A few months ago, Action Education visited a Geneva school to raise awareness of the issues of access to education. Overall, the workshop proposed aims to give young people the opportunity to get a brief overview of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015. A look back at this meeting with committed young people who are already aware of the importance of quality education for all (MDG4).

The workshop started with a short exercise from one of our previous campaigns, "Open your eyes", which aimed to raise awareness about illiteracy. During the exercise, the pupils were put for a few minutes in the shoes of a person who cannot read and got a glimpse of the reality of nearly 750[1] million people around the world. This exercise also serves to emphasise the importance of quality education, a goal that Action Education has been pursuing for over 40 years.

After a short presentation of the work of our association, the students were divided into three groups, each of which was given a topic to work on. Each group worked on one of our projects. They watched a video of the project in question and answered questions such as: What is the objective of the project? Who are the beneficiaries of the project? What difficulties do the people we support in this project face? In addition to MDG4 (access to education), which other MDG is concerned in this project? Once the exercise was completed, each group presented its work.

To conclude the workshop, students are encouraged to reflect on their own opportunities to engage with sustainable development and the SDGs, in and out of school.

We warmly thank all the students and their teacher for their participation.

[1] UNESCO, 2021.