Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens invited young leaders and representatives from varied organizations that work with and for youth and their empowerment. To achieve the goals as a global citizen the participants shared their ideas on how they are connected to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN Agenda 2030.
The two keynote guest speakers were Billy Batware from the UNODC, who is Co-founder of Regional Academy on United Nations (RAUN), United for Education and Sustainable Futures (UESF), Youth Education Ambassadors (YEA), and Forum for Young Internationalists (FYI), and Katarina Eric, who is President of AIESEC in Austria.
“As you know, global citizenship requires strong networks, partnerships,” said Batware. He emphasized, “during this network event, probably, get to know others and do something together”
and ended his speech with a quote from Ban Ki-moon:
“Be a global citizen. Act with passion and compassion. Help us make this world safer and more sustainable today and for the generations that will follow us. That is our moral responsibility.”
Katarina said she strongly believes that “in order to create a better future, we need to unlock potential in youth.” She said, “a whole point of activating youth is actually creating a change agent” and that being a global citizen for her is “actually believing that you can make a change.”
The participants actively engaged in networking and workshop session by discussing what needs to be improved in the field of youth empowerment to achieve global goals. For one-on-one interviews that the Centre conducted, each of them picked their favorite SDG and explained what they have done and what they will do as a global citizen in order to achieve the goal.
The participants’ organizations are:
AIESEC in Austria, CISV Austria, Erasmus Mundus Global Studies MA Dual Degree Program (EMGS), European Youth Parliament Austria, Interact Club Austria, International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), Regional Academy on the United Nations (RAUN), Students Impact Initiative, Umweltbundesamt, Civil Society Team of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), WWF Generation Earth, and HeForShe in Graz/Vienna.
