.
One of the most effective and aggressive efforts to mobilize people from throughout the world to help others will be launched in just six weeks beginning September 24 when the United Nations is expected to adopt a new set of Sustainable Development Goals to help bring poverty to an end in the world.
The leaders of 193 nations are expected to adopt the new goals for the United Nations, UNICEF, the Global Citizens Festival and Concert, and Project Everyone. President Obama and Pope Francis are among the world leaders pledging support. On September 26 the Festival and Concert will be held on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park.
While the festival and concert will be streamed live around the world, an edited version of the concert with film inserts from around the world will air in a worldwide broadcast on NBC and BBC September 27. Featured performers include international stars Beyonce, Cold Play, Pearl Jam, and Ed Sheeran.
The Coltons Point Times is proud to be assisting the Richard Curtis team in making this international effort a success.
A new feature of the world initiative is the addition of Project Everyone to the international team headed by perhaps one of the greatest fundraisers for charitable causes in history, Richard Curtis. As you will read in this article, Richard Curtis has raised over £1 billion through his charities the past 30 years. For those of us in the colonies, that translates to about $1.56 billion.
More about Richard in the next articles, here is the story of the efforts by the Global Citizens and Project Everyone.
Project Everyone was founded by
Richard Curtis, filmmaker and founder of Comic Relief. This is why...
In September 2015, the United Nations are launching global
goals, a series of ambitious targets to end extreme poverty and tackle climate
change for everyone by 2030.
If the goals are met, they ensure the health, safety and
future of the planet for everyone on it. And their best chance of being met is
if everyone on the planet is aware of them.
So the simple but mighty ambition of Project Everyone - is
to share the global goals with 7 billion people in 7 days.
How We Do It
Our mission is to get a short, dynamic and snappy
explanation of the global goals onto every website, TV station, cinema, school,
radio station, newspaper, magazine, billboard, newsletter, noticeboard,
pinboard, milk carton and mobile phone.
The more famous these global goals are, and the more widely
they are understood by everyone - the more politicians will take them
seriously, finance them properly, refer to them frequently and make them work.
This is a mission for humanity, unified goals that resonate
with everyone, everywhere.
Our partners in this mighty plan
Project Everyone is partnering with Global Citizen. Global
Citizen is a content, events and campaigning platform for the movement to end
extreme poverty by 2030. The objective of Global Citizen is to increase the
number of individuals engaging with the global goals, and provide a platform
for the NGO sector to increase support for their policy and campaigning objectives.
By connecting tens of millions of people to global issues, inspired global
citizens take action and generate support for the organisations campaigning to
end extreme poverty by 2030.
Our Founding Team
Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis is a film writer and director, responsible
for films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’
Diary, Mr Bean, Love Actually, The Boat That Rocked, About Time and most
recently Trash and Esio Trot.
In the other half of Richard’s life he is co-founder and
vice-chair of Comic Relief, which he started after visiting Ethiopia during
the 1985 famine. He has co-produced the 14 live nights for the BBC since 1988
and the charity has made over £1 Billion for projects in Africa and the UK during that
time. In 2015, he will bring the massively successful Red Nose Day to the United States
with NBC.
Richard was a founding member of Make Poverty History and
worked both on that campaign and on Live 8 in 2005. As part of his contribution
to the MPH campaign he wrote The Girl In The Cafe for HBO and the BBC - a
television drama based around the G8 summit, which won 3 Emmys. In 2012,
Phillip Noyce directed Richard’s TV movie “Mary and Martha”, a film about two
mothers losing their sons to malaria. It has been shown in 50 countries around
the world and used as a campaigning tool by many organisations committed to
ending malaria.
Kate Garvey
Kate is a strategic communications and campaigns consultant
specialising in promoting global campaigns and issues. Clients and campaigns
have included Google; the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; Product
(RED); Live Earth; The Global Fund; UNHCR; the Maternal Mortality campaign;
Make Poverty History and the Live 8 concerts. Her career began in politics
where, from 1997 until 2005, she worked for Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street in the Prime Minister's
Private Office and played an integral role in 3 successful election victories.
Kate was also a director at Freud Communications.
Gail Gallie
Gail Gallie is a business leader with a strong sense of
social purpose.
Gail’s background is in marketing and advertising. She has
worked for both advertisers and agencies, in the public and private sectors.
Gail started her career working for ad agencies, helping to
create campaigns for a variety of clients including P&G, the Ministry of
Sound, and the Labour Party. She then took a role in marketing at the BBC and
over the next eight years was responsible for the strategy and delivery of many
major projects, including the launches of CBeebies and BBC Three.
On leaving the BBC Gail co-founded the strategic
communications consultancy GaillieGodfrey, delivering corporate campaigns and
brand strategy to a mixture of commercial and philanthropic clients, including
Sony Music, the Camden Roundhouse, and the Millennium Cities Initiative. During
this period Gail also worked as a freelance consultant for Comic Relief.
In 2010 Gail was appointed CEO of the ad agency Fallon, part
of the Publicis Group, delivering campaigns for clients including Cadbury,
Eurostar and Skoda.
Amanda Mackenzie
Amanda was a member of Aviva's Group Executive for 7 years
and joined Aviva to oversee the rebrand from Norwich Union and to set up a
global marketing and communications function.
Amanda has a BSc in Psychology from the University of London,
is a graduate of the Insead Advanced Management Programme, a Life Fellow of the
RSA and Fellow and past President of the Marketing Society. Amanda has over 25
years of commercial experience, including director roles at British Airways
Airmiles, BT and British Gas. She is also a non-executive director of
Mothercare Plc. and sits on the audit committee.
She has been on the board of the National Youth Orchestra
for 8 years. Amanda is a member of Lord Davies steering group to increase the
number of women on boards.
Amanda was awarded an OBE in the 2014 New Year Honours List
for services to marketing.
Amanda has joined the Project Everyone team on a 2 year
secondment from Aviva.
Join the world’s largest team
Support for the Project Everyone campaign is growing across
the globe, so please don’t hesitate to ask more about what we are doing or how
we might work together to make the goals famous. Everyone will thank you for
it. To learn more about Project Everyone contact
team@project-everyone.org
How Project Everyone will talk to 7 billion people
In weeks the United Nations General
Assembly will hold a historic meeting that will shape the next fifteen years
and beyond. Yes, the UNGA meets every year. So what makes this year so special?
Stay with me, this story is getting good.
Back in 2000 the UN developed the Millennium
Development Goals, a list of 8 goals that were designed to improve the
world. Among the MDGs successes was cutting extreme poverty in half. This
success was great but it still leaves a lot of work left to do.
Now, the world has a chance to get the job
done. The Global Goals, or as policy folks like to say “The Sustainable Development Goals”, are the roadmap to ending extreme poverty and
solving climate change by 2030. What will be key to their
success, however, is ensuring people know about them, so that world leaders are
held accountable.
That’s where Project Everyone comes
in. According to the campaign’s
website, it’s mission is to share the Global Goals with the world’s 7 billion
people, all in the span of 7 days. Sounds crazy, right? Check out the video
above to see behind the scenes of this ambitious campaign and see how Project
Everyone’s going to make it happen.
Everything You Need to Know About the SDGs
Image via Wikipedia
From now until September, you are going to
be hearing a lot of dialogue about the “SDGs” (aka: the Sustainable Development
Goals) and how they will be dictating the roadmap of development for the next
15 years. You may be asking yourself..wait, what are those??
Good question.
Long story short, the SDGs (think of them as
phase II of the Millennium
Development Goals, except even better...we hope) are a universal set of
goals and targets that UN member states will be expected to use in framing
their political policies and development agendas from now until 2030. These
goals are going to be essential in ending extreme poverty and creating a future
free from inequality and dangerous climate change. Super important stuff!
Because I’m sure you’re as excited as I am
about these SDGs, I figured it would be helpful to break them down for you and
explain why you should care. And most importantly, how you, global citizens,
can get involved.
So, back in June 2012 at Rio 20 (the UN
Conference on Sustainable Development that took place in Brazil)
countries agreed to establish an intergovernmental process to develop a set of
"action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate" sustainable
development goals (SDGs).
The main objective? To help drive the
implementation of sustainable development. In September of this year, these
goals will be made official. Let the countdown begin!
After Rio,
a 30-member Open Working Group (OWG) of the General Assembly was tasked with
creating a proposal on the SDGs. It was agreed that they must be:
action-oriented, concise, easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational,
global in nature and universally applicable to all countries (while taking into
account different national realities, capacities, and levels of development as
well as respecting national politics and priorities).
Here is what they have come up with so
far:
1. End poverty in all its forms
everywhere
As global citizens we can all get behind
this one!
2. End hunger, achieve food security
and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
It’s not just about getting food on the
table. We need to make sure that everyone has access to healthy, nutritious and
affordable food!
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote
wellbeing for all at all ages
As my girl Michelle likes to say, let’s
move!
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable
quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
In other words, we have to make sure that
people from all backgrounds, regardless of their socio-economic status, age, or
geography have access to quality education. Like this awesome lady!
5. Achieve gender equality and
empower all women and girls
My bff Emma Watson is all about this.
6. Ensure availability and
sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Let Raya from Sesame Street break this one down for you
in this helpful intro.
7. Ensure access to affordable,
reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Yup. Sounds good to me!
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and
sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work
for all
All too often people are forced to work
under grueling, dangerous conditions for very little pay... this needs to
change.
9. Build resilient infrastructure,
promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation
If you don’t have safe roads, you can’t get
essential things (like vaccines) to the people who need it most! Right?
10. Reduce inequality within and
among countries
Talk about a no-brainer.
11. Make cities and human
settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Who doesn’t want clean streets?
12. Ensure sustainable consumption
and production patterns
This year let’s commit to the mantra of
reduce, reuse, and recycle.
13. Take urgent action
to combat climate change and its impacts (taking note of agreements made by the
UNFCCC forum)
YES!
14. Conserve and sustainably use the
oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
THINK ABOUT NEMO!
15. Protect, restore and promote
sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity
loss!
It's time for global leaders to show off
their green thumb.
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive
societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and
build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Peace, inclusivity, and justice for all.
Triple win.
17. Strengthen the means of
implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable
development
It’s time we all start working together!
Okay, so now you’re probably asking yourself
why should I care about all of this?? As I mentioned before, 2015 is going to
be a pivotal year in refining and establishing the SDGs. Once they are put into
place, this will be THE framework that determines what sustainable development
will look like for the next 15 years. Everything listed above is still
tentative.
From now until September, global citizens
have a chance to stand up and collectively raise their voices to make sure that
this development agenda represents the needs of those who are most vulnerable.
Over the next eight months we will provide plenty of information to educate you
on these issues and offer concrete actions that you can take to play a part in
making history. We’re all in this together, and with such ambitious goals it's
our responsibility to stay informed and do our part! Stay tuned!
.
