Global Goals
Every year in the Fall, world leaders come together at the United Nations (UN) in New York to discuss some of the world’s problems … and try to come up with solutions. It’s called the United Nations General Assembly .
This year was an especially big deal because nearly every country in the world committed to something new called the Global Goals — like a to-do list … for the whole world!
More officially they’re called the Sustainable Development Goals .
Here are two videos about the specific goals.
The 17 goals aim to achieve three main things:
1. Make the world more safe and fair for everybody.
(This is a good video by We The Economy about some causes of income inequality, a little more complex so maybe for slightly older kids).
2. End extreme poverty. (These videos are by college students who decided to see what it’s like to live on only $1 a day, as about 1 billion people do, and made a film about it. It’s really well done).
3. Fix climate change.
(Here’s a slightly longer explanation by Bill Nye the Science Guy . And here’s a super-detailed interactive by Foreign Affairs .)
The aim is to achieve the goals (aka a better life and world for most everyone) … in 15 years! How old will you be then?
And the idea is that in order to succeed we all get involved and pitch in . How?
We don’t have to take on all of the world’s responsibilities ourselves, but if even one of the goals connected with you, and you can think of even a small way to help (one habit you can change, one act of kindness) it makes a difference. There are also some ideas here and here .
Was there one goal that interested you more than the others? Which one?
It’s pretty ambitious to fix the world’s problems in 15 years, but it’s a good start!
To learn more, you can visit the Global Goals website here .
Educators, there are some great resources at World’s Largest Lesson here and more teacher resources by the UN here , and here where you can watch videos about each issue.
Thank you for this great piece. I just spent an hour listening to my 6 year old’s ideas on how to achieve these goals!
That’s awesome! I’m sure they were amazing and creative ideas! I definitely don’t want to burden young children with too many adult problems. But I love how positive and solution-oriented your child sounds! Thank you so much for your comment.
Awsone work!
I can’t wait to share this with my daughters. Thank you.
cant wait to see what its like in 2030