Tag: Blog series

Action for SDGs: Gender Equality to unleash the full potential of youth

The power of feminist theory and action is what young people need to create understanding across differences and learn how to lead healthy lives and make social change.

Zimbabwe United Nations Association (ZUNA) embarked on the “Different Gender Same Agenda” project. Located in a patriarchal society, gender equality issues are important.

That is why ZUNA firstly engaged in giving an introduction to the project to school patrons and to more than 70 students at the beginning of the school year. Then the book “We should all be Feminists” was given to patrons and students.

The orientation and assessment workshop went further, involving two more schools and creating a wider understanding amongst students and increasing the scope of the project.

Two students from Glenview High School present their research findings.
Credit: Kudakwashe Chinjekure

“Gender Equality is about empowering our young girls to explore their worlds without fear of breaking barriers to reach their full potential” Munesu Mushonga

The aim of the awareness campaign is to create a gender-aware generation that takes into consideration the concept of gender inclusiveness in leadership, community participation, policy and decision making. High school students have a tendency to flock to courses that bridge what they learn in the classroom to the outside world. Educators would make a difference. A social transformation will take a village of teachers, scholars, and activists and there is need to reach out to these groups.

A teacher facilitating a workshop on gender equality with high school students

Teachers and educators need to be capacitated, they need support with age appropriate and relevant content that speaks to their communities.
They need to do more global research on issues of gender and sexuality and bring that knowledge back to their schools.
Organizations and schools need to engage in partnerships on how to bring more gender research into the curriculum design.

The “Different Gender Same Agenda” has assisted in changing mindsets and attitudes of young people in Zimbabwe.

Feeling inspired to take action?
JOIN the Global Day of Action “We the People #Act4SDGs on Sept 25

On 25th September 2017, 2nd anniversary of the SDGs we are calling for actions across the world to tell people about the global goals and tell our leaders how we are performing. We the People #Act4SDGs.

Read stories from all over the world and be inspired …

Action for SDGs – Marketing for a Greener Mindset: Addis Sustainable Life

Addis Sustainable Life (ASL) is a social and business venture based in Ethiopia working on campus sustainability and the distribution of recycled-paper products for the local market.

It was founded in 2014 as a practice-based capacity building platform for young volunteers to provide solutions for sustainable living habits.
As part of its business venture, ASL designs and distributes handmade, biodegradable products from waste paper and traditional raw materials like “Kacha” and “Enset” fibers.

ASL further supports small-scale local enterprises to market and distribute its handmade eco-friendly paper products for private companies in Ethiopia.

ASL Eco-Friendly Recycled Paper Products

The most important change ASL brought within the University community was the “change towards a greener mindset”. The idea of campus sustainability was quite new and ASL pioneered the initiative for young people to engage in simple resource efficiency and recycling habits. Practically, ASL’s major beneficiaries were young student volunteers, green entrepreneurs and low-income enterprises working on the handmade paper production. Apart from raising awareness among students and volunteers, ASL has also been able to reach private companies and convince them to use eco-friendly products and support small scale local green enterprises to provide a better market for green goods and enhance the distribution of recycled materials.

ASL Book donation facilitation for Addis Ababa University students; on Environment, Climate Change and related publications.

ASL served as a platform that allowed young volunteers to think and design waste separation methods. They did this through a Design Challenge Competition for students to come up with cost effective waste separation bins and managed to produce recycled prototypes.  

The aim of Addis Sustainable Life is to mobilize youth for climate action within Universities and address one of the most important elements of sustainability such as resource efficiency and paper waste recycling.
It also functions as a creative platform for young green entrepreneurs to create income by marketing and distributing eco-friendly paper products while helping protect the environment. It eventually sensitized private companies to go green while using recycled paper products to promote their business.

Feeling inspired to take action?
JOIN the Global Day of Action “We the People #Act4SDGs on Sept 25

On 25th September 2017, 2nd anniversary of the SDGs we are calling for actions across the world to tell people about the global goals and tell our leaders how we are performing. We the People #Act4SDGs.

Read more stories of Action for SDGs from all over the world and be inspired …

 

Action for SDGs: Civil Society takes the lead! Peru and the Agenda 2030 Ambassadors

The 2030 Agenda Peru Ambassadors Program is promoted by The Millennials Movement, the World We Want Platform and the UN Inter-Agency Network for Youth Development – Working Group on Youth and Gender Equality.  The Program aims to facilitate the educated participation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the process of dissemination, sensitization, implementation and citizen monitoring for 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals at the country level.

Youths discussing SDGs with the CSO Red de Mujeres Iberoamericanas

Through the program, the participant CSOs members join a capacity-building and evaluation process, deliver actions to sensitize their community the 2030 Agenda and SDGs, articulate their organizational goals with the Sustainable Development Goals and bring the voices and opinions of Peruvian men and women to UN and global leaders through the survey My World2030.

“The 2030 Agenda Peru Ambassadors Program, have allowed us interact with other people with similar ideals as our organization, making us feel that we are not alone, that we are accompanied by other youth who have the same desires to make of this a better world.”
– Jessica Danae Tapia Acero, Youth for Change / Líderes por el Cambio

Facilitating this way is a sustainable and inclusive process to achieve the SDGs by 2030. It is important to mention that the program raises awareness about the importance of gender equality to achieve the SDGs through program curricula and as a transversal matter. As it is hard to think about sustainable development when 50% of the population worldwide can’t give their 100% to achieve it.

Peru’s Youth Ambassadors for the Agenda 2030
Credit: Inpulsa Turismo

In 2016 the program reached 16 regions of Peru where 22 CSOs and 162 of their members became “citizen ambassadors” for the 2030 Agenda. 57 actions on the ground were delivered and 2,557 My World surveys were facilitated.

“The Ambassadors Program for the 2030 Agenda has shown us that it doesn’t matter how small the decisions we make every day are, every single decision in every single regards can actively contribute to achieve SDGs by 2030.”
– Rosario Diaz Garavito, The Millennials Movement

The 2030 Agenda Peru Ambassadors Program promotes participation of the CSOs and visualization of their effort as relevant contributions in their communities. CSOs have been contributing to the development process through their communities for quite some time, but many of them do not relate their efforts as contributions to achieving sustainable development at the national level, as some of them are not even familiar with these international instruments.

ICJ Lima

It is clear that the program contributes to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).  The program also includes gender equality approaches that need to be considered while delivering concrete actions to Peru. Peru is a country with different issues regarding gender inequality, according to the last National Gender Inequality Report 2015, the levels of inequality include both economic and political spheres.

Feeling inspired to take action?
JOIN the Global Day of Action “We the People #Act4SDGs on Sept 25

On 25th September 2017, 2nd anniversary of the SDGs we are calling for actions across the world to tell people about the global goals and tell our leaders how we are performing. We the People #Act4SDGs.

Read more stories of Action for SDGs from all over the world and be inspired …

 

Action for SDGs: High School students engage to raise awareness about the SDGs at Cottonwood Festival in Flintridge, California

High School students from Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy joined together to have a session about the Sustainable Development Goals and set up a hub at the Cottonwood Festival in Flintridge, in which they aimed to raise awareness about the Global Goals.

They managed to spread the knowledge through the session and eventually filled in several MyWorld2030 surveys.

Most of the participants were new to the global goals. They found out SDGs are of crucial importance in their everyday lives, to the point that when filling the survey they could not even choose 6 out of 17 because they all mattered to them.

The hub was focusing on SDG13 Climate Action, which was the most related to the course the students are currently undertaking. They created pins of the SDGs by recycling plastic bottles caps, showing their engagement in climate action.

Students from the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy marking the recycled bottle caps with SDG numbers from 1-17.

“I just learned about these goals today!”
One of the participants after visiting the student-made hub at the Festival.

There has been a lot of curiosity around the SDGs, people felt the need to know more, asked for further information and eventually engaged towards their achievement and evaluation through the MYWorld2030 survey.

A visitor filling out the “My World 2030” survey after listening to the student’s introduction about the SDGs at the festival.

 

FEELING INSPIRED TO TAKE ACTION?
JOIN THE GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION “WE THE PEOPLE #ACT4SDGS ON SEPT 25

On 25th September 2017, 2nd anniversary of the SDGs we are calling for actions across the world to tell people about the global goals and tell our leaders how we are performing. We the People #Act4SDGs.

 

Read more stories of Action for SDGs from all over the world and be inspired …

Action for SDGs: Building Bridges for Women Entrepreneurs

Young women are disadvantaged compared to their male counterparts when it comes to access to funding, community trust, government tenders, and mentorship. The actions taken by the Building Bridges Foundation and its partner’s efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa can effectively address the challenges that hinder young female entrepreneurs in setting up and running their businesses.

The Building Bridges Foundation in partnership with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UN SDG Action Campaign has developed a project that focuses on the economic empowerment of young female entrepreneurs in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This program has helped to equip youth entrepreneurs with the skills and tools that enabling them to grow their businesses, and empower more women and girls in their communities.

“When your dream scares you, that’s when you know you are on the right track.” Sometimes I’d look at myself and think, will I really be able to be a 15-year- old designer?
This is crazy! And then I realize that what I’m doing is really unique and it’s special.
I just have to keep on doing it.”
Tawile – Malawi.

What has been the impact so far?

  • More than 1000 young entrepreneurs participated in the project
  • 80 Humans of MY World stories were created that continue to inspire many young people around the world to do chase their dreams.
  • 27 female youth entrepreneurs have been incubated and assisted with the skills and tools that are needed for their business to prosper and employ more young people.
  • A book and research report were presented to heads of state, ministers, NGO leaders and other stakeholders during the Nairobi High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation.
  • Local hubs and a network of youth entrepreneurs that cover 45 cities in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya) have been created.

The policy recommendations set out by the research component of the project aim to enhance new regulations and programs driven by multi-stakeholder cooperation in order to boost the economic activities of young women.

Feeling inspired to take action?
JOIN the Global Day of Action “We the People #Act4SDGs on Sept 25

On 25th September 2017, 2nd anniversary of the SDGs we are calling for actions across the world to tell people about the global goals and tell our leaders how we are performing. We the People #Act4SDGs.

Read more stories of Action for SDGs from all over the world and be inspired …