Youths for SDGs

In the time span from January to March, the Virtual Youths for SDGs conference took place for high school students. Just as in previous years, ¿Û¿Û´«Ã½ was happy to be involved in this virtual conference, despite the difficulties of Covid-19 pandemic. 

Youths for SDGs is an academic event where students from different schools interact, learn about the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), express their opinions, and tackle real world problems. Although in the past, the conference took place in international schools, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the conference took place online as it also did in 2021. Nevertheless, students still gained valuable experiences from connecting with other students online and discussing global issues. In fact, taking advantage of the conference being held virtually, students outside of Thailand participated as well. 

Case Challenge

This event started on January 11th with the Case Challenge. Students gathered in groups of three and were given four issues to find solutions to, based on SDGs. This year, the topics were based on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Students were given until February 11th to work with their teammates to find solutions to the given topics, make presentations, record their presentations, and submit. From there, five groups were chosen to go to the final round, which took place on March 12th. All participants attended the ZOOM meeting online to watch the top five groups present their solutions. The meeting began with the opening speech by Ms. Prim, the founder of Youths for SDGs (also a Wells teacher and a Wells alumnus, Class of 2015), and a representative from UNDP. Then, the selected five groups presented their solutions and answered questions from judges and audience members. Everyone strived to come up with their own creative solutions to tackle real global issues. 

Breakout Sessions

On February 5th, students attended Breakout Sessions onlineto learn and discuss existing global issues and connect them to SDGs. There were ten different breakout rooms for students to choose from, with the maximum of three rooms. The topics varied from technology, Covid-19 pandemic, education, and so on. Youth leaders, who are high school students, took the lead in the Breakout Sessions to present the issues and engage participants in discussion to express their opinions and give possible solutions.

Personal Reflection

As it was my second time attending the Youths for SDGs conference, things went smoothly in both the Case Challenge and Breakout Sessions, as I was more confident in what I was doing. The Case Challenge was more fun this year as there were four topics rather than only one. Because all the topics were related to Covid-19 pandemic, it made me aware of more current issues. My group’s main solution was to make an app, and working on this presentation made me want to have our app in real life. Presentations in the final round of the Case Challenge were all inspiring. I was surprised that the winners were from a school in Malaysia, but it just proved that we are all connected and striving to work together during the Covid-19 pandemic. I learned a lot from the Breakout Sessions as well. I met Youth Leaders that I knew from past inter-school events, and seeing them becoming the Youth Leaders inspired me to also want to be one in the future. In another breakout session, the Youth Leader explained the topic based on her real experiences, which was very interesting and relatable. Compared to last year, I could engage in discussions more confidently, so I was able to interact with other participants and learn much more from them. 

On behalf of Wells, I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Prim and the Youths for SDGs team for organizing an engaging virtual conference and giving international school students a platform to exchange ideas, collaborate and allow their voices to be heard.

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Youths for SDGs 2020

On January 25 & 26, international school students from all over Thailand participated in the second conference hosted at Bangkok Patana School. ¿Û¿Û´«Ã½, who hosted the event last year, were happy to be actively involved in the planning of this year’s event, and also brought a large number of students as participants and youth leaders. 

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event’s objectives included raising awareness to the SDGs, creating a network of youths passionate about making change, and promoting creativity in finding solutions towards current local issues. With those objectives in mind, the event consists of three main activities: the Breakout Session, the SDG Quest, and the Case Challenge. High schoolers from international schools were given the opportunity to network and share ideas, as well as capitalize on their creativity and problem-solving skills. 

The event began with the opening ceremony, where the conference director and founder of Youths for SDGs, Prima Pupornchai (Wells’ Class of 2015 alumna) gave a welcome speech. This was followed by a speech from our guest speaker Mr. Renaud Meyer from UNDP Bangkok gave an inspiring speech about specific actions being taken towards the SDGs here in Thailand. 

Breakout Session

Then the students headed to their respective discussion rooms for the Breakout Session, led by youth leaders. The Breakout Session is an interactive discussion where participants get to explore different themes of SDGs, ranging from poverty to hunger to gender equality and sustainable development and promotion of climate action. 

SDG Quest

The SDG Quest is another youth-led game where randomly-grouped participants can collaborate in exploring fun activities and booths related to the SDGs. In the SDG Quest, students were separated into random groups, with various schools mixed together. They were instructed to earn as many points as they can by participating in the activity booths and completing tasks related to SDGs within a limited time. This fun activity made the students bond and interact with students from other schools.

Case Challenge

Finally, the Case Challenge presents a current real-life local issue to the teams to find creative and feasible solutions to. This year, the challenge focused on addressing sustainable agriculture issues in Thailand. The teams had two and a half hours of case cracking time to find a solution and make a presentation.

The following day was the presentation day, which consists of 3 rounds: the preliminary round, the semifinal round, and the final round. The winner of the Case Challenge was a team from Ruamrudee International School, who came up with an idea to create an app that would educate and encourage Thai youth to better understand farming practices and skills, with the goal of changing perceptions about farm work among youth.

The closing ceremony concluded the event with a and a closing speech from the conference director, Prima Pupornchai, as well as recognition for the support of the youth leaders and Core team. Overall, the event inspired many students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in their local contexts. It was a very fun, productive, and memorable weekend. This event was truly an event for youths, by youths. 

Special Acknowledgements

Wells would like to acknowledge the hard work, dedication and enthusiasm of the Core Team, Youth Leaders and participants, which consisted of past and present Wells’ students, who all collaborated by combining their passions to contribute to making the event a success!

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Core Team: Prima Pupornchai (Class of 2015), Srishti (Sami) Soni (Class of 2016), Tanisha Arbol (Class of 2017), Natnisha Ahuja (Class of 2018), Hrithi Bhattacharya (Class of 2021)

Youth Leaders: Lina Puthengot, Lucia (Lucy) Lee (Class of 2020), Muskan Gurbuxani, Poorvi Daga, Shradha Silori, Soumili Kar (Class of 2021), Shreyaa Srivastava, and Yewon (Cristine) Jeong (Class of 2022)

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On November 3-4, 2018, international school students from all over Thailand participated in the first ever conference hosted at ¿Û¿Û´«Ã½, On Nut Campus.

Youths for SDGs is an academic event that focuses on the and strives to be a part of this universal call to action. The event objectives included raising awareness about the SDGs, creating a network of youths passionate about making change, and promoting creativity in finding solutions towards current local issues. With those objectives in mind, the event consists of three activities: the Breakout Session, the SDG Quest, and the Case Challenge. High school Youth Leaders led the discussions and activities in the Breakout Session and SDG Quest.

The Breakout Session is an interactive discussion where participants get to explore different themes centered around the SDGs. The SDG Quest is a game where randomly-grouped participants can collaborate in exploring fun activities and booths related to the SDGs. The Case Challenge presents a current real-life local issue to the teams to find creative and feasible solutions to.

High school students from international schools were given the opportunity to network and share ideas, as well as capitalize on their creativity and problem-solving skills. A total of approximately 150 students from 14 international schools around Thailand participated in this event. Schools came from outside of Bangkok to join in the event as well.

The event started off with the opening ceremony, where the conference director and initiator of Youths for SDGs, Prima Pupornchai (Wells’ Class of 2015 alumna) gave a welcoming speech. This was followed by a speech from our guest speaker Mr. Sorawit Paiboonrattanakorn, who gave an inspiring talk about establishing Saturday School, a social enterprise where volunteers teach children life skills on Saturdays.

Then the students headed to their respective discussion rooms for the Breakout Session, lead by youth leaders. There were six themes, which covered all of the Global Goals. The themes included:

• End poverty in all its forms and create decent jobs
• End hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture
• Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and foster innovation
• Conserve and sustainably use resources for sustainable, development and promote climate action

In the SDG Quest, students were separated into random groups, with various schools mixed together. They were instructed to earn as many points as they could by participating in the activity booths and completing tasks related to SDGs within a limited time. This fun activity made the students interact and bond with students from other schools.

In the Case Challenge, the participants regrouped with their teams of three and received the case for this year’s challenge. The theme of this year’s case, Waste Management in Thailand, was revealed. The teams had two and a half hours of case cracking time to find a solution and make a presentation. The following day was the presentation day, which consisted of 3 rounds: the preliminary round, the semifinal round, and the final round.

The judges for the semifinal and final rounds were Ms. Chutima Pratheepkongjaroen, Social Impact Manager at Local Alike, Dr. Kallaya Suntornvongsagul, Environmental Researcher and Professor at Chulalongkorn University, and Ms. Qi Xue, UN Volunteer & SDG Research and Advocacy Officer at UNDP.

The winner was team Satit Kaset IP. Their idea was to create an application called MyWaste, which tackles food and plastic waste in Thailand by providing incentive to people to lower their consumption by earning points in the app. There was a 5000 baht seed capital for the winning team to to implement a small scale version of their solution.

The closing ceremony concluded the event with a and a closing speech from the conference director, Prima Pupornchai.

Overall, the event has inspired many students to learn more about the SDGs and to create change in the society. It was a very fun, productive, and memorable weekend.

Thank you to our partners, sponsors, school advisors, students and, guests for your wonderful support for this youth initiative. This event was truly an event for youths, by youths.

Written By: Prima Pupornchai, Class of 2015 Alumna

The post Youths for SDGs first appeared on ¿Û¿Û´«Ã½ | American International School - Wells.

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