Story of Passion!

Sadaf Taimur
Jul 22, 2017 · 3 min read

I am Sadaf Taimur, a 29 years old women, from Pakistan. Bigger purposes and making a difference in the society always fascinated me. I was born in Pakistan & grew up in an environment characterized by lack of opportunity for girls & women, crime and poor health service delivery. I got married when I was 19 and then it was a challenge to go for higher studies. I had struggled a lot, to face resistance, during my life but giving up was not an option. These early experiences inculcated a spirit of hard work & social responsibility in me that has been responsible for my work towards human rights, women empowerment & sustainable development. While I bravely fought for what I wanted out of my life and that too for something as essential as education, I was successful in achieving a master degree with a two-year-old kid.
With my persistence, now, I have 8+ years of experience in education, social and development sector and my passion is to bring change and put my efforts in developing the third world through education and working for sustainable development agenda. Having studied Environmental Sciences & Education Planning & Management, I remained a member of Silver Oaks Schools & College System for 5 years. I am currently: managing communications, advocacy & youth mobilization at Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA); working as Executive Director at Youth General Assembly (a social movement, to train & mobilize youth to work on UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda, which I co-founded) and serving as Advisory Mentor for Queen’s Young Leaders Program (UK). As an educationist, I have co-authored original researches on educating for global citizenship & sustainable development, which were presented in Japan, U.S.A. & Maldives. Additionally, I sit on Advisory Board of “Global Education Conference”, U.S.A. I have designed & initiated various projects on environmental sustainability in 20 schools. “Organic Gardening” activity was also implemented in two other schools in Peru and UK, in collaboration with British Council. I have designed awareness building modules: “Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation” for Rural Development Center, Cameroon and “We Care” for Tanzania Youth Culture Exchange Network. As a founding member, I positioned Global Research & Development Team for World Merit HQ (UK) and designed online surveys, for World Merit’s portal, to raise awareness regarding UN Sustainable Development Goals to sensitize 20,000+ young people.
Being a consulting member at PAL network’s communication & advocacy working group, I am involved in designing advocacy campaigns and communication strategy. As G20 Global Changer, have proposed recommendations, on education & sustainable development, for G20 leaders which were presented at G20 Summit, 2017 (Germany). My social action projects were shortlisted by: UN-Women under Project Inspire competition & World Bank under Rethink Education competition. With my efforts, I was acknowledged as an “Agent of Change” by World Merit HQ (UK), 2015 and selected & featured among the top 10 Youth Ambassadors in “A World at School” (UK) & ITA Education Youth Ambassadors’ Booklet, which was distributed at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). I won GESS (Global Education Supplies & Solutions) Outstanding Contribution in Education for Sustainable Development Award, 2016 (Dubai) and got selected as Dalai Lama Fellow (U.S.A) to implement “compassion in action project”, to empower women in Pakistan. I represented Pakistan: as Youth Delegate UNESCO-MGIEP at “UNESCO week for peace & sustainable development: role of education” (Canada) and as Youth Champion at Rise Up’s Youth Champions Initiative Incubator (U.S.A.).
This year, I am glad that I have been selected as one of the UNLEASHERS to co-create solutions to achieve sustainable development goals. I have a strong passion to work for achieving SDGs and my social and community work experiences have further converted my initial zeal into deep fascination for the subject and I truly want to build my career in this line. Unfortunately, Pakistan did not full fill the commitment of achieving millennium development goals and it is still facing a lot of challenges linked to planning & taking actions to make agenda 2030, a reality and there are comparatively less number of individuals who are willing to work on these lines in Pakistan. I have a lot of affiliation and ties in Pakistan, as all my immediate family members and friends, including my son reside here and I want to see this country with no social and developmental challenges. I want to invest my skills in developing future of women in Pakistan and UNLEASH lab will enable me to achieve this goal.
LET’s MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOGETHER!

UNLEASH Lab

Global innovation lab creating disruptive solutions for the UN's SDGs

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