The 17 Goals. 1 School. And Minecraft project, led by Presentation College Bray and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World as part of the Let’s Talk initiative, has been announced as a finalist of the United Nations SDG Action Awards in the visualizers category. The Awards recognize the most outstanding and innovative efforts to inspire action on the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of goals adopted by countries to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda.
The Awards are powered by the United Nations SDG Action Campaign. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 21 March 2018, during the second edition of the Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development, the world’s annual gathering to catalyze action for the SDGs, happening in Bonn, Germany (21-23 March 2018). For more information on the Awards, go to sdg.ac/awards.
The 17 Goals. 1 School. And Minecraft project summary on the UN website puts the work of the people involved to date into context.
“The SDGs will only be reached if the goals and their targets can be meaningfully brought to life in a school community and not only at the tables of policymakers. Yet how often are young people invited to act on the SDGs?”
Accepting the challenge, this team sought to achieve sustainable development in a school in Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, by recreating that school in a virtual world and redesigning it to align with the SDGs using the online game Minecraft.
The aim was to produce an open-world thinking platform to enable the whole school community to be involved in mapping environmental and social footprints with the potential of the SDGs.”
The Awards draw attention to the need to learn from change-makers from across the globe and celebrate the most impactful and innovative achievements contributing to the global sustainable development movement.
The first edition received over 740 nominations from 7 continents and 125 countries, ranging from Zambia to Fiji, from Benin to Norway, from civil society and grassroots initiatives to public sector and municipal government projects, as well as private sector engagements. Finalists are being carefully reviewed by 12 prominent figures within the global SDG community.
“The challenges we are facing are huge, but through this first edition we have we seen once again, that there are many people, businesses, organisations and governments creating positive change and having outstanding impact in their communities”, says Mitchell Toomey, Global Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign.
“We need to showcase and celebrate these bold and creative change-makers, learn from them and connect them to ensure they can scale and inspire others. In this first year of the UN SDG Action Awards, we have had outstanding competition and all should be immensely proud of what they have achieved”, added Toomey.
The Awards recognize initiatives in seven categories: mobilizer, includer, communicator, visualizer, innovator, storyteller and connector.
ABOUT THE 17 GOALS. 1 SCHOOL. AND MINECRAFT PROJECT
Project summary on the UN SDG Action Campaign page, and full list of award finalists (and descriptions)
Background project documents and impact recorded to date on 80:20 website plus Let’s Talk initiative in more detail.
Presentation College Bray website
ABOUT THE GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF ACTION
The Global Festival of Action for Sustainable Development is the world´s annual event to celebrate, empower, and connect the global community driving Action for the Sustainable Development Goals.
Organised by the UN SDG Action Campaign with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Festival connects an inspiring mix of business leaders, activists, UN representatives, academia, governments, innovators, global organisations, and the media from across the globe. Taking place in Bonn each year, the Festival provides a dynamic and interactive space to showcase the latest innovations, tools and approaches to SDG action and connect organizations and individuals from different sectors and regions to exchange, build partnerships, and make the impact of their solutions scale.
For more information, please visit the page of the festival and the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. The official hashtag for the event is #SDGglobalfest. The hashtag for the UN SDG Action Awards is #SDGawards.
ABOUT THE UN SDG ACTION CAMPAIGN
The UN SDG Action Campaign is a special initiative of the UN-Secretary General, administered by UNDP to create awareness about the 2030 Agenda, empower and inspire people across the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while generating political will and to help make the Goals attainable by 2030. For more information, please visit http://sdgactioncampaign.org.