This article, in line with the International Youth Day on 12 August, was written by Sam Vaghar (@samvaghar), Co-Founder and Executive Director of Millennium Campus Network (MCN). MCN and the United Nations Academic Impact partner to present the Millennium Fellowship annually for university undergraduates advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.
Today and every 12th of August, we celebrate International Youth Day. This special occasion affirms a powerful truth: young people are making unprecedented progress for a more just, equitable world.
International Youth Day was initially conceptualized by young people at the World Youth Forum in Vienna, Austria in 1991. It was then adopted in a resolution by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth on the 12th of August, 1998, hosted by the Government of Portugal alongside the United Nations. The following year, it was endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations. I wondered if leaders there, passing that resolution in Lisbon nearly a quarter century ago, knew then how much that advocacy would mean to young people in the future. So I reached out to one of the architects who was there at the inception.
The current Secretary of State for Labour of Portugal, Miguel Fontes, previously served as Secretary of State for Youth of Portugal for the governments of then-Prime Minister António Guterres. Secretary Fontes served as Secretary-General of the 1998 conference when the resolution launching International Youth Day passed:
“This conference held a crucial role: it put forward the political agenda for youth, it made crystal clear the preoccupations and priorities of the next generation…This resolution [on the final day] represented a fruitful attempt to introduce young people’s issues to the mainstream, to allow new voices to be heard when we are discussing the future. It has contributed to a significant shift in priorities throughout the last few years as this resolution brought key matters to the public eye, from sexual health and education to youth democratic participation. For the first time, member states shared and compromised with concrete goals for the ones who were kept in the background.”
It is illustrative to learn from the contributions of Secretary Fontes - whose early contributions elevated young people worldwide and also inspired his sustained public service decades later. Secretary Fontes reflected:
“I began my duties as Secretary of State [for Youth] when I was 26 years old. Until then, I was an advisor to Prime Minister António Guterres, the current UN Secretary-General. During those years, I had the opportunity to stay up to date on youth-related issues and to constantly advocate for young people. In fact, all my path was forged in the field of non-formal education, by following closely students' causes and motivations. I was heavily involved in politics from a young age, and with a sociology degree, it would be counterintuitive not to be involved in the community. My commitment to civil service will always be central to my actions.”
What Secretary Fontes and colleagues accomplished in 1998 laid the foundation for more seminal commitments on youth leadership, including the creation of the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth fifteen years later.
In many ways, International Youth Day is not just a celebration. It is a bellwether, a telescope to see the future through the lens of people not yet jaded by cynicism.
In many ways, International Youth Day is not just a celebration. It is a bellwether, a telescope to see the future through the lens of people not yet jaded by cynicism. There are young leaders boldly pursuing a world of dignity. Leaders like Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, and Amanda Gorman. And there are so many more: Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who champions quality education for Afghan girls. Jeremiah Thoronka, who leverages kinetic energy to power communities. And we see more institutions leaning heavily into the vital role youth play in society - from Schmidt Futures’ Rise for visionary teenagers to the UN Foundation’s Girl Up. With increasing frequency in some spaces, youth are being platformed, centered, and invited to the table.
Investing in youth leadership is crucial - not just for the impact it can have today - but for what that investment unlocks in the decades that follow. The late Dr. Paul Farmer was 23 years old when he stole medical supplies from Harvard University and started volunteering in Haiti; the work he and Partners In Health engaged in for more than three decades has catalyzed an ever expanding movement for health equity in a dozen nations. 29 year old Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka served as the Youth Director of the YWCA. That early advocacy role helped prepare Mlambo-Ngcuka decades later to lead UN Women and secure billions of dollars in commitments for gender equity. Imagine our shared future if hundreds of thousands of leaders like Farmer and Mlambo-Ngcuka were fully supported in their early years to use their voices and power to make a difference.
Imagine our shared future if hundreds of thousands of leaders like Farmer and Mlambo-Ngcuka were fully supported in their early years to use their voices and power to make a difference.
We are honored at Millennium Campus Network (MCN) to be among the robust constellation of organizations and movements supporting young social impact leaders. At MCN, we partner with the United Nations Academic Impact to present the Millennium Fellowship together. The Fellowship provides training, connections, and credentials to university undergraduates advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2022, 3,000 Millennium Fellows are working to advance the SDGs locally at 200 universities in more than three dozen nations. Millennium Fellows are dedicating over 250,000 hours to public health, food security, and more of the SDGs locally, positively impacting the lives of more than 1.5 million people. These leaders join thousands more like them annually and in complementary programs across the globe for civically-engaged young leaders. The opportunity we have now, collectively, is to exercise generational humility. We are passing on a world riddled with wars, a pandemic, discriminatory practices, and increasing levels of distrust of institutions. We need to spend less time sharing prescriptive notions of what we think youth should do, and more time supporting their own grassroots efforts to make the world more habitable.
We need to spend less time sharing prescriptive notions of what we think youth should do, and more time supporting their own grassroots efforts to make the world more habitable.
In writing this article for our longtime partner the United Nations Academic Impact, it is imperative that I acknowledge the role of academic institutions in preparing the next generation. Universities have a special role in helping new generations weave together education, discernment, and civic action. My hope for future years is that universities consider publicly sharing their specific commitments in support of youth on International Youth Day. Universities can create year-round, concrete support for students and young people seeking to make a positive contribution in society. This support can range from providing academic credit and seed funding for civic engagement to launching campus centers to incubate, mentor, and scale up students’ social ventures. Hundreds of universities already champion student leadership for the SDGs by supporting their cohorts of Millennium Fellows. We invite more universities worldwide to share the opportunity with their undergraduates. We have also seen many other innovative endeavors - from the University of California, Davis’ Voluntary University Review on the SDGs to University College London having a point person to coordinate SDG activities on campus.
The preamble of the UN Charter includes this moving declaration of intent: “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.” Our responsibility this Youth Day, and everyday, is to invest in the courage, vision, and creativity of young people who have historically and continue to make those words real.
