The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed in 2015 by leaders from across the world. It’s now halfway to their deadline and we’re off track. 2023 is the ‘Halftime’ moment of the Global Goals.
It’s an opportunity for all of us to come together to imagine what we want the world to look like and go back out there to make the goals a reality in the second half. This month, at the World Scout Jamboree, thousands of young people showed that they are ready to play their part.
43,000 scouts from all over the world came together for the Jamboree. Taking place during an intense heatwave, the conditions were at times challenging, but this didn’t stop them taking part in activities and workshops for the Global Goals.
The Jamboree was launched with an epic show featuring Bear Grylls and a flag bearing ceremony for all of the countries taking part. At this show Scouts from all over the world were among the first people in the world to watch the ‘Halftime for the Global Goals Trailer’, followed by a video message of support from the UN Secretary General. The trailer was later broadcast across South Korea by state broadcaster KBS.
In 2021 Scouts announced a total contribution of 2 billion hours – (and counting!) – of voluntary service for the SDGs, so where better to kick off the Halftime campaign, and call on the world to come together and win in the second half.
The World’s Largest Lesson joined the Jamboree to run a series of imagination and innovation workshops for the Global Goals, where Scouts showed the power of harnessing young people’s creativity to come up with SDG solutions.
As well as problem-solving, the scouts created their own impromptu ‘Halftime huddles’, with each troupe competing for the loudest, most creative chant for the SDGs.
Everyone has a part to play at this critical Halftime moment. World’s Largest Lesson have created some new Global Goals resources for educators to invite children and young people to get involved:
- Halftime Talk – a 30 minute assembly or classroom session introduces the Halftime concept to students and encourages them to have a team huddle for the Goals!
- Be A Fact-ivist! – kick off a year of student Fact-ivism and use the power of data to raise awareness around a Global Goals issue. Research and visualise a piece of data, create a call to action and upload an image to a global digital gallery!
Thank you to all those whose hard work helps make World’s Largest Lesson possible including UNICEF, UNESCO and our data skills partner NetApp. Educators can find out more and access the resources on the World’s Largest Lesson website, or contact lesson@project-everyone.org.
We look forward to seeing your Halftime huddles and Fact-ivism posters!
To find out more about the Halftime campaign, join the team at sdghalftime.org