develop solutions to the challenges they face.

On top of that, Chris is an example of a sustainable person: “I stopped driving over eight years ago. I still ride in cars but I use public transit, including the BTS, MRT, Airport Link, buses, and vans as much as possible. I have also made significant changes to my diet trying to be a lot more careful with what I buy, in looking to minimize food waste”

He’s also the publisher of the Wicked Problems Collaborative, a press that focuses on humanity’s biggest social and environmental challenge, and a zero-waste practitioner who helps organizations reduce their footprint as they evolve towards the circular economy.

By Katina Grigoraskos, MY World ASEAN Advocate in Thailand. Katina joined the ASEAN MY World 2030 Advocates Programme in November 2018. A native New Yorker, Katina is the the CAS/Events Coordinator and IB Theory of Knowledge Teacher teacher at Wells International School in Bangkok, Thailand.

Also published on Medium.

Youths for SDGs in Thailand

By Katina Grigoraskos, MY World 2030 Advocate in Thailand

On November 3 & 4, 2018, international school students from all over Thailand participated in the first ever Youths for SDGs conference hosted at Wells International School.

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event’s objectives included raising awareness to the SDGs, creating a network of youths passionate about making change, and promoting creativity in finding solutions towards current local issues. With those objectives in mind, the event consists of three activities: the Breakout Session, the SDG Quest, and the Case Challenge. High school Youth Leaders led the discussions and activities in the Breakout Session and SDG Quest.

The Breakout Session is an interactive discussion where participants get to explore different themes of SDGs. The SDG Quest is a game where randomly-grouped participants can collaborate in exploring fun activities and booths related to the SDGs. The Case Challenge presents a current real-life local issue to the teams to find creative and feasible solutions to.

High school students from international schools were given the opportunity to network and share ideas, as well as capitalize on their creativity and problem-solving skills. A total of almost 150 students from 14 international schools all over Thailand participated in this event. Schools came from other areas of Thailand, such as Hua Hin and Phuket, to join in the event as well.

The event started off with the opening ceremony, where the conference director and initiator of Youths for SDGs, Prima Pupornchai (Wells’ Class of 2015 alumna) gave a welcoming speech. This was followed by a speech from our guest speaker Mr. Sorawit Paiboonrattanakorn, who gave an inspiring speech about establishing Saturday School, a social enterprise where volunteers taught children life skills on Saturdays.

Then the students headed to their respective discussion rooms for the Breakout Session, led by youth leaders. There are six themes, which covers all of the Global Goals. The themes include:

End poverty in all its forms and create decent jobs
End hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusivity and foster innovation
Conserve and sustainably use resources for sustainable development and promote climate action

In the SDG Quest, students were separated into random groups, with various schools mixed together. They were instructed to earn as many points as they could by participating in the activity booths and completing tasks related to SDGs within a limited time. This fun activity made the students bond and make friends with students from other schools.

In the Case Challenge, the participants got back together with their teams of three and received the case for this year’s challenge. The theme of this year’s case, Waste Management in Thailand, was revealed. The teams had two and a half hours of case cracking time to find a solution and make a presentation. The following day was the presentation day, which consists of 3 rounds: the preliminary round, the semifinal round, and the final round.

The judges for the semifinal and final rounds were Ms. Chutima Pratheepkongjaroen, Social Impact Manager at Local Alike, Dr. Kallaya Suntornvongsagul, Environmental Researcher and Professor at Chulalongkorn University, and Ms. Qi Xue, UN Volunteer & SDG Research and Advocacy Officer at UNDP.

The winner was team Satit Kaset IP. Their idea was to create an application called MyWaste, which tackles food and plastic waste in Thailand by incentivising people to lower their consumption by earning points in the app. There was a 5,000 baht seed capital for the winning team to to implement a small scale version of their solution.

The closing ceremony concluded the event with a video recap and a closing speech from the conference director, Prima Pupornchai.

Overall, the event has inspired many students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in the society. It was a very fun, productive, and memorable weekend.

Thank you to our partners, sponsors, school advisors, students and, guests for your wonderful support for this youth initiative. This event was truly an event for youths, by youths.

Youth for SDGs

The UN SDG Action Campaign, along with Paragon Partnerships and Kantar Public, wins the MRS President’s Award

The UN SDG Action Campaign, along with Paragon Partnerships and Kantar Public, has been awarded the President’s Medal, a honor which is bestowed annually by the Market Research Society (MRS) to an organization that has conducted extraordinary research.

The President’s Medal Winner – the UN SDG Action Campaign, sponsored by Paragon Partnerships (Kantar Public and Lightspeed) – developed and tested a question library of almost 100 SDG questions. This huge project constituted the first step to enable countries to measure their journey to the accomplishment of the SDGs in a consistent way. Data from the library was presented at the United Nations High Level Political Forum in July 2018 and is also publicly available for any government organization or NGO to use.

The UN SDG Action Campaign, with Paragon Partnerships and Kantar Public, were selected as one of the five esteemed nominees who have been using research to positively impact society. This year’s nominees were chosen by President of MRS Jan Gooding, Chair of MRS Phyllis Macfarlane and CEO of MRS Jane Frost CBE.

On choosing the winner, Jan Gooding, President of MRS, said:

“I was immensely impressed by what was achieved on a voluntary basis. It was a huge act of generosity on the part of everyone involved. At a time when the UN can find itself justifying its work and existence, when the problems in the world are so huge, this kind of collaboration to provide evidence of effectiveness is something to be celebrated and applauded.”

The MRS Awards celebrate research’s ability to drive innovation, inspire change and deliver results. See all finalists and winners of this year’s awards.

More information:

The UN SDG Action Campaign is an inter-agency special initiative of the UN Secretary-General to scale up, broaden, and sustain the global movement to take action for the SDGs. The UN SDG Action Campaign aims to mobilize and inspire individuals and organizations to take action and join the global movement for the SDGs, while connecting people’s actions and perceptions with decision makers in SDG planning and review processes at all levels.

Paragon Partnerships was launched at Impact 2016, the MRS Annual Conference, by Stan Sthanunathan of Unilever in response to the UN’s 17th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The programme calls on the private sector to help the UN achieve the SDGs by 2030.

The Market Research Society (MRS) is the UK professional body for research, insight and analytics. MRS recognizes 5,000 individual members and over 500 accredited Company Partners in over 50 countries who are committed to delivering outstanding insight. As the regulator, they promote the highest professional standards throughout the sector via the MRS Code of Conduct.

Photo credit: MRS

Volunteerism is driving SDG Action

By Hilary Ogbonna, UN SDG Action Campaign

In the smouldering tropical heat in downtown Bamako, he has convened a group of volunteers to perform the daunting tasks of transmitting over 60,000 paper survey responses received from across Mali from citizens who have just informed their Government and the United Nations about their development priorities through MY World 2030 survey. For Sory Monekata, Executive Secretary of Forum of International NGOs in Mali, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015 is a major opportunity to advance transformative and inclusive development in which every Malian will have a voice and their priorities accommodated in national development planning.

Since the adoption of the SDGs, the UN SDG Action Campaign has worked with partners across the globe to inspire actions and multi-stakeholder engagement with the SDGs. Mr. Monekata belongs to a growing movement of partners nurtured by the UN SDG Action Campaign to mobilize citizens and volunteers at local levels to take SDG action through MY World survey. MY World is a unique framework which provides a platform for multi-level actors to interface to ensure inclusivity, participation and accountability in SDGs implementation, reporting and review.

When the Government of Mali and the UN Country Team agreed on the implementation of the MY World Survey as a citizen engagement tool in the report and review process for the SDGs in Mali, Mr. Monekata and other civil society actors seized the opportunity to mobilise hundreds of volunteers across the 10 regions to identify the priorities of the citizens and assess progress on SDGs implementation. The survey was aimed at generating citizens’ data which will bring peoples’ perspectives to the Voluntary National Review (VNR) for which Mali was a candidate country in 2018. The VNR is a process of self-appraisal by Member States in the implementation of the SDGs and presented at the annual High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York.

The MY World survey is an intensive exercise requiring huge human resources, commitment and passion. Volunteerism is at the heart of MY World survey. For instance, the first edition implemented between 2013-2015 saw over 5,000 volunteers working in Nigeria alone to reach 2.7 million people on what their priorities for a post MDGs agenda will be. The survey in Mali was not going to be any different. For two weeks, over 500 young volunteers were mobilized across the country to engage with communities, schools and markets, creating awareness on the SDGs and asking questions about their impact on the quality of life. The work of volunteers did not stop after the field work. For the first time in the implementation of the survey in any country, the UN SDG Action Campaign engaged online volunteers outside the project country to assist in the data entry of the responses from the survey. With the UN reporting deadline for fast approaching, the UN SDG Action Campaign put out a call to local volunteers in Bonn, Germany and to the Online UN Volunteers platform. More than 100 volunteers took up the call. Over 20 came in person and 35 more volunteered online to assist with the data entry over the next 5 days. From Nigeria alone, the Campaign and its local partners mobilized 50 volunteers from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for the MY World Mali data entry. In all there were volunteers from more than 24 countries from all the regions of the world.

The MY Wold survey in Mali is no doubt a best practice on the deployment of volunteers using online facilities. It is a clear indication that volunteerism is a huge asset in mobilizing for the SDGs as well as in building a global movement of actors holding governments accountable on their commitments to the SDGs through MY World survey. In the words of Marina Ponti, Acting Director of the SDG Action Campaign: “in MY World Survey, everyone is a volunteer – trainers, enumerators, respondents, data analysts, reporters, visualizers and many more. In all our work, from Nigeria to Morocco, Mexico to Bhutan, Cameroon to the Philippines nothing more expresses the cardinal role of volunteerism in driving campaigns and social change, than the MY World survey”.

As more Member States participate in the Voluntary National Review (VNR), the Campaign will be offering MY World 2030 survey as a ready tool and mechanism to create awareness, mobilise citizens’ participation in implementation and review and generate data for measuring progress and accountability.

Note:

The MY World survey was implemented in May and June 2018 in all the regions of Mali. The field work coordination and collation were conducted by the following Malian civil society organisations and coalitions: Conseil National de la Société Civile, Forum des ONG Internationales au Mali and Forum des Organisations de la Société Civile au Mali. The survey was supported by the UN Country Team and the Government of Mali. Technical assistance was provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the UN SDG Action Campaign.

Back to basics: Going Beyond Online for SDG Advocacy

Written by Marikris de Guzman and Jose Mateo dela Cruz, MY World 2030 Advocates in the Philippines

In a world where selfies and the need to post on social media all the events that are happening real-time are the norms, how do we make people understand that what is important is not actually seen online? The advocacy for sustainable development boils down to people.

One former Philippine president said to her successor then – It’s the economy, student! But what is the economy if it does not serve the people. We believe that the same is true for the global goals – the centrality of the goals boils down to the development of the people’s lives and their quality of living.

Secondary students from a public high school in Pangasinan participating in the MY World Survey by answering the printed forms

A crucial component of the programme is the ASEAN MY World 2030 survey, which was launched by the 10 Ministers of Foreign Affairs of ASEAN and UNDP Administrator at the opening of the UN General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in September 2017. Through an online form, anyone can answer the survey and make their voice heard by the policymakers. An alternative to answering the online form is through a printed survey form. In addition to promoting the survey, advocates also conduct activities in their locality to promote awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals and feature advocates to demonstrate their local actions.

To bring forth localization, we need to focus not just on theories but on the lived experiences of people. This is where MYWorld becomes relevant – the survey and the Humans of MYWorld features are attempting to get a glimpse of the realities of people and try to measure if the aspirations of the new development agenda have borne significant changes for their lives or not.

As part of our strategy to increase awareness of SDGs in the grassroots level, we have conducted the survey in provincial areas using printed forms to give more space for participation to people who are not easily connected to the internet in the north and south of the Philippines. We did this through tapping local networks from our social capital and mobilizing them to support the conduct of the survey.

For us advocates, we wanted to go beyond promoting the global goals online. We hope to help in generating discussions and developing solutions within our communities. We believe that the people need to be enlightened regarding the SDGs than to merely contemplate about these and appreciate the Global Goals through social media sharing or even posting the goals that mean strongly for you. We knew that what we were doing has inherent limitations. The awareness survey is just the first step in promoting the implementation of the goals. People and institutions alike should be informed about the global goals first. With awareness, we hope that this can spark actions from institutions and communities to build collaboration and partnerships toward localizing and achieving the global goals at the grassroots level.

With this, the real power of MYWorld as a platform comes in – it is bringing back the discussion of these lofty and ideal goals to the people who demanded for sustainable development years ago. Features, campaign hypes, and communication strategies are being done to make people work for the goals but are we venerating the goals as an idea without understanding the real end game?

This year, we are privileged to be part of the ASEAN MY World 2030 Programme which aims to empower young changemakers in the ASEAN region to take upon a leadership role for both the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, led by the United Nations SDG Action Campaign, the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and the UN Volunteers Asia-Pacific. Selected youth advocates from the region will lead and carry out a series of advocacy activities in order to raise awareness about both agendas and increase citizen engagement to inspire concrete actions on the ground.

The challenge here is how to create a society recognizing individual aspirations but collectively working for these shared goals. This means going beyond the comfort of the online space and going to the communities and people where development is greatly aspired for. The battle to make the goals a reality is still ongoing. It will not just end in an online campaign rather it will be a long march from one community to another to educate, advocate, and work together for the global goals. It is a battle for uplifting the lives of more than 7 billion people and preparing this generation and the next to create a sustainable future- a planet that each person can say: MYWorld – a world that we want!

Sustainable Development Goals Alert in Malaysia at Penang Paddy Festival

In many cultures in Asia, paddy milled into rice is the energy-giving, life-sustaining source of food for the majority. Food security has become one of the government fundamental agendas and it is essential for the overall development. Furthermore, the government has emphasized that food security is synonymous with rice security. Many paddy fields have even made way for the more lucrative use of the land – the building of residential housing and shops.

The goal of the Penang Paddy festival is to raise awareness to the hardships of paddy farmers, especially among the younger generation. At the same time, it is also to bring attention to the rapid urbanization of Seberang Perai, where many tracts of agriculture lands are being converted.

On 6 August 2018 Penang State Legislative Assembly, YB Dr. Norlela, State Assembly Person for Penanti, Penang, Malaysia raise the issues of conversion paddy land to housing and commercial purposes. She is aware of the 102.18 hectares of paddy land that been converted. She hopes to save the remaining 396 hectares paddy field in Kampung Terus and Guar Jering. She promotes this awareness by Penang International Paddy Festival programme. ASEAN My World 2030 Advocate, Nadhilah Razak said on this coming August 12 we are planning to celebrate the International Youth Day by collaborate with Penang International Paddy Festival which will happened on the 11th & 12th August 2018 at Kampung Terus, Permatang Pauh, Malaysia. YB Dr. Norlela and YB Nurul Izzah will be the main organizer for this programme as they will become one of the Malaysia My World Stories for this UN SDG Action Campaign.

#PadikuWarisanku #SDG #MyWorld2030 #Malaysia #act4sdg #SDG1 #SDG8 #SDG12

Young Southeast Asians Unite in Singapore to Create Solutions to the SDGs

Designed to empower Southeast Asian youth to tackle regional sustainability issues, Young Sustainable Impact Southeast Asia (YSI SEA)’s 14 week-long Innovation Programme 2018 came to an end on 30 July 2018. The programme brought forward 24 participants from across 8 Southeast Asian countries to kickstart solutions for select United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) faced in their local communities.

YSI SEA team, YSI Global team and participants of the Innovation Programme 2018 at University Town, National University of Singapore

After a three-round selection process with 800 applicants, the Innovation Programme 2018 nurtured the 24 most promising participants to build 6 social impact startup teams focusing on the UN SDGs. The Innovation Programme 2018 consisted of two main components: the Online Innovation Programme and the Singapore Innovation Programme. The Online Innovation Programme was conducted on various virtual collaboration platforms. Over three months, participant teams were guided by expert mentors and YSI SEA’s curated course modules, from problem identification to developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for market validation.

YSI SEA then flew its participants down to Singapore on 19 July 2018 for the Singapore Innovation Programme. Over the next ten days, teams were able to accelerate their innovation process in each other’s physical presence. Five courses were conducted to prepare teams for pitching day and beyond. The participants also attended a workshop on the UN SDGs, the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the platforms available to them to take actions for the UN SDGs.

Pitching took place during the Singapore Sustainability Conference on 29 July 2018, to an invited group of angel and corporate investors, venture capitalists, accelerators and rotary members at the CDL Singapore Sustainability Academy.

The participants of the Singapore Innovation Week 2018 with Danat Tekie, Chief External Relations Officer, YSI Global during the Cultural Night

Leveraging on their diverse geographical and technical backgrounds, all six teams displayed their creative prowess in fashioning innovative solutions to the SDGS in the ASEAN region.

While Agrireach created the Reach Cube to tackle poor irrigation and drainage systems in agricultural fields in Philippines’, Allyasia developed an e-commerce platform to empower indigenous communities in Southeast Asia by reimagining their cultural heritage and to provide them with sustainable livelihoods. Gatewaste pitched a mobile application to optimise the recycling system in in Jakarta, by mobilising and empowering scavengers.

When asked about her thoughts on the Innovation Programme 2018, Sophia Enage, a participant of the Innovation Programme 2018 and co-founder of Mushroomable, said, “YSI SEA opened so many opportunities for learning and sharing wisdom as well as actualizing passions in life. In this whirlpool of experiences, learning and realizations, I want and will create sustainable and positive waves that the world will enjoy just like how YSI SEA made it possible for me.” Her startup idea aims to empower farmers to manage agricultural waste effectively, by utilizing rice by-products to grow mushrooms.

Sophia Enage, a participant of the Innovation Programme 2018 and co-founder of Mushroomable, pitching her idea during the Singapore Sustainable Conference 2018

The use of technology was apparent in the ideas generated by all the startups. With the goal of empowering healthcare providers in Philippines, Nutri-Alliance proposed an application that educates and supports healthcare providers, through access to digital information, education, and communication materials for healthcare and nutrition. Even Kembalikash, with the mission of educating Indonesian migrant workers f and their families in financial literacy, is working with industry leaders to provide an online payment and financial management platform.

Innovation Programme 2018 was a huge success, and the longevity of participants’ startup ideas for sustainable development will be seen to. These are made possible by a YSI SEA team which has worked tireless behind the scenes. “The whole YSI SEA team holds the SDGs closely to their hearts and their actions. We believe in the fundamental concept of leaving no one behind (and that includes mother nature) and the SDGs embody this concept perfectly”, said Sai Surya, the Managing Director of YSI SEA. “YSI SEA aims to empower these youth regardless of socio-economic backgrounds to solve the sustainable issues they are passionate about with a measurable impact. By creating impact-driven startups and impact-driven young leaders, we hope to push the SDGs and society forward,” he added.

YSI SEA team, YSI Global team and participants of the Innovation Programme 2018 at CDL Singapore Sustainability Academy

YSI SEA is one of the regional chapters of Young Sustainable Impact (YSI Global). YSI Global was started in Oslo, Norway by a group of youths passionate about bringing young people around the world together to tackle sustainability problems. They saw a lack of startups in the field of sustainable development aimed at alleviating bigger world problems, and decided to bridge the gap between idea generation and impact, as well as engage youth in sustainability and entrepreneurship.

When asked why YSI Global chose Singapore and Southeast Asia to work in the field of sustainable development, Marcus Bruns, Co-founder and CEO of YSI Global commented, “When YSI Global expanded to new regions, we based our decision on the people who applied to start locally. Not only were we lucky to have a great team in Singapore, we also have a youth population of 213 million in the ASEAN region, which makes it a great arena for sustainable innovation and community engagement.”

In addition to the Singapore Sustainability Conference, YSI SEA also organized the Singapore Sustainability Showcase on the same day. Graced by the Guest of Honour, Minister of Social and Family Development and Second Minister of National Development Desmond Lee, the showcase brought different NGOs, social entrepreneurs and corporations together to share on various sustainability initiatives and innovation in Singapore and the region.

Minister Desmond Lee, the Minister of Social and Family Development and 2nd Minister of National Development in Singapore and Sai Surya, Managing Director of YSI SEA during the Singapore Sustainability Showcase

“Ultimately when you talk about sustainability, it is how do we endear into each and every one of us that we are nothing more than mere custodians and stewards – that we take what we need today to meet the needs of ourselves, our families, our communities and our societies,” said the minister when delivering the opening address.

The 400 registered attendees of the Showcase were given electronic goodie bags. Among others, the goodie bags featured the ASEAN MY World Survey, which made it convenient for the attendees to take the Survey both during and after the Showcase.

Since its inception in 2017, YSI SEA has received widespread support from organizations such as the Prime Minister’s Office Singapore, Temasek Foundation Ecosperity, World Vision Singapore and National Youth Council of Singapore. YSI Global has the network of 14,000 entrepreneurs and innovators worldwide united with the common goal of reaching the UN SDGs. By bringing together the energy of the youth around the world and by connecting them to private, national and global stakeholders, YSI Global and YSI SEA could create an ecosystem to solve some of the most crucial issues of the 21st century.

The Power Of Youth in Indonesia to Challenge Harmful Narratives

Angga Dwi Martha – “Now the world is currently undergoing drastic changes in climate change, social and economic inequality, to politic and humanity crisis. Youths are usually faced with situations in which they do not have a safe space to move, to talk and to explore their potentials. With social media and other online communication platforms, youths have figured out a new way to include and innovate themselves to create a virtual and physical space for their own growth. Currently, creative art spaces like; music, poetry and digital media have significant roles on creating these spaces.”

Jakarta 11 August 2018 – 2030 Youth Force Indonesia held a Talk show and workshop in commemorating International Youth Day 2018 (IYD 2018). The event that was held in Google Office Indonesia was specifically for youths aged 15 till 30 who were interested in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and have the knowledgeable skills in the arts and literacy. The event that took the theme Safe Spaces For Youth “Freedom Of Expression: The Power Of Youth To Challenge Harmful Narratives” consists of 2 (two) session of activities which are Talk show and Workshop. We also introduced the programs that aimed to raise awareness on the attainment of SDGs, for instance ASEAN My World 2030, SDGs Plogging and SDGs Song.

The Talk show session invited the representatives from Google Indonesia, Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) Indonesia, Ministry of National Development (Bappenas) and UNDP as the speakers. This session discussed about the roles of art and literacy in combating harmful narratives. Creative counter-narratives will play a significant role in tackling the above mentioned problems. Counter-narratives are a message that offers a positive alternative to extremist propaganda or aim to deconstruct or delegitimize extremist narrative, this could involve focusing on what youth are interested in, by offering positives stories about shared values, open mindedness, and diversity

65 total number of participants that had been selected were divided into 3 (three) group of Workshop class according to their own interests of arts. The Workshop class consisted of Poetry class, Digital Creative class and Performing Art class that mentored by the experts. The Poetry class was mentored by Bentara Bumi as the initiator of Malam Puisi, the Digital Creative class was mentored by Cameo Project (Creator for Changes from Indonesia) and Performing Art class was mentored by Jakarta Performing Art Community (JPAC). During 2 hours, the participants got insights from the facilitator about how to transform dialogue peace into art and literacy.

What makes the Workshop class interesting and different is the project behind it, the participants are expected to make an output from the workshop that they choose. on 19 August, the participants will be performed in front of the audice to share their creativity and art on peace. the following activity include peace and charity performance.

After participating in the Talk show and Workshop, all the participants are expected to bring changes to the community, especially to fellow youths to combat harmful narratives such as violent extremism, hate speech, bullying online and black campaign. From there onwards, safe spaces will be made to maximize the potentials of youth so that they can contribute more to the community.

Promoting ASEAN My World and SDGs on RRI

ASEAN My World Advocate from Indonesia, Nur Hayyu Supriatin and her team The Youth Changemakers Sorong (TYCS) in West Papua Promoted SDGs and ASEAN My World survey promote ASEAN My World survey and SDGs on Indonesian Broadcasting System or RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia) Sorong. The Youth Changemakers Sorong is the network of young people from various communities in West Papua who care about change and be ready to take action.

ASEAN My World Advocate from Indonesia and her team Broadcasting on RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia) during the youth Afternoon programme, Friday, 10/08/2018.

The Announcer of Pro 2 RRI Sorong, Mrs Noni also excited. She just known that MDGs is done and now we are in SDGs era. We then talk about ASEAN My World survey, where we already took the survey, how to collect, and what is the impact of the survey to the people in West Papua. The respond is going well, the citizen especially the youth were interesting and asking how to join in the team and being a volunteer.

The announcer of Pro 2 RRI Sorong, Mrs Noni with ASEAN My World advocate and the team

After our promoting on Pro 2 RRI, the manager from RRI Sorong invited the advocate to come as a speaker as the prestigious program event at RRI namely Sorong Raya Aspiration with the theme The Role of SDGs in Development on 15th of August RRI. In this program the advocate talk about ASEAN My World Survey, her mandate, and SDGs . Quite a number of callers asked about SDGs because what the knew was MDGs. They than asked the government and atakeholders to help the advocate conduct a survey to find out the needs of the society. It is also live on RRI Youtube channel http/youtu.be/KdMQZAUmap8

After Broadcasting on Pro 1 RRI the Manager of RRI Sorong asked to meet and willing to provide the hall of building for hand over events on 25 September.

Broadcasting on Pro 1 RRI Sorong, Wed 15/08/2018

Besides promoting on RRI we also shared our movement in daily newspaper Radar Sorong. Well, this is just the beginning. We will promote our Act for SDGs for all the people through media both printing and electronic.

54 hours to take action for Sustainable Development Goals in Brunei

The opening of Startup Weekend Bruni Sustainable Development Goals took place on July 20th at the Progresif Cellular Headquarters in Gadong, Brunei.

The theme centered around the Sustainable Development Goals in which the teams’ startup ideas must incorporate at least one or more of the 17 SDGs.

With only 54 hours to put their idea into action, the teams were guided by mentors from a wide range of entrepreneurial backgrounds and the SDG mentor was Nurul Hadina Haji Alias, the ASEAN MY World 2030 Advocate for Brunei.

A team made up of entrepreneurs used their expertise and knowledge to create a workshop filled with challenging yet fun activities to bring participants out of their comfort zone. From learning how to pitch and make a business model canvas, to networking with students from different colleges and universities, whilst providing them with the tools to bridge gaps between trades, the whole event strives to expose the youth’s potential business idea and see those translated into ideas.

Nine teams consisting of youths from different higher institutions and non-government organizations presented their startup idea as the first step to #Act4SDGs in Brunei.

By identifying areas of concern and doing research on marketability, three teams were successful in hitting the judges’ criteria for customer validation, execution and design whilst being a feasible business model.

In the third place, was Tambang.bn for coming up with an idea for water taxi connectivity for Kampong Ayer.

In the second place, Pen of Hope who came up with a business idea for bamboo pens with vegetable seeds.

And the first place winner went to Trash 4 Recycle (T4R) whose business idea is to make an annual planer with recycled paper.

Afiq Mohammed, who is part of the organizing team, shared with us that “With Startup Weekend Brunei Sustainable Development Goals, it enabled more youths and leaders to create more solutions to problems that are not only faced in Brunei but also globally. We are hoping to see a lot of ideas emerge from the event that can leave a greater impact by providing support to those in need. Over 30 sustainable ideas were generated from 53 participants. Each idea was carefully refined and the teams were guided by mentors from diversified backgrounds and organizations.”

He concludes by saying “Although we introduced this platform through entrepreneurship, it allows the participants to see beyond making money but making a positive difference for others. It encourages them to be more aware of their surroundings and be more compassionate for others.”

We really hope to see more of these initiatives to support the youth and the generation now to take action for global goals.