There is an Audacity of Youth
Working Together to Achieve the Global Goals for Sustainable Development
The word ‘youth’ isn’t heard often in my native Ireland. I became accustomed to hearing it in the summer of 2015, when I became the Irish Youth Delegate to the United Nations (UN) and was first introduced to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
At the Sustainable Development Goals Summit, 193 youth delegates (representing 193 member states) stood on the balcony of the UN General Assembly as Malala Yousafzai called on world leaders to keep their commitments to achieving Agenda 2030. Malala declared:
“The world needs a change. It is me, it is you, it is all of us who have to bring that change.”
My heart swelled as I looked down towards the largest gathering of world leaders in history, and watched with awe as Heads of State turned around in their seats to look up at us and listen to us. Then Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, even pulled out his phone to snap a photograph of the moment.
I exchanged glances with the girls on either side of me, as if to say this is it. The chamber was at a fever pitch, and I had a moment of realization: we were all in this together.
These decision-makers needed us just as much as we needed them. The SDGs could not — and still cannot — be achieved by top down or grassroots actions alone. We need to work symbiotically in order to achieve progress.
2015 was the year that ISIS and Al-Shabaab inflicted terror from Paris to Iraq, Nepal suffered another devastating earthquake, and the world mourned Aylan Kurdi and the more than 3000 other refugees were swallowed by the sea. Yet even from where I stood, between the Israeli Youth Delegate and the Palestinian Youth Representative, I felt hope in daring to dream that we could create a better world, together.
Since that General Assembly session, I continued to engage with other young people in Ireland, focusing on the individual decisions that we can take in order to become global citizens in order to create a better world. Young people took actions reducing their waste, particularly single use plastic, in an effort to achieve Goal 12: sustainable consumption. When Ireland faced a housing shortage and record rates of homelessness the next year, college students focused on the first goal: zero poverty. In my own work in International Humanitarian Law at the Irish Red Cross, my advocacy centered on peace and justice (Goal 16).
I am a Global Health Corps fellow, which means that I am part of a community of young leaders committed to being part of the solution to the challenges embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular we are committed to Goal 3 as well as the other goals regarding health equity, social justice, and equality.
When my fellowship cohort met for the first time at Yale University last June, I felt a shiver of deja vu as I sat amongst 140 young people and listened to GHC’s co-founder, Barbara Bush, state:
“There is an audacity of youth.”
This served as a reminder that the goals I was introduced to at the UN are our goals. They point to an agenda to secure our collective future. We cannot wait for older generations or future generations to safeguard our well-being.
We must act now and we must act together to ensure we achieve Agenda 2030.
Right now, from my desk at UNAIDS in Washington D.C., my efforts are focused on achieving Goal 3: Good Health and Well Being as well as Goal 5: Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Girls and Women.
I have not given up on our goals. We might be only three years in, but I am still hopeful. As a GHC fellow, I regularly see progress and signs of hope. The Instagram posts by fellows in Uganda, the WhatsApp messages from Malawi, the Tweets from Rwanda, the Facebook statuses posted in Zambia — remind me each day that I stand among young people committed to making a difference, to achieving our goals.
Together we will eradicate poverty, protect the planet, promote shared prosperity, and achieve health equity.
Orla Murphy is a 2017–2018 Global Health Corps fellow at UNAIDS in the USA.
