RCE SDG Youth Challenge - Youth for the Goals: Resilient Communities and Planet
The RCE SDG Youth Challenge is a global youth-led initiative run annually that connects youth leaders working in their own communities to a larger global platform. The initiative aims to engage and empower local youth leaders with the opportunity to have a voice and implement their own place-based projects on issues that matter to them, supporting ESD.
This year, we have seven global youth-led sustainability projects participating in this year’s Challenge, representing RCEs and educational entities in Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the USA. There is a range of differing projects focused on action towards SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 15 (Life on Land), as well as supporting SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). These include species conservation and research, to waste and resource management.
Due to the impacts of COVID-19, projects have continued to shift their activities to online delivery, with some projects making a direct effort to support their local COVID-19 recovery. Projects this year have also focused on marginalised target groups, including gender, low socio-economic communities and people living with disabilities. So far, approximately 1,500 people (mostly youth) have engaged in the youth-led projects collectively over the last three months (reporting period February - May). The Challenge is schedule to conclude in early October.
Projects include:
| RCE/organisation | Project title | SDG focus (linked to Challenge theme) |
| RCE Central Semenanjung | Sustainable Lifestyle for a Sustainable Campus: Synergizing Youth-Leadership through Campus Living Labs Initiatives | SDGs 11 and 12 |
| RCE Greater Western Sydney | Mycellium: Plastic-free Alternatives | SDG 12 |
| RCE Salisbury/Year | Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Conflict and Peace: With an Emphasis on Gender Training | SDG 11 |
| RCE Yogyakarta | Evidence-based and Inclusive Conservation of Critically Endangered Siamese Crocodile in Indonesia | SDG 15 |
| RCE Yogyakarta | Sedekah Sayursleman.id (Vegetable Donation) | SDG 11 |
| Teach For Green, India | Green School, Green Community | SDGs 11 and 12 |
| University of Malaya (Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine) | The Green Vision of 5R | SDGs 11, 12 and 15 |
For more information, visit RCE Greater Western Sydney's RCE SDG Youth Challenge page.
(Photo (right): Mid-year progress report for "Sustainable Lifestyle for a Sustainable Campus: Synergizing Youth-Leadership through Campus Living Labs Initiatives", photo credit: Mohd Fadhli Rahmat Fakri, Project Leader, RCE Central Semenanjung)
