As a student at Marsh Avenue Expeditionary Learning School on Staten Island, Camil Demirovic lives less than 20 miles from the UN’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan, but knew little about the organization’s mission, or the Global Goals that had been adopted there by 193 countries.  

That was until the 13-year-old joined the NYC Junior Ambassadors Program.  

Launched by the New York City Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, the NYC Junior Ambassadors program introduces 7th, 8^th, and 9^th  students across all five boroughs to the world of international diplomacy and civic engagement through classroom visits with UN officials, field trips to the UN’s headquarters, and a unique curriculum that encourages students to examine their own neighborhoods through the prism of the Global Goals. To date, more than 5,300 students across the city have participated since the program’s launch in 2015 — the same year the SDGs were adopted at the UN.  

Learning about the parallels between local issues and global challenges like poverty, inequality, and access to education made Camil realize how these social issues are tied together. He can see, for example, how income and housing disparities in his own borough affect which public schools are deemed “good” or “bad” and by extension, how each of the 17 Goals — like SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities — reinforce the others. Inspired by this new way of seeing the world around him, he helped create a peer program that helps bilingual students who need English support.   

Camil says he now understands why stalled action on the SDGs isn’t just bad for humanity, but for his own hometown: “In my community, there is a big role for a lot of these Goals.” 

By M.J. Altman, United Nations Foundation