Millions of people around the world have brilliant ideas, outstanding projects being carried out by them with the local communities at the grassroots level. With their projects, they are making a huge contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals as meted out by the United Nations. To recognise their efforts, Connecting Dreams Foundation, India established a platform called Youth for Sustainable Dialogues (Y4SD). Y4SD provides young people with an opportunity to share their projects with a wide audience of experts, i.e, journalists, educators and each other. The platform welcomes students from diverse fields and areas to be a part of this change-making process and journey. The focus of this platform is to bring the youth to the driver seat and engage them in important discussions, brainstorming, exchanging ideas and showcasing their work at the local community level. Under this platform, two sessions are organized every week on a particular set of development goals.
Hunger is a major problem around the world. According to the World Hunger Program, 135 and economic downturns. COVID-19 pandemic can double this rate of hunger by putting an additional 30 million people at risk of suffering from acute hunger by the end of 2020. A million people around the world are suffering from acute hunger due to man-made conflicts dress the multifarious, multidimensional problems of hunger around the world,
Connecting Dreams Foundation, MasterPeace and other stakeholders are coming together to solve the challenges especially in COVID-19 and young people have an important role to play in creating a positive change at the local level. Change begins at home and this is what CDF believes in.
Words of Power from Aart Bos, Global Leadership of MasterPeace
There is an abundance of food in the world but still, there is a gap between the people who are in need of food. However, we can definitely outnumber the negative and can co-create. He also furthermore commended the United Nations for nominating the World Food Program for the Nobel Peace Prize. A human with an empty stomach won’t be able to contribute much towards society and won’t be able to have perspectives on things. He further said that we must chase our dreams and also act upon it rather than just dreaming about it. Once we act, we can do what we thought to do. He ended by saying that today I want you all to go back into your community and start acting on the different sustainable development goals and start with this one. He further commenced by saying, enjoy and go build networks and achieve what you desire to achieve in society.
Presentation from the Teams
The event commenced with presentations from the different teams. The first team to present for the same was Team Kalindi from Connecting Dreams Foundation, India. The team talked about their Project Unnati. The project was launched in October 2018 to put up a strong fight against hunger with their tagline ‘Fight Against Hunger, One Meal at a Time.’ The presentation was given by Khushi Trivedy and Shailja Singh from Connecting Dreams Foundation, Kalindi Chapter.
The next team to present was Team Cameroon on their project Hope for a Better Future by Ngo Bonfoga and Zibi Alva. The team talked about their project which aimed at enhancing sustainable development within communities and improvement of women’s and children’s conditions. The project aims to work on peace, GBV and a better socio-economic condition for Cameroonians, especially in rural areas. The projects have been funded so far by Global Aid for Africa, Pollination Grand and United Nations Development Program. Their project tries to help by enhancing sustainable livelihood amongst vulnerable and empower them through vegetable gardening and poultry farming.
Address Note from Mr. Ravikumar Kshirsagar, Assistant Vice President- Business & Trade (FPO) at Samunnati
He started by saying that he was feeling very surprised, energetic and excited after seeing the different presentations by different teams. Hethanked Connecting Dreams Foundation for inviting him and specially thanked for organizing the program on World Food Day. He then went on to say that we cannot talk about zero hunger without talking about food security. In India, water resources will be reduced by 40% by 2030. It will become very difficult to feed a population of more than 1.3 billion wherein the losses are more than 30-40%. Even during COVID-19, all the sectors were closed except for agriculture. Although all the Sustainable Development Goals are interlinked, however, there is a strong potential for agriculture to solve these problems on the ground. He then quoted Mahatma Gandhi by saying that this planet has enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for everyone’s greed.
He further talked about the presentations from different teams. He personally liked the quote ‘Donate, not dump’ of Team Kalindi. Whenever we are trying to solve a problem there is a big canvas we are working on, there is a problem and there are different dots. Team Kalindi very diligently is trying to connect the dots by connecting with different NGOs and different stakeholders. He further suggested that finance is not a problem if you are ready to work diligently for your goal because a few months down the line there will be many people who will be devoted to contributing to your cause. Though these are baby steps without these steps, one cannot run. Coming together is a beginning but working together is a success. He concluded by saying that he was very glad to see the efforts of the different teams working together and also said that he is ready to provide any help needed by the teams in future.
Concluding Remarks
The event was a huge success, thanks to the ideation and execution by Dr. Simi Mishra, Director, Program Advocacy and Communications. Her efforts ensured that the event was a great success. The event then concluded with a survey about different SDGs and different projects for the participants and a few questions for the presenting teams. Dr Amit Tuteja from Connecting Dreams Foundation concluded the session by thanking everyone for being present for the session and with a hope for the coming days.
