BACKGROUND
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the international community in September 2015, took over where the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) left off. Expanded from 8 to 17 goals, the SDGs will guide the international development agenda and its major actors for the next 15 years as they seek to end global poverty in all its forms. Focused on four main areas of people, planet, prosperity and peace, the 17 goals range from health, to gender inequality, to energy, to climate, to education as they seek to encourage governments, CSOs and NGOs to ‘leave no one behind’.
While it can be easy to dismiss such global initiatives as being irrelevant to the day-to-day work happening in minority communities, a brief glance through the SDGs should show the different ways that they connect with and support your work or that of your partners. As part of LEAD Asia's role to connect global issues with local responses, a LEAD Community of Practice event was held to specifically explore what the SDGs might mean for language, education and development activities with minority communities.
EVENT AIMS
The event aimed to:
Introduce participants to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Explore how the SDGs might fit with an identity-based approach to community development
Highlight some key ways that the language and education work we do with minority communities can support progress towards the SDGs
Investigate how the SDGs might impact alternative funding opportunities for language, education and development projects.
EVENT SCHEDULE
Wednesday 18th May: The SDGs’ Content
09:00-09:30 - 1/Welcome & Introductions
09:30-1045 - 2/The World We Want - exploring what development means to you.
10:45-11:15 - Break
11:15-12:30 - 3/From the MDGs to the SDGs - understanding how the SDGs came about.
12:30-14:00 - Lunch
14:00-17:00 - 4/The SDGs in practice - in-depth review of the 17 SDGs and what they mean in day-to-day life.
17:00-17:15 - Closing reflections
Thursday 19th May: The SDGs’ Connections
09:00-10:15 - 5/The SDGs and me - exploring how your language, education and development activities connect with the SDGs.
10:15-10:45 - Break
10:45-12:30 - 6/The SDGs and Complexity - how the different SDGs interact with each other.
12:30-14:00 - Lunch
14:00-15:00 - 7/SDG4 Quality Education, the foundation for progress - a deeper look at the education SDG and its importance for the other SDGs.
15:00-15:30 - Break
15:30-17:00 - 8/Tracking our contribution - a chance to evaluate how our work contributes to the SDGs.
17:00-17:15 - Closing reflections
Friday 20th May: The SDGs’ Change
09:00-10:30 - 9/Transformational Development & the SDGs - more than the sum of it's parts. How can our work with the SDGs make a lasting difference in people's lives?
10:30-11:00 - Break
11:00-12:30 - 10/The SDGs and funding - consider the opportunities for alternative funding options around the SDGs.
12:30-14:00 - Lunch
14:00-15:15 - 11/Communicating about our work: advocacy, networking and the SDG movement - communicating effectively about our engagement with the SDGs and planning for engaging in local and regional networks that support that.
15:15-15:45 - 12/Closing reflections
EVENT NARRATIVE