Youth Towards the Milleniun Development Goals

Young people is leading their own future through different initiatives

Talia Delgado
Romania - 19/06/2008
  In 2000 globalization took a different meaning and direction, when change its approach from economically focused to socially focused one. In 2000 The Millennium Declaration was adopted at the 8th plenary of the Millennium Summit meeting. A total of 189 member states of the United Nations agreed to help citizens in the world's poorest countries to achieve a better life by the year 2015. Passing by its political meaning, the Millennium declaration resume a clear global message that the world belongs to each of their citizens and in order to make a better place it should be a common effort to accomplish better living conditions from all the world habitants.

Its look like an idealistic, magnificent project, its look like a too high goal for small citizens to achieve but there are already thousand of examples of citizens, and specially young people who has taking into their small actions the objectives of the Millennium.


Youth and Development,
we are not the future generation we are the present one

Actually around 1,2 billion of people are between 15-24 years old. Globally Young people are also one of the most affected by the issues that the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are trying to reach such us unemployment education and poverty. As pointed by the World Development Report 2007 published by the World Bank

The report points out that that young people make up nearly half of the ranks of the world's unemployed, some 130 million 15-24 year olds--cannot read or write. Secondary education and skill acquisition make sense only if primary schooling has been successful. Managing learning, working, growing up healthy, forming families and exercising citizenship - will require continued investment by governments and the creation of an environment for young people and their families to flourish, World Bank President writes in the report.

Youth has becoming not only a prime target group for, programs, institutions and international organizations but also is becoming a main social actor bringing contributions to MDG and active participating in decision making process. Young people has also an important role to play in education specially on transmitting their knowledge and know how to other youngsters but also to international institutions. The sustainable partnership with young people is still to be build and it will be crucial point in the strategic plan to achieve MDG.

It is crucial to involve young people in poverty reduction initiatives not only because it will develop their capacities as citizens but also it will engage their families and communities into the working plan. Young people are key actors in decision making and development.


From Target group to activists

All over the world young people is already contributing to the Millennium Development Goals even before they were discussed and created. MDG has not been the detonator of these young people activism .Before the declaration was known these young people already had projects on this sense.

Active participation on young people has became a major issue not only because demographics but also because for a long time young people is leading their own future. The growing interest on young people is coming not only from studies but for real examples where young people through, projects, associations or youth lead movements are making a huge difference are showing that they are not only the target group but also the active group fighting to achieve development .

Globally Young people have already worldwide projects and are actively contributing through their initiatives to MGD. They are changing the world already and they started before even the Millennium Declaration.

Maybe the examples of the young people that we are going to present can be used as a practical example of good practises how small practises can make a difference in achieving social globalization.

Millenium Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
•Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
•Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
•Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger .

Leadership Initiatives

Education is one of the main tools towards development. It is important to achieved general education and assures it to all world youth. Through education people get the necessary skills to develop not only personally but also socially and start its active social participation.

Leadership Initiatives understand that logical process and used its principles to contribute to the generation of sustainable development in different countries
They do understand the concept of young people for young people and applies it by encouraging young students to take part on their own community development by leading community based initiatives that will generate sustainable development.

Leadership Initiatives Provides entrepreneurial, leadership, and project management training for university students worldwide through turning their ideas for community change into sustainable development projects.

Since 2003 they have carried out several projects in Namibia, Nigeria and Philippines benefiting more that 120 university students and local communities.

On the preparatory phase they identify a University as possible partner after the partnership is done they select between 15-20 students to be interviewed and trained in different fields such us entrepreneurial and management.

Once they had finished their training they start to work in their local community’s identifying development opportunities and designing solutions.
The trained students create their working and action plans and initiatives in partnership wit local institutions.

Leadership initiatives contributes to the project sustainability by offering to these students the start up capital for their projects and involving local business and community members into sustainable funding for the initiatives. As well the local staff offices provide help to growth the projects and to contribute to its progress.

Leadershipinitiatives.



Wala Wala -Arts for development

Non formal education through arts is contributing to sustainable development, not only at personal level but also at social one. By reflecting on daily issues arts contribute to create public awareness and to raise consciousness on the people social attitudes towards them.

It also helps people to understand complex cultural and social topics and specially is an easy way to engage young people in community development. Thought arts young people learn different skills that build up their self-confidence as first step on developing their participative skills in special on marginalized populations.

Art has always been related to development and social change, and Sphamandala Trevor Mzobe founder of Wala Wala production knows better.

Wala Wala is an NGO operates in KwaZulu Natal and South Africa to make theatre accessible to all Citizens of KwaZulu natal, South Africa and beyond to impact an innate talent development to variety of people. Wala Wala uses the power of performing arts to Inspire, Motivate and Empower the youth with the knowledge and skills to socially and economically transform their communities.

Wala Wala Productions .

SYINC Development through Participation

Young people are social actors with skills and capacities that can bring possible solutions to their own problems. The active participation of young people in society promotes the well-being and by extension their own development. It is by, expressing their views and opinions that young people develop skills and build competencies. As many possibilities as a young person has to participated more experience is becoming this allows more effective participation, which contributes to development for society. A developed community is the one that allows all its members to participate

In every region of the world there are now initiatives, projects and programmes in which young people are participating in decision-making. Many are beginning to influence, policy makers, professionals and the media with their own perspectives. Organizations and networks of young people have been created at the local, national, regional and global levels, demonstrating their capacity for advocacy, and negotiation, and their commitment to change the problems affected them.


A live example is a youth lead organization called SYINC (Singapore International Youth Council) created by Bernise Ang that works to link up and build capacity among Singapore youth organisations so as to incubate, equip and empower young people to take action on the issues important to us. Through a network of youth organisations and adult allies, SYINC works to serve as a resource platform for youth engagement on the issues they care about.

They aim to foster courage, action, and a sense of social justice in a challenging global socio-political climate, and seek to engage decision-making processes to find collaborative, creative solutions for positive social change.

SYINC act as a peer-to-peer resource network coordinating Singapore youth social change organisations, and build inter-agency linkages across thematic issues and sectors.
They also develop and share tools and resources for capacity building that enable youth and youth organisations to be effective change agents.
In order to facilitate participation they provide through different activities a channel for dialogue between government and youth to act on the priorities and interests of young people.

All their activities contribute to grow social responsibility and global citizenship through education and awareness, a culture of discourse, and engaging interest in social issues.

SYINC .

Development through Health Care

MDG GOALS 4&5 -Reduce Child Mortality & Improve Maternal Health
•Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
•Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio .
•Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health

Around the world 9,7 millions children died yearly before turning 5 years old .More that three quarters of that cased are related to malnutrition or diseases caused by poor water quality or sanitation such us colera, malaria, other related causes are lack of sexual education and reproductive health and poverty. All of them could be prevented with proper medical services.

As pointed by World Health Organization globally there is a lack of health workers from nurses to doctors and specially community health workers in developing countries. At least 1.3 billion people worldwide lack access to the most basic healthcare, often because there is no health worker. The 2006 World Health Report recommended that in order to achieve this goal it is needed the right workers with the right skills in the right place doing the right things.

Young people can became as well a solid resource in promoting opportunities for young people to take part in decision making related to health issues. It is important to promote the active involvement of young people in health programme development in order to get a successful implementation of that program.

Youth people can take active participation in reducing child mortality and improving maternal health not only by advocating, raising awareness and informing through campaigns about rights and reproductive health but also by getting themselves involved directly in providing health care as community health workers.

The 2007 World Health Report emphasized global cooperation, collaboration and investment is necessary to ensure a safer future. This means a different approach to managing the problem of global disease and increasing global and national resources for the training of public health personnel among others

Neil’s organizations Helthcarevolunteer is making a difference on this sense anticipating to global cooperation in matters of Healthcare, as well as involving young people health care and contributing to reduce the lack of heath workers around the world.

HealthCare Volunteer was founded on 2006 by Elliot Mendelsohn an American medical student and Neilesh Patel an American dental student, who realized the need for a free non-profit portal that connects all volunteers and job seekers interested in health-related volunteering or health-related work to appropriate opportunities. HealthCare Volunteer was accessed by thousands of volunteers and job seekers from more than 118 countries in 2006. In 2007, DentalVolunteer merged with HealthCare Volunteer to create the world's largest listing of health-related volunteering opportunities.

All started in 2005 when second year medical student and dental student sought out volunteering opportunities during their winter vacation. to the Amazon in Brazil, and wanted to provide some basic health services to the needy people while they were there. They scoured the Internet and wrote dozens of emails to various volunteer organizations that never answer back. During his trip to Brazil the dental student came across a large number of people who could have used his dental services, even with the little knowledge he had at that time. The saddest part was that there were lots of people who wanted to volunteer, but just didn’t have the proper channel.

When he returned home, he wondered if other health professionals and people had had similar experiences. In the meanwhile, the medical student has found out through people he spoke to that physicians and medical students had similar roadblocks to volunteering. The problem started expanding to MPH students, MBAs, nurses and pre-meds, who all wanted to make a difference in global health platform.

This youth lead organization connects volunteers to health-related volunteering opportunities for free—anywhere, any time, and for any length of time. They aim to become the de-facto non-profit organization and website for health-related volunteers and workers anywhere in the world.
They are building the world's largest listing of healthcare volunteering and employment opportunities by empowering every human being to contribute to the health of the world. They want thought their activities to show that the lack of health workers can be solved by a simply initiative.

Since 2005 the organization has provide health care to more than 2000 people and expanded their activity in over 15 countries. They have large database of volunteering opportunities connecting more than 16.000 volunteers with more than 2.500 organizations around the world.

HealthCare Volunteer


Youth for Sustainable Development

MDG 7: Ensuring environmental sustainability
•Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
•Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
•Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
•Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020 .

The current economic development has brought negative consequences to environment such as, growing pollution, destruction of biodiversity, scarce access to water and difficult access to natural resources that has generated worldwide conflicts.

All these issues are affecting young people lives and human kind future. In order to achieve global development it is necessary to look for solutions that can assure the good management of environmental resources.

All around the world young people are contributing to environmental improvement and to the MDGs goals to ensure environmental sustainability.
Young people are taking action though small local development projects and networking internationally to can influence environmental policies. They are exchanging good practises and know how and becoming Government consultants in matters of environmental issues.

Young people is promoting thought their initiatives, thought their social enterprises a sustainable use of global resources.

One concrete example of young people contributing to alternative solutions that guarantee local and global sustainable development is the Kenyan youth lead project “Trees for Clean Energy” a project were 950 small farmers from Kibwezi, are learning how to cultivate Jatropha a plant that grows naturally in the area and that its been used as bio-diesel.

The project was started by Zablon Wagalla, a young agricultural scientist, who wanted to increase the benefit of the small farms and contribute to sustainable development. Through the project, youth process the Jatropha seeds into diesel fuel. The project supply energy to the local community and generates a source of incomes. As added benefit the plantation of Jatropha is transforming the arid land in productive area for farmers.

Jatropha grows on a wide range of land types, including non-arable, marginal and waste land, and need not compete with vital food crops for good agricultural land. Seeds are crushed to produce oil for refining into biodiesel. The residual meal (seedcake) left after oil extraction is excellent organic fertiliser and can be burnt for power generation. If the compounds that make jatropha inedible can be removed, jatropha meal has the potential to be a valuable animal feed. Efficient use of bio-products ensures that jatropha growing and processing is economically viable and energy efficient. More Info


These are just few examples of the enormous amount of young people over the world contributing to the Millennium Goals. Through their commitment and activities they have shown that each small step can make the differences and is up to each one of us to work for reaching the Millennium goals. They are more than living examples on how simple, things can be improved. Youngsters have become a strong force and authorised partners in the development process. Their participation is more needed than ever and their experiences are positive starting points to be taken into consideration in order to multiply them further. Young people idealism has been transformed into pragmatism and more oriented to action and self organization.
Yung people has demonstrate already that it is necessary to stop to see the as part of the problem and to start to invest in their potential.

More available info:

More Youth Lead Projects

MDG UN

ATLAS MDG

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