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Diplomacy School hosts teach-in on SDGs

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="497"] shu.edu[/caption] The School of Diplomacy and International Relations is hosting a Teach-In on Friday, Oct. 23 from 12 to 3 p.m. in the Bishop Dougherty University Center Main Lounge to spread awareness about the United Nations’ new Sustainable Developmental Goals. The Sustainable Developmental Goals, 17 of them this time around, were created as a 15-year plan for UN efforts to put an end to three major global issues by 2030. The goals will fight to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change. They are meant for people in all countries to act as leaders in changing the world for the better. Martin Edwards, associate professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations and director of the Center for United Nations and Global Governance Studies, said he hopes that students who do not know anything about the Sustainable Goals will become aware and learn concrete ways to take action. At the event students will have the opportunity to learn how to be an advocate and be instructed on how to write newspaper op-eds in support of the UN’s campaign. “I’d love to see the Main Lounge full,” Edwards said. “This is the first step in a broader campus conversation about what it means to be an engaged citizen. The Goals are a call to raise our ambition. Citizenship is not a spectator sport.” The new goals are a result that built on the past eight Millennium Development Goals, also developed by the UN, that sought to bring the world together on a set of development goals by 2015. In recent years, Edwards says he’s tried to become more of a public scholar to fill a desperate need in opening up opportunities for students. “So few understand what the UN is,” Edwards said. “This is an event that’s not only intended for Diplomacy students, so telling the story of these new goals necessitates that we talk about the historical background.” Ryan Sullivan, senior and diplomacy and international relations major, has attended several events hosted by The School of Diplomacy and International Relations and says he was fully aware of the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals. “Last semester I interned at the United Nations with a humanitarian organization named Caritas Internationalis,” Sullivan said. “I worked for their permanent representative to the UN and had the opportunity to attend several meetings on the UN grounds that pertained to the post-2015 developmental agenda.” Sullivan said these goals are crucial in addressing some of the challenging problems facing the world. “Switching to the School of Diplomacy my freshman year was one of the best decisions I could have made in college,” Sullivan said. “I have been lucky enough to pursue my passion of humanitarian work and journalism through opportunities that the School of Diplomacy has provided.” Stephanie Garcia can be reached at stephanie.garcia1@student.shu.edu.

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