Hong Kong’s first blog for SDG education news and announcements
UNESCO estimates that schools were either fully or partially closed for more than 30 weeks between March 2020 and May 2021 in half the countries of the world. In late June, 19 countries still had full school closures, affecting nearly 157 million learners. And 768 million more learners were affected by partial school closures. World Youth Skills Day 2021 paid tribute to the resilience and creativity of youth through the crisis. Participants focused on how technical and vocational education and training systems have adapted to the pandemic and recession, think of how those systems can participate in the recovery, and imagine priorities they should adopt for the post-COVID-19-world. ITS hosted a conference workshop run by ISSIA. Great work. . . .
Pleased to recently host workshops for HelpingOurPlanetEarth - HOPE - which is a youth-led peer-to-peer mental health initiative. Music and art play a big part in their work and allow those without the resources to access clinical care to find some respite and support in busy HK. They are always looking for support. HOPE home page: https://www.helpingourplanetearth.org/ . . .
The Hong Kong Sustainable Development Solutions Network (ITS is a Youth Member Organization) will run a shoreline clean-up day tomorrow, 17th July at Lung Kwu Tan. Come and help out!! . . .
Jason Qiu spoke at Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2021 last week on the back of his ongoing Young Changemaker Incubator project called Carbon Neutral. As highlighted on this page before, Jason is building out a volunteer programme for tree planting at his school and hopes to provide a template for other schools around the world by doing so. . . .
Alexander Zhang, member of Drop in the Ocean (DITO) at CIS here in Hong Kong, spoke at the Asia-Pacific Climate Week conference last week. ITS was very happy to mentor him developing his presentation and host his session. Alex has developed an excellent approach to how we think about action on climate for the future – PACE. P stands for pinpoint. We first need to pinpoint areas to target our involvement. DITO has pinpointed multiple sectors at school by partnering with Metanoia, a sustainability consultancy group and conducting a sustainability audit through the metric of carbon footprint. A is for acting upon pinpointed sectors. E.g. CIS banned all plastic drink packaging from cafeterias, installed solar panels, and set up a community farm to promote urban farming. C stands for communication which is crucial as it allows for greater awareness of sustainability. As such, DITO is now directing a community dialogue video series featuring different stakeholders. E stands f . . .
Students with an interest in SDGs 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13 should all take note of policy plans and initiatives addressing air pollution, emissions and any related cause or effect. The Hong Kong government has just released its Clean Air Plan 2035 which sets out current ideas in the city. This is very useful info for all students. You can also ask yourself – what are the real policy actions that will achieve these goals? . . .
UNFPA – the United Nations Population Fund – is high-lighting in 2021 how covid has impacted on reproductive health and how this is yet another example of how population policies often clash with the rights of women to make their own reproductive choices. It also exposed and exacerbated gender-based inequities: gender-based violence increased under lockdown, as did the risk of child marriage and female genital mutilation as programmes to abolish the harmful practices were disrupted. Significant numbers of women left the labour force – their often low-paying jobs were eliminated or caregiving responsibilities for children learning remotely or for homebound older people increased – destabilizing their finances, not just for now but in the long run. Anyone with an interest in SDGs 3, 5 & 10 will have interest here in particular. . . .
A report in the Guardian highlights the need for a binding global treaty … to phase out the production of “virgin” or new plastic by 2040. The solution to the blight of plastic pollution in the oceans and on land would be a worldwide agreement on limits and controls, says a special report in the journal Science. Since the 1950s about 8bn tonnes of plastic has been produced. The effects are everywhere. One of the reports authors, Nils Simon, said: “Plastics are ubiquitously found in increasing amounts worldwide, including in terrestrial environments and even inside the human body.” . . .
