UN Comics: Superheroes for the Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), approved by the international community last year, are very important and... well, very boring.
The 17 goals to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change by 2030 are the most wide-ranging and ambitious development agenda ever adopted. But they are couched in UN-speak, certainly not in language that resonates with the world's young people,who must be at the forefront of change.
Achieving the goals -- with their 169 targets -- will require a massive effort -- in fact, a heroic effort.
That's where superheroes come in.
Two of our partners -- UNICEF and PCI Media Impact -- plus the NGO Reading for Change, came together last year in a wonderful project called Comics Uniting Nations (http://www.comicsunitingnations.org/).
The idea is to make the SDGs accessible to kids and adults alike through comics. The way they describe the series is that it "...leverages the universal visual language and transformative power of comics... to create positive and lasting change worldwide."
Having worked closely with the Corporate Social Responsibility program of Cartoon Network for the past five years, we also appreciate the transformative power of comics and cartoons. We, too, believe children are superheroes for change.
Kudos to Comics Uniting Nations!