Background
The future of our small planet is threatened by many challenges:
· By 2025, 2 out of 3 people will not have enough water for their basic needs.
· A billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.
· Soil degradation affects a third of the world’s land.
· 375 km2 of forest disappear every day.
· Two billion people do not have access to electricity.
· 3.1 million people died from HIV/AIDS in 2002, 42 million are infected.
· Over the past years, numerous conflicts led to 10 million deaths.
In September 2002, one hundred-eighty-nine UN member organizations adopted the UN Millennium Declaration. This declaration refers to universal values that are also those of Scouting: freedom, tolerance, equality, solidarity, respect of nature, shared responsibility.
“We will spare no efforts to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected… We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s people… For while globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared…”
As follow up to this declaration, the UN General Assembly adopted the following eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and invited young people to act, debate and reflect on them:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV-aids, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership.
To achieve these goals, the Youth of the World campaign was launched. It’s objectives are to help young people achieve:
* The ability to explain the main challenges of today’s world
* The ability to live and take action in an intercultural context
* A sense of solidarity and community spirit
* Autonomy and leadership
* An aptitude for developing and managing collective projects
Watch the video -here-
Website – http://www.youthoftheworld.ca/
RSS - Posts