from
18 countries
15 were Youth
conference and the partners were committed to making them active
participants. The UN and many other organizations have stressed
the importance of involving and giving agency to Youth in matters
that will impact their generations.
participants with an inclusive and space to fully participate, actively
engage and creatively contribute to the themes of the SOTG 2022
Conference while giving them agency for the SOTG in a meaningful
way with measurable, potentially scalable outcomes.
and delivered engagement sessions emphasizing the importance
of creating a safe space to motivate students. Their role was to
moderate and to share their perspectives on the topics and
themes of the conference.
Youth Engagement Program
SOTG’s 2022 Youth Engagement Program
York University hosted the 2nd edition of the Sustainable on the Go (SOTG 2022), co-organized by York International, the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability, and their international partners Association of Universities (IAU), Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCU) and Okayama University (Japan) on 17th November 2022 during the International Education Week 2022.
One of the main objectives of this conference was to mobilize multistakeholder support to the topics and themes of education for sustainable development and inclusive internationalization as well as inclusivity. Youth has been one of these important stakeholders and the SOTG partners were committed to engaging and integrating them to be part of the conference as active participants. The UN and many other organizations have stressed the importance of involving and giving agency to Youth in matters that will impact their generations. Therefore, the SOTG Youth Engagement Program (YEP) was created as a strategy to mentor, guide and prepare students prior to the conference so that they can fully participate and engage in the conversations as well as moderate sessions at the SOTG 2022. The mentorship and guidance were meant to support Youth in co-creating activities that intentionally address differences in knowledge and skills, intergenerational perspectives, different priorities, tasks, and passions. In this way, the YEP provided a safe space for students and an opportunity for Youth to make real, creative and practical contributions to the next SOTG Conference.
The YEP aimed to provide youth participants with an inclusive and space to fully participate, actively engage and creatively contribute to the themes of the SOTG 2022 Conference while giving them agency for the SOTG in a meaningful way with measurable, potentially scalable outcomes.
While there is no universal set of criteria to define Youth, the UN broadly defines this term as individuals aged 15-241. This is a flexible definition that sets a foundation for the types of individuals that the conference aims to target. Therefore, the YEP focused on students aged 17-24 who are pursuing university and college studies. During the summer of 2022, 49 students from 18 countries around the world actively participated in the program while creating a meaningful connection among them. This was evidenced in the level of engagement of the students in each of the three sessions. Our SOTG partner, Crossing Borders Education (CBE), designed and delivered the sessions emphasizing the importance of creating a safe space to motivate students. After the three sessions, two extra sessions were offered to a smaller group of 10 students who were able to commit and participate as part of the SOTG 2022 conference. Their role was to moderate and to share their perspectives on the topics and themes of the conference. As part of their intervention, students challenged SOTG 2021 speakers in what they presented and considered would happen after the pandemic in relationship to internationalization and inclusive international education.
By far, the YEP has been a program that has brought much pride to the SOTG 2022 organizers as well as much attention from the participants and panelists who acknowledge the level of quality in the YEP participants and their interventions and conversations with ESD practitioners. That is why the purpose of this blueprint is to share the learnings of this experience and to make it available within York University and to other educational institutions interested in promoting and engaging Youth as active stakeholders.
The fifth International Day of Education will be celebrated on 24 January 2023 under the theme “to invest in people, prioritize education”. Building on the global momentum generated by the UN Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, this year’s Day will call for maintaining strong political mobilization around education and chart the way to translate commitments and global initiatives into action. Education must be prioritized to accelerate progress towards all the Sustainable Development Goals against the backdrop of a global recession, growing inequalities and the climate crisis.
