Halfway to 2030: How Scouts are Turning Crisis into Commitment for the SDGs
By Meg Cummins, WOSM Youth Representative
Picture this:
It’s 2018.
Australia is baren. The worst drought in recorded history has been wreaking havoc across communities. Seeing the impact on local wildlife firsthand, Molly takes the initiative to band her whole community together and lead the charge in sewing and cutting countless pouches for orphaned wildlife.
Now it’s 2019.
5.4 million hectares across Australia are on fire. Luke, in a rural town of New South Wales (NSW) spends hundreds of hours over Christmas actively fighting fires and ensuring his fellow community members have evacuation plans in place.
Onto 2020.
The year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Australia, along with most of the world, is in lockdown and health systems are overwhelmed. Determined to find a way to support in the chaos, Katelyn steps up. She designs badges and sells nearly 1,000 of them to raise funds for frontline workers.
Now it’s 2021.
Australia has flooded. Communities across the country are inundated with water. More than 65,000 people have been given orders to evacuate across Sydney. Hearing stories of people just like her losing everything in the floods, Chloe takes matters into her own hands and sets up a local donation spot to bring together her community to support people across the country.
Four years.
Four disasters.
Back-to-back.
With each disaster, community heroes stepped up and took matters into their own hands.
Now, would you be surprised if I told you that Molly, Luke, Katelyn and Chloe were young people, aged just 5 to 16 years old?
Photos of Molly, Luke, Katelyn and Chloe's Community Service Projects
Scouts and Sustainable Development
At Scouts Australia, I see this every single day. Each of these epic young people was celebrated through our Scouts NSW initiative: the Scout of the Year Awards.
I’ve had the privilege of running this event for the last four years, where we celebrate the incredible work of hundreds of young people from across our state who band together as Scouts to create a better world and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs are an essential avenue for Scouts and all young people to understand their capacity to improve the lives of people and the health of the planet. In fact, Scouts worldwide have been tracking their contributions to the Global Goals through Scouts for SDGs - making the world’s largest youth contribution to the SDGs.
As Scouts, we take on opportunities, learn skills and build networks that help us understand and reach our potential to be the change we want to see in the world.
With nearly 3 billion hours of service towards the SDGs, Scouts are constantly working on solutions to the biggest challenges facing the world today, from poverty to hunger and climate change.
A Global Community of Change Makers
For me, when World Scouting signed up to contribute to the SDGs and started rolling out resources and profiles of projects across the world, it gave me a community.
I no longer felt like a single Scout in Australia fighting for my future - I was connected to young people across the world who were all droplets forming a wave of action. It drove conversations about issues that will affect all young people throughout their lives and gave me a platform to have discussions and fight for meaningful action on issues like climate change, homelessness and biodiversity loss.
Scouts at the United Nations
This week, Scouts are heading to the United Nations General Assembly and SDG Summit to bring the voices of millions of young people to the table, and to hold leaders accountable for their promises.
This is an important moment in history. It’s the halfway point to 2030 - the SDG deadline. It’s a moment in time for every single person to stop, reflect on the last 7.5 years of incredibly hard work towards the Global Goals, and recognize how much further we have to go to ensure the promise of a better world comes to fruition by 2030.
It’s a moment in time to consider what our next steps are.
What happens when we reach 2030?
Our Role Beyond 2030
As WOSM Youth Representatives, we are here, in the front row. Among SDG implementers from across the globe, we will be making a loud statement.
Armed with the stories and journeys of 57 million Scouts from across the globe accelerating sustainable development and transforming their communities, we plan on holding decision-makers accountable. We will take the experiences and learnings from millions of local actions and projects to the world stage and utilise these to promote the key role young people must play in the completion of the SDGs.
This is our chance to network and partner with organisations from across the world to amplify the stories and experiences of Scouts like Molly, Luke, Katelyn and Chloe.
Let’s ensure that every Scout at home feels the support of the millions of Scouts behind them and sees the tangible steps they can take together to impact the world and create their own futures.
