DCIS Students Embody Empowerment at NAE- UNICEF Summit

We look forward to seeing our student ambassadors implement initiatives and inspire fellow Doverians in the new academic year. Ines shares her experiences from the summit in this blog post.

In the summer, Rocky and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel to New York City to participate in the NAE-UNICEF Summit 2023. The focus was to learn more about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and what NAE and each of our individual schools can do to drive progress towards these goals.

This trip allowed us to form friendships and connections with many amazing people from NAE schools from all over the world! Listening to all our peers discuss their own experiences, and the actions taken by their own schools was nothing short of incredible.

I realised how, despite us all coming from a myriad of different backgrounds, so many of the SDGs and concerns that we have are shared across our global community. I look forward to starting new initiatives so Dover Court can have a greater social impact!

On the first full day of the trip, we started the morning off with the ‘One-Minute Solution’ workshop, which saw us working together in groups to come up with a clear, achievable solution to a given SDG. We then had a workshop with Generation Global, covering the importance of dialogue when discussing different concerns, and the skills needed to do this successfully. These workshops helped us understand how we can think of simple and effective actions within a local community. Besides building effective skills to communicate and listen to others when discussing important matters, we learnt to consider the experiences and beliefs of others within a dialogue.

One of the key highlights at the Summit was the UNICEF Career Fair. We had the opportunity to speak to different professionals from UNICEF about their work that is focused on the different development goals and Human Rights issues. It was incredibly insightful, and it has enabled me to understand more about how UNICEF works internationally to create an impact, and the different roles and work that take place at UNICEF.

‘The World’s Largest Lesson: 2023 Halfway Mark for the Global Goals’ workshop also had us conduct research on our assigned SDG, my group looked at Goal 3 - Good Health and Well-being, and work in groups to understand the targets that has been done towards them so far. This helped us to learn more about the progress made since these goals were established in 2015, yet I also know that there is still a long way to go before 2030. However, the positive spin placed on this halfway mark also all celebrates the progress that has been made thus far, which I find to be motivational, sparking a sense of urgency to continue to work more towards these goals in our own communities.

The biggest takeaway that I have learnt from this workshop is how deeply interconnected many of the development goals are, and the chain reaction it has that will improve many others as well — one action or small-scale goal will still have a wider positive effect.

The ‘Playbook for Activism’ workshop helped us expand our creativity as we worked in groups to think of solutions to our given SDG. Understanding the design process and how to develop innovative and attainable solutions together with the other students allowed us to discover the ways we can create a direct impact towards these goals in our own schools and communities, even if solutions may seem impossible or too big to manage at first. 

At the SDG conference, our work was presented before a panel of experts, including Mr Andrew Fitzmaurice, the CEO of Nord Anglia Education; Dr Elise Ecoff, Chief Education Officer of Nord Anglia and members of UNICEF.

Preparing for the conference was a great opportunity for us to work in our groups to look deeper into the SDGs we were researching and the issues within that impact us and our communities the most. My group focused on SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), and we specifically narrowed our research down to the concern of vaping within schools and among youth. This concern has become widespread within our generation, and we are passionate about coming up with solutions – by askingwhat can NAE do?

The conference was an amazing opportunity for us topresent our own ideas and learn from each other to find out the actions we could take within our own schools and as a Nord Anglia community. I feel fortunate to have had the chance to find out about such a wide range of issues and gain inspiration about the different ways that we can spark change locally in our own schools. 

Ines

Year 12 student and DCIS student ambassador

The NAE-UNICEF collaboration enables student ambassadors to take part in seminars and workshops, and debate, speak, and effect change at the UN’s headquarters in New York. Our collaboration with UNICEF enhances our students’ school experience in and beyond the classroom. Learn more here.