The year 2030. It sounds like a distant future...but it’s actually less than 14 years away.
Given this short time frame, the list of goals that the United Nations has asked the world to achieve by 2030 is daunting. Last year, the UN created The Global Goals for Sustainable Development, challenging the international community to find an end to poverty, gender inequality, and climate change, amongst other robust objectives.
The Social Good Summit in New York focused on the urgent need to grapple with 17 of the most challenging issues of our time. From quality education to eradication of cancer, the UN’s full range of Global Goals were addressed by an array of the best and brightest in the world of social impact.
During the first day of the summit, the refugee crisis was a focal point. One panel, called “Access to Education: Paving the Road Home,” reframed the crisis by lending two young voices to share their firsthand experiences. Muzoon Almellehan and Zaynab Abdi, two young campaigners for the Malala Fund, described their past experiences as refugees, their current advocacy work and their dreams looking to the future.
Abdi and Almellehan humanized refugees, reminding the audience that refugees are people who deserve basic human rights. The activists’ brave determination to fight for the right of all refugee children was empowering, and they called upon world leaders and everyone in the audience to take action. “When I ask for education, I ask for my future,” said Almellehan. “Every child has a right to an education...Change is difficult but not impossible.”
This idea of collaborating to create change, no matter how small, is something we should keep in mind as we work together to make an impact in our communities, both locally and globally.
Vice President Joe Biden also took the stage on the final day of the summit (and yes, I admittedly was a bit starstruck!). While he, too, spoke about the importance of working together, this time it was in the context of his Cancer Moonshot campaign to “make the seemingly impossible possible.”
Once again, the key here was this idea of uniting efforts, more specifically through an international standardization of data. With this standardization, Biden is fighting to make it easy for health professionals and cancer researchers to share and compare research, working together towards one common goal of stopping cancer in its tracks. While his inspiration originated from his son’s battle with cancer, his efforts haven’t slowed down. From numerous meetings with world leaders, medical professionals, current fighters and cancer survivors, it is clear to him that “we can win this fight.” While the thought of ending cancer may seem impossible for most, for Biden it is clearly a matter of when. The magic number being 2030.
Within our work at Causecast, we see this common theme of collaboration resurface time and time again. It’s one that hits home for most Millennials when it comes to creating an impact. My generation understands the importance of making a positive change on an individual level, and we look to join companies that also aim to do the same. The Social Good Summit proves that impact permeates all people, places, and sectors. By uniting our efforts, whether big or small, we can all be change makers to achieve a better world in 2030.
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