By Benjamin Buyemere, Youthfim Program Coordinator.
With a profound desire to allow participation and also to make the global campaign “MY World” well known for a large group people, youth gathered in the Youth Forum on ICPD and MDGs, “YOUTHFIM” have set the target of reaching more disadvantaged people, by meeting them in public markets, in the streets, students in Universities and others that are not in contact with information, raising their awareness about the process that is undertook by the UN Millennium Campaign, aiming to gather the voices of all categories of people, in order to contribute to the MY World global survey in the context of the world we want.
The United Nations Association of Boulder County participated in the Boulder Creek Festival 2014 during Memorial Day weekend, May 24-26. 2014. For over a quarter century, the Boulder Creek Festival has been the unofficial kickoff to summer in Boulder. Widely considered Boulder County’s favorite event, the Festival attracts an anticipated half a million people for three days of festivities, featuring a large variety of events, activities, food and entertainment unique to the Boulder community. The concluding day of the festival, Memorial Day at Boulder begins with America’s all time best 10K race “BolderBOULDER”.
The Festival is free to the public and features something for everyone: 9 separate event
areas with 500 vendors showcase everything from community arts and crafts to health
alternatives and technology while 4 performance stages feature a spectrum of music and dance. The Festival also features carnival rides, food and beverage vendors, and the signature event: a rubber duck race down the creek!
The City of Boulder requires all events within city limits to be Zero Waste events. The
goal at a Zero Waste event is to plan ahead and only distribute materials that are
recyclable, compostable or reusable (i.e. no materials that have to be landfilled).
United Nations Association of Boulder County reserved a booth at the Boulder Creek
Festival; our volunteers included members from Model United Nations club at Boulder
High School & University of Colorado and members from the UNICEF Campus
Initiative at University of Colorado.
Over 300 young Pakistani youth representatives from all over Pakistan gathered on Tuesday at a youth forum to meet and launch the My World Survey with the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi.
Young boys and girls from different social backgrounds interacted with the Youth Envoy and shared their views and perspectives about their challenges and aims with regards to access to education, skill development, employment, sexual and reproductive health and to their participation in policy making and peace building in the country.
Chairman of Youth Revolution Clan, Rizwan Anwar noted that “Pakistan’s biggest asset is its youth; we are becoming a youth partner in the development agenda and we are committing to raise more than one million votes for the MY World Survey with as many people as possible: citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds, and particularly the world’s poor and marginalized communities.” He continued “with more than 2000 youth ambassadors, Youth Revolution Clan will be working with civil societies, youth organizations, universities, colleges and government sectors to mark the difference.” He specially thanked Mr. Ravi Karkara, UN Global Advisor on youth & children for his continuous guidance, support and motivation to launch the campaign in Pakistan that has been in planning for the last nine months.
During the 2014 JCI Area Conferences, JCI members took action to engage young active citizens and surrounding community members in the MY World campaign during each of these unique events in Medellin, Colombia (April 23-26), Lome, Togo (May 21-24), Yamagata, Japan (June 4-7) and St. Julian’s, Malta (June 11-14). JCI adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2004 as a way for young active citizens to take targeted action in their communities to create a global impact. The MY World Campaign presents a unique opportunity to continue the commitment and engagement for setting the next set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-2015 process.
This is a letter written by Aakash Shah, Founder and President of Action for Pune Development, and Global Youth Advocate for MY World 2015 and World We Want 2015. He is striving to collect a million votes in Pune, India.
It is an honor to work as a Global Youth Advocate for My World 2015, and the ‘World We Want’ platform. As a Global Youth Advocate, I focus on involving people from different areas of society, as well as other initiatives to help mobilise and strengthen the campaign. I have collaborated with Radio Channels, Technical Book Publishers, over 50 schools, hospitals, Private Sectors, NGO’s etc. to promote the campaign and to collect votes.
There are over 50 MY World 2015 Youth Ambassadors around the world who help promote awareness about the importance of this campaign. In order to better explain each priority in the ‘MY WORLD 2015’ survey, we are organising various events in public areas that have to do with specific priorities in order to maximize the interest and understanding of each priority. For example, we organised a book donation camp to help people further understand the priority of ‘a good education’. We had various people donate books which we then gave to the needy & under-privileged. Similarly, we organised a Tree Plantation Drive on World Environment Day to support the priority of ‘Protecting Forest, Rivers and Ocean’.
Ravi Karkara (ONU), Miguel Ángel Mancera (El alcalde de la Cuidad de México), María Fernanda Olvera, (directora de INJUVE DF) con los jóvenes embajadores en el lanzamiento de MI Mundo en México
La Ciudad de México asume el reto internacional de aplicar un millón de encuestas con el formato My World, desarrollado por la Organización de Naciones Unidas para conocer la opinión de las personas en relación a su calidad de vida y cómo mejorarla, informó el Jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal, Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, al poner en marcha la consulta que realizarán más de 3 mil jóvenes del Instituto de la Juventud (Injuve DF) en la capital del país.
Acompañado del abogado defensor de los derechos humanos y asesor de ONU Hábitat y de la Campaña del Milenio, Ravi Karkara, el Ejecutivo local enfatizó que las juventudes capitalinas son un motor de cambio, que en esta ocasión incidirán en el plano global al recabar las encuestas en tres meses –junio, julio y agosto- mientras que a países enteros les tomó años el mismo ejercicio.
Indicó que para apoyar el entusiasmo, el compromiso y aspiraciones de los capitalinos entre 14 y 29 años, el Gobierno de la Ciudad de México desarrolló la Ley de la Juventudes, que otorga certeza jurídica a los derechos conquistados para este sector de la población.
This is a guest Blog written by:Francis C. Anyaegbu, Africa Region Representative, UN-HABITAT Youth Advisory Board. Follow him on Twitter: @francisanyaegbu
During the 5-11 May MY World Global Week of Action, UNHABITAT, Youth Pioneers For Development, and various Youth Groups teamed up to collect votes in Makoko, a slum in Lagos, Nigeria. We decided to adopt the three suggestions for engagement suggested in the toolkit:
Our motivation for choosing Makoko community was drawn from our recognition of the neigbourhood as a slum with lots of residents from disadvantaged backgrounds whose voices needed to be heard. The population of residents according to Wikipedia is estimated to be over 80,000 and interestingly this demography was not enumerated in Nigeria’s last census exercise in 2007. We are also aware that in most cases, like other major slums in Lagos most of them usually do not have their voices captured in developmental initiatives.
For the school, we felt it was important to also capture the voices of students to enrich the survey.
We were only able to collect about 103 offline votes out of which about nearly as 40 votes came from the Residents of Makoko slum neigbourhood while the remaining came from Students of Yaba College of Technology, a institution of higher learning about 20 minutes away from the Community and 5 minutes away from the University of Lagos. One of the reasons we were not able to get much votes as anticipated from Makoko was because of general apathy for surveys. Resident of the slum settlement were concerned about any adverse effects that may ensue from the collation of the survey. But we were only able to allay the fears of a few with the kind assistance of the community Youth leader.
For Makoko, we recorded significant votes for “Better job opportunities,” “Better health care,” “A good education “as well as access to clean water and sanitation.
The General Assembly Thematic Debate on Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies took place 24-25 of April at the United Nations in New York. In his opening remarks, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon noted that the UN is built upon three pillars: “peace, development and human rights.” He followed by highlighting that the post-2015 development agenda must consider how to promote stable and peaceful societies, as these three pillars are inherently linked.
To highlight this importance further, the Secretary General referenced the MY World Survey as the voice of people around the world asking for this issue to be addressed:
Photo: (c) UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras/586351
The UN My World survey on the post-2015 development agenda showed that protection against crime and violence ranks high among all population groups in all regions. Let us therefore work together to develop a post-2015 development agenda that will address the underlying causes of violence and conflict wherever they occur. Let us use sustainable development and human rights to provide the foundations for lasting peace. And let us build effective and trustworthy institutions, promote the rule of law and pay closer, earlier attention to human rights abuses.
“Protection against crime and violence” ranks sixth in the MY World Survey amongst the 1,855,839 voters globally thus far. These results are the same irrespective of age, gender, or education level, as it is either the sixth or seventh priority for all groups.
Voters in the Americas placed slightly higher priority on this issue, ranking it fourth. Those in Europe ranked it fifth, and those in Africa, Asia and Oceania it seventh.
Explore The World We Want to see data visualizations on the post-2015 process, follow events and outcomes from discussions thus far, and to add your voice to the debate.
What priorities do Bahranians choose for a better world?
For the past month, UN Bahrain has rolled out a campaign to bring the people of Bahrain’s voices to the United Nations using the MY World Survey. These efforts range from unique visits to collect votes at schools, at the APM Terminals (container terminal port management), and at the 16th International Book Fair at the Bahrain Exhibition Centre. It also includes a strong presence on social media and media outlets (see articles below). In culmination, UN Bahrain and its partner Gulf Air have launched a MY World video highlighting the top priorities emerging from the survey, which will be screened aboard all flights starting 1 May .
These efforts have certainly paid off. In just one month’s time, votes from Bahrain have increased 28%, currently numbering 4,092 votes. Yet the UN wants more: “the My World Survey presents an important and unique opportunity for Bahrain, as a small island state, to be heard on a global platform with its particular needs and challenges,” said UN Resident Coordinator Peter Grohmann.
So, what are the priorities of people from Bahrain? Here are a few facts from the voting results thus far:
The top six priorities are: “A good education,” “Better healthcare,” “Better job opportunities, “An honest and responsive government,” “Protection from crime and violence,” and “Freedom from discrimination and persecution.”
57% of voters are aged 30 and younger.
42% of voters are female.
Women place a higher priority on “Protection against crime and violence,” and “Access to clean water and sanitation,” and “Equality between men and women.” Men place a higher priority on “Political freedoms” and “Better transport and roads.”
The older the voter, the higher the priority on “An honest and responsive government” and “Freedom from discrimination and persecution.”
Voters aged 15 and under placed the highest priority on “Access to clean water and sanitation,” “Affordable and Nutritious food,” and “Protecting forests, rivers and oceans” – yet they voted the least for “Action taken on climate change” out of any age group.
To see more MY World and The World We Want Results
We’re thrilled to share with you the toolkit for the upcoming MY World Global Week of Action (May 5-11). You can find the toolkit and all the resources you need for online and offline engagement available at this link.
To date, more than 1.8 million people from 194 countries have voted for the world they want thanks to the brilliant efforts of partners like you.
The Global Week of Action (GWA) is a worldwide mobilization effort to gather an additional 500,000 votes.
These votes matter. The UN is working with governments everywhere to define the next global agenda to address extreme poverty and preserve the planet.
The data from these votes continues to be used by decision makers and inform various intergovernmental processes at the UN. Additionally, the data has been presented at the World Economic Forum, TedX events, SXSW, +Social Good, World Conference on Youth, and the African Union Summit among others.
Together we can make it happen! The more people we can engage, the more votes we drive, the more people around the world will participate in shaping the future of development.
TAKE ACTION
You can download the toolkit for action and start sharing with your community today.
Drive Voting through #globalvote – Share tweets, posts, graphics and videos with your community online, with a link to myworld2015.org
Join the ThunderClap – donate your social media profile to the MY World call for votes before May 8th and be part of the global rally online
Mobilize Offline – Set up a voting booth and reach out, in person, to the digitally disconnected in your community, school, or place of worship
