MDGs and youth as the agent of change

I recently joined this international forum due to my friend persuasion. At first i thought it would be a-fun-new-networking-to-build forum only, yet i realized it opened my eyes, somehow, about something I usually read on the newspaper and how it is so important, and we as youth can do something about it.

before going too far, firstly I would tell you a bit about MDGs. I bet not all of you know about this so called MDGs: what is that anyway?

MDGs or The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world’s main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. 

that definition above, I took it from the UNDP’s website. the goals are:

for further informations about all of those above, you can simply click:

http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml

as an Indonesian youth, I frankly saying that I don’t really care about these MDGs until last week. But the forum really opened my eyes to be aware and concern about these things even more.

as the goals are expected to achieved in 2015, it is hard for me to have such optimism to achieved that, at least in Indonesia. Not because I’m such a pesimistic person, but because the reality and situations make me conclude such thing.

you see, the awareness of MDGs in Indonesia are lame. Don’t talk about the remote area, even in big cities not many people understand, or at least know, or at least have heard about this before. If this the reality, how can the government and UN can simply put 2015 as the finish line?

publicities of MDGs are not happening. the movies and advertisments about cellphones are much more merrier than about MDGs.

but we can change that. we can do something about this. I’m not talking about big things, I’m not yet capable on that. What I’m trying to say here is that as youth, we can spread the awareness of MDGs and its progress to people, and create mutual cooperation in the implementation of MDGs.

we will find difficulties. it’s not a doubt. there are so many things about our ‘bad’ cultures that should be managed to a better good. for example, if we are talking about environment, in spite of talking those big things about illegal logging and oxygen problems, we can see even in big cities like Jakarta, the awareness of people throwing their trash to the bin are a big problem. many people still find that it is not a big deal throwing trashes everywhere, even on the streets.

this bad habits won’t lead to a good future. many people still live in their egoistic world. in spite thinking about the future they will face, they still think about today’s money and stuff. well i don’t say it less important, but at least we can spare our brain to think about what action we are doing now that will have impacts to the future.

rather than spending big money every year for flood problem, i think it will be wiser for the government to educate its society how to live properly so that annual flood won’t strike the lovely-capital of Jakarta anymore. but no, many Indonesian are having short term memory lost so that they would easily forgot about their bad habits that caused the flood. what they can do when another annual flood strike is just crying over charities from the government to help them.

arrghhh……i don’t know, is this only my egoist thoughts or what, but i hate to see my own country facing the same problem over and over again. and it’s not about something bizzare that smart people couldn’t find a way to stop it. it is just a matter of awareness for god sake!

anyway, talking back about MDGs, I feel so full of spirit to begin my act on this. by just writing this blog, I think I have done the first step to spread the awareness of MDGs in the nation. but since this is not the end, I hope i can do better in the near future.

since I’m not capable yet in the other 7 goal, i think i can do something about goal number 8. it’s about cooperation for development. not that i’m experienced or what, but i think i can do more about that. the goal is merely the final goal to support the other 7. since achieving MDGs won’t be easy if a nation work alone, it is better to cooperate multilaterally on this.

to create networks, share stories and progress, propose actions, are some of many things we can try to develop this cooperation for MDGs. and as youth, we can do even more. the thing is, these actions would not easily achieved, since we have our so-called-national-interests that sometime can be a burden on achieving the goals.

but, this is the thought of mine that i hope can be the first step (at least for me) to create some better improvement about MDGs implementations on my country

of course, i realized, that my english writing sometime is hardly understandable. but this is just a little side of my imperfectness, at least i try ^^

youth for change!

amelia