Published in The Daily Star on Thursday, 30 March 2017
NASRIN JEBIN
What binds us together is more powerful than what drives us apart. Only the boldness of hope and successive achievements of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) can ensure the planet a common, bright, and sustainable future. In this regard, the involvement of youth in leading the SDGs is mandatory.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue put emphasis on the youth because they are a source of energy and are, on average, 1 out of every 6 person in the world. He assured that achieving SDGs is the alloy of proper education, active learning, technology, better healthcare, sincerity and generosity. He approved two taglines – the first one being “Leave No One Behind”, the tagline of SDGs and the latter one “Leadership for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals”, the headline of the seminar arranged by Universal Help Hub (UHH) in Biswa Shahitto Kendro.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya has differentiated SDGs from Millenium Development Goals (MDG) at the seminar saying that the MDG was restricted while SDG is universal. The 17 goals of SDGs are interlinked and integrated. Finally, he presented a global scenario of youth identifying the top 4 goals: Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Climate Action. These goals will be effective in ending poverty in all its forms everywhere, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, to promote life-long learning opportunities for all, to ensure great progress in women empowerment, and to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.
UHH is a non-profit benefactor that began its journey with some dedicated individuals studying in different universities. Each and every member of UHH is strongly committed to the people of Bangladesh as well as the world. Since UHH is an organisation with an aggregate of youth, the held seminar was very much successful by the auditorium full of young participants. The invited guests were Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Anwar Eshtesham Khandakar, FVP & Head of Communication and Branding at Dhaka Bank, Abu Hosain Md Ahsan, Associate Professor of Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka, Muhammad Tanjim Ferdous, from The Daily Star, H Al Banna, CEO, Ohnish Films, Mizanur Rahman Kiron, Founder and President of PDF, Rahat Hossain, Co-founder of CriticaLink.
Muzahidul Islam, President of UHH, uttered in this regard that the organisation targets to build a developed and self-dependent Bangladesh through voluntary human activities and to turn the youth into useful manpower as well as global assets so that the SDGs can be achieved. He also expects that UHH will extend its service area and be able to provide in the next 5 years, at minimum, to provide quality service to 50 thousands helpless people in free of cost. The youth strategy reflects UHH’s heightened level of engagement with and for youth in order to enhance their role as development actors and beneficiaries. UHH believes in unyielding affinity and human care.
The Daily Star and SHOUT were the Youth Engagement Partners.