Global Goals Youth Forum
On Thursday 29 August Plenty Campus hosted the Global Goals Youth Forum, run by the Asia Education Foundation. Fostering global citizenship and supporting the Global Goals is a key part of an Ivanhoe Education so it was gratifying to be able to bring schools in our community together to provide students with the opportunity to collaborate with each other and develop their skills as active global citizens.
The focus of the day was on Human Rights and U.N. Global Goal #16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. The Forum brought together over 60 Year 9-11 students, with teams of students from The Ridgeway Campus and Plenty Campus, as well as surrounding schools.
After a few weeks of research, the day started with school teams presenting on how their allocated country is addressing Global Goal #16. School groups were then mixed and students were taken through the design thinking process to come up with innovative approaches to addressing Human Rights issues such as child labour, refugees, and birth registration. The day ended with students coming back into their school teams with the challenge of figuring out how to address Human Rights and Global Goal #16 in their own schools and communities. Our two teams decided to explore the ethics and sustainability of our school uniforms, so stay tuned for updates on that!
The Forum was a great opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of Human Rights and the U.N. Global Goals as well as further develop their skills in taking innovative action to address global issues, all while collaborating with students from other schools. Overall, it was an enjoyable and engaging day for students and staff and we were delighted to host such an event.
Student Reflections
“Attending the Global Goals Youth Forum allowed me to create a greater understanding of the issues residing in the countries we researched (ours was Brunei), and the difficulties faced in achieving the 17 U.N. Global Goals. My highlight of the conference was looking into an aspect of Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (with others from different schools) and coming up with creative solutions for these complex issues.” – Jess
“It was really cool to be able to work with like-minded students from different schools. I found the experience worthwhile as we got to share views on world issues concerning Global Goals and tackle some big questions.” – Jasmine
“Last Thursday, I attended the Global Goal Youth Forum held here at Plenty Campus. We spent the day learning about the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, Goal 16 which is ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’, and how a lack of it effects different countries. The Plenty team represented Cambodia and we were given time to come up with different ways in which to tackle these issues in a way that would fit the context of the country we were representing and the resources that were available to us. Overall, this was truly an eye-opening experience that allowed us to meet other like-minded individuals, further expand on our pre-existing knowledge and become more aware of the global issues that exist and the ways in which we can help overcome them.” – Melika
“The Global Goals Youth Forum was a great way to meet other students from different schools and discuss Global Goal 16 (Peace and Justice) with each team representing a different Asian country. It was a great day full of discussion on the issues we face in the future and possible solutions to counter these problems. It was an enjoyable day with many highlights!” – Gus
“I thoroughly enjoyed the Global Goals Youth Forum at the Plenty Campus, our team represented Brunei emulated their views and values in relation to approaching Global Goals, especially Goal 16 regarding pathways to peace. Overall it was a rewarding experience to work in our teams and with students from other schools to formulate innovative solutions to ever-present issues our world faces.” – Pranav
“The Global Goals Youth Forum was a great opportunity to develop our understanding of the issues facing many ASEAN countries and work collaboratively with other like-minded students.” – Tom
