The United Nations is set to unveil Sustainable Development Goals in New York in front of the Pope on Friday. A group of ambitious teenagers from Carrboro High will also be in attendance.
“In 2000, the United Naitons set the Millennium Development Goals, where they want to the world to be in global poverty and global health by 2015,” says Amanda Padden. “Sine they expired this year, they’re setting the next set of goals for the next 15 years, the sustainable development goals. This week they’re going to unveil them.”
Padden is not one of the world leaders putting forward these goals, yet. She’s a junior at Carrboro High School and one of 10 students who are part of the Global Health Club at Carrboro High who will be traveling to New York to observe leaders put forward these new goals at the UN Headquarters on Friday.
What could possibly cause a group of 15 to 18 year olds to be so passionate about global health? Their teacher.
“Mr. Cone,” several of the students responded when asked how a group who were just toddlers in the year 2000 had gotten so interested in global causes.
“A lot of us as freshmen had Mr. Cone for World History Transformations class,” says senior Anjali Shankar. “Through that we got kind of pulled into the Global Health club. And once you’re in the Global Health club it’s kind of hard to leave.
“One, you don’t want to leave and second, because [Mr. Cone] provides so many cool opportunities.”
Shankar says there is one point of the trip she is most excited about.
“Personally, I’m really excited to meet the former head of the CDC,” she says with several other students echoing her excitement.
That is just one part of the packed itinerary, according to junior Ella Rockart.
“What’s really really cool about the fact that we get to meet Sonia Sachs,” Rockart describes, “is that her husband [Jeffrey Sachs] is the one who spearheaded the entire Millennium Development Goal project.
“He’s basically responsible for bringing global health funding from talking in the millions to talking in the billions.”
It isn’t all fun and games and extravagant trips for this group of high schoolers, they have put in a lot of work to get here. Last year they raised $50,000 for Partners in Health to help fund its Ebola clinic.
These students certainly seem to have an unbelievable passion for global health and helping create a better world. But there was at least one moment where their teenage mindset prevailed.
“I’m excited for the concert,” one says. Followed by, “yeah, I want to see Beynoce.”
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