By: Rida e Zehra
ISLAMABAD, April 2019: The extravagantly vigilant, SDGs Youth Squad for Progressive Pakistan is making an astounding change for the betterment of Pakistan. They are making every possible effort to achieve the 17 Global Goals set by the UN till the year 2030. Because of their strong faith in Youth Power, they preferably target the youth to motivate them for playing their part in making this world a better place.
On the 30th of March 2019, the YSPP organized a “One Day Fully Funded Training on Youth and Sustainable Development” held at SDGs YSPP National Secretariat. Ten students from different universities were selected for the first cohort of training. SDGs Advocate, Ms. Dua Gillani, started the business by taking the attendance of all the participants. Ms. Seemab Zafar, Assistant Executive Director YSPP, then took over for the Welcome Note, Ice-breaking and Training Outline. After the participants’ introduction, Mr. Usman Arshad, SDGs Advocate, conducted a pre-test about SDGs and Role of Youth to determine how much they know before the training.
After the inaugural session, Mr. Sarmad Shahbaz, Executive Director YSPP, conducted the Training Session where he started off with a brief introduction about Youth Squad for Progressive Pakistan and its parent organization “Peace and Justice Network”. He elaborated the cause of initiating the organization and the basic agenda and aims of SDGs YSPP. Next, a brief introduction was given about the Millennium Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals, and their difference. A detailed session was conducted on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, targets and indicators, and the role of youth in achieving these goals.
Some group activities were then conducted for discussion and achieving a productive output from the session. All the members participated actively and their valuable suggestions on implementing SDGs were appreciated. The participants were given social action projects to be achieved in the future. To freshen up the participants, a fun activity session was conducted by SDGs Advocates, Ms. Dua Gillani, Ms. Rida-e-Zehra and Ms. Zainab Najam, where a few interesting games were carried out for the participants. Later, a post-test was conducted to determine how much the participants have learned in the training session, followed by hi-tea enjoyed by everyone!