Events

As part of the United Nations Department of Global Communications’ Civil Society Chat Series, the session aims to introduce the importance and potential of youth action for the SDGs. As an organization with over 45 years of history, the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation will showcase impactful youth projects and support others to join in this mission by sharing our approach to engaging youth and facilitating impact. We will discuss our Theory of Change and its 3 pillars, (Connect/Engage, Educate/Develop, Action/Impact), and explain how we implement these using an integrated approach. In addition, we will discuss our four focus areas: Environment, Human Development, Peace, and Technology, including how youth can make a strong impact in each of these fields, and how we will apply our Theory of Change to try to solve some of these leading global challenges. During this briefing, we hope to go deeper into this theory by using examples of actual youth projects on the ground, demonstrate how it can lead to the empowerment of youth to become the leaders and changemakers who will strive together to create a sustainable world free of war, oppression, exclusion, and poverty. Speakers:

• Andrew Macdonald, Executive Director
• Yumna Khan, Youth Development Specialist

The Climate Action Summit of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in September 2019 will be one of the most important global climate action events of the year. The Secretary-General has announced that he wants to see “unprecedented youth and civil society mobilization and engagement” as one of the main outcomes of the summit.

The #ActionNow campaign is designed to help achieve this ambitious aim with the power of music and a combination of technology-facilitated local and global level mass mobilization activities.

At the ECOSOC Youth Forum side event, there will be:

• welcome by Polish Mission
• presentations and discussion on youth empowerment for climate action in the context of Agenda2030 and the UNFCCC process/Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action
• a keynote presentation on the topic “Harnessing the power of music for Enhanced Climate Action” with Grammy award-winning artist Ricky Key from India
• a presentation of the #ActionNow campaign & the Earth Music Awards and youth climate action engagement information and ActionNow communication technology tools like cheerity.com
• presentation of partners (e.g. UNESCO MOST, EarthLanka, Earth Day Network, Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, ..)
• a discussion of the #ActionNow youth and civil society mobilization plans with the audience (ECOSOC youth forum participants, partners of the initiative, delegates of missions, ..)

Outcomes

• participants of the event will learn about the UN SG Climate Summit and about innovative ways for youth and civil society mobilization for climate action
• the event will serve as a soft launch of the Earth Music Awards 2019 Call for Music
• the side event will be an opportunity for ECOSOC YF participants to become engaged in the initiative as musicians, local event organizers or outreach partners