Engaging with youth is no longer an option: the "Millennials" are a growing constituency that pushes an increasingly coherent agenda. The newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals represent an unprecedented opportunity: they acknowledge youth, address issues that are of particular concern to young people, and invite updated approaches to youth engagement. How might the energy, creativity, and skills of "Millennials" be leveraged to co-create positive change in policy; advocacy and campaigning; programming, monitoring, and accountability; communication and research, etc.?
Certainly some of the millennials have the energy, creativity, knowledge and skills to give a positive impact. to this world and the problems we have around us. As young workers, as scientists and researchers, the millennials have opportunity to contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goals: including ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests. The service that they can perform with their youthful energy will pave the way for the community to trust them as future leaders of the country, who have high scientific literacy, and wisdom to tackle the many issues and problems confronting our planet.
The millennials must be given opportunity, although the political power is not in their hands as yet. Have a look at this link: " What if it was mandatory to have at least one Millennial representative holding a place on the board and key committee of every public & large private institution – with the primary role to serve as the “Chief Millennial Sustainability Officer” with the responsibility to align the company strategy and action with the Sustainable Development Goals and to be the conduit to ensure the long-term sustainability of the planet, people and the business, in that order!
Similarly, to have at least one Millennial representative for all large NGOs, Governments, and other international governance bodies such as the EU, UN, IMF etc. For example the Governments of Hungary and Wales have appointed a ‘Future Generations Commissioner’".
http://www.futurejustice.org/blog/guest-contribution/sustainable-development-goals-time-to-bring-in-the-millennials/
When I was consulting for UNICEF Mongolia, we partnered with other UN agencies to host a series of youth development conferences to train youth how to implement the Millennium Development Goals. Here's link to some of the press coverage:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hkc9D2PEe1MC&dq=one+world+conference+united+nations&source=gbs_navlinks_s
I think one of the practical ways of engaging the youth towards the realization of the SDGs is first of all through mobilizing sensitizing them on the SDGs first of all. This is necssary because many youth are engaged primarily in the daily business of survival and have no time to think of global issues. Consequently if strategies aimed at involving the youth includes prospects of lucrative employments they are most likely to give their total commtiment.
Thank you all for these insights and the care you took to frame them. Last Saturday, at a YouthSpeak Forum in Metro Manila, Philippines, I spoke on the subject of Youth and the Global Goals. The presentation I gave is at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302377627_Youth_and_the_Global_Goals. As a preface to that, I underscored the need to Understand: The Global Goals; the presentation on that topic is at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302377272_Understand_The_Global_Goals.
Presentation Youth and the Global Goals
Presentation Understand: The Global Goals
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