In 2015 the United Nation Member States adopted The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. This Agenda represents the so-called 17 Sustainable Development Goals, often also referred to as the Global Goals. The goals are connected to many aspects of sustainable development, such as climate change, human rights, education, preserving nature, political institutions, and highlight the need for global action.
During the EPM Yerevan AEGEEans have come up with the idea to bring these 17 goals to our organization, as directly or indirectly, they were already present in our activities. This year one of the main objectives connected to civic education is to organize 30 activities in order to promote the SDGs in our network. To fulfil this objective with the Civic Education Working Group we have decided to create a Challenge for AEGEEans through which they can strengthen their civic skills meanwhile learning about different SDGs.
The SDGs AEGEE Challenge 2019 Booklet was published at Christmas as a present from CEWG and contains many individual challenges and activity ideas for locals connected to 8 SDGs for the first 8 months of 2019. In addition, we listed topics to debate about these SDGs.
In January, we focused on one of the most important goals – Climate Action (SDG #13), which is also connected to many other goals. The UN established this SDG to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. There are many small things we can start with, such as eating less meat, travelling more by train and bus, generating less waste, etc.
In February, SDG #3 Good health and wellbeing were on the menu, during which we wanted to encourage AEGEEans to take care of themselves, to do physical exercise regularly, eat healthy food and have enough rest.
In March, we highlighted the importance of Gender Equality through SDG #5. Our top challenge was to attend an International Women’s Day march on the 8th March 2019. Moreover, in the booklet, you can find more ideas on how to make your speech and behaviour more gender neutral.
Currently, we would like to motivate AEGEE members to stay informed and read relevant local, national and global news regularly and also to get prepared for the EP elections in May and/or for the next elections happening in their country. These challenges are connected to the SDG #16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
In May, we will deal with SDG #4 Quality Education, which will be also connected to our Civic Education Action Month. For this, locals could organize things, such as: training, workshops on critical thinking, debating and other skills and we also encourage them to approach high schools and discuss AEGEE topics with high school students.
In June, we want AEGEEans to learn more about SDG #14 Life below water and what we can do to reduce plastic waste. In July and August, we would like to encourage SU organizers and SU participants to act responsibly. Therefore, we listed many actions that can be taken to have more sustainable SUs this year. These actions are mainly connected to SDG #10: Sustainable cities and communities and also SDG #11: Responsible Consumption and Production.
We hope, that this booklet will serve as encouragement and motivation to start changing your way of living to save the earth! If you need more materials, or if you have questions regarding the activities do not hesitate to contact us at cewg@aegee.org! Feel free to share the outcomes of the challenges and your local projects on SDGs with us! Remember, your stories can always be an inspiration for others to change something in their life as well.
You can find the Booklet on this link: http://bit.ly/SDGChallenge2019