The Millennium Campus Network (MCN) and the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) are proud to present the Millennium Fellowship Class of 2021, an ambitious programme to help make the Sustainable Development Goals and UNAI principles a reality. The Class of 2021 Millennium Fellows has been selected among a record-breaking 25,501 applicants from over 2,200 campuses across 153 nations.   

Millennium Fellows are university undergraduates selected based on their leadership on sustainable development-related projects that advance the SDGs in their communities.  As Millennium Fellows, they will participate in a semester-long leadership development programme to improve their student organizing, partnership building and community impact skills.  

The Millennium Fellowship Class of 2021 includes over 2,000 Millennium Fellows on more than 120 campuses in over 29 nations that are participating in the programme this year. The Class of 2021 is on track to engage in projects collectively advancing all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and all 10 UNAI Principles. Here is just a snippet of the fantastic projects the Class of 2021 has taken on:

At the University of the Ozarks, United States - Millennium Fellows have joined forces to create the Student Initiative Against Misinformation on COVID-19.  The project fights the increasing misinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of the COVID vaccines in the campus community and in Clarksville including workshops on the latest updates on COVID-19 and a conference with a health professional to speak about the efficacy of vaccines. The project is projected to positively impact 500 people during the Millennium Fellowship.

At Indraprastha College for Women, India - Millennium Fellows are advancing SDG13: Climate Change by launching a community outreach program to map the extreme heat wave areas in Delhi through a community-centric disaster management initiative.  Millennium Fellows will also develop a preparedness plan for vulnerable communities that are at risk of being affected by the increasing heat waves in Delhi. The project is projected to positively impact 2,000 people this year.

At Faculdade Israelita de Ciências da Saúde Albert Einstein, Brazil -  Millennium Fellows are working towards a more accessible and inclusive healthcare.  The Fellows are addressing racial disparities in the healthcare system in Brazil through the awareness and education of healthcare professional teams. With the goal of training 250 healthcare workers this semester and 400 future health professionals, the team aims to positively impact the lives of 10,000 people this year.

Ban Ki-moon, eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, shared his enthusiasm for the programme, "As Millennium Fellows, we need you to lead by example - with empathy, humility, and inclusion as guiding values. You can embrace global citizenship, building a strong global network to learn from and support each other…We are all counting on you to affirm the dignity of people and our planet, now and for years to come.”

The United Nations Academic Impact is proud to partner with MCN on this initiative, and you can check out our website in the coming weeks for more detailed articles on the Millennium Fellows and their projects. You can learn more about the Millennium Fellowship Class of 2021 and apply for the Class of 2022 at the Fellowship website.