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| Hugh Evans in his TED Talk |
Hugh Evans was born in 1983 in
Melbourne Australia. He started raising money for poverty at age 12 and
spent time in the Philippines with a family that lived in a garbage dump.
This profoundly changed Hugh who began looking at core problems,
community solutions and systemic change. As he grew up, he knew that he wanted
to create a sustainable movement that was global.
And so, In 2012, he launched Global Citizen. Evans learned that research showed
that of those who cared about global issues, only 18% took action because
people don’t always know what to do about these issues.
Using the
universal language of music, Global Citizen hosted concerts with famous
musicians to recruit and activate people. But you couldn’t buy tickets to these
concerts. You had to take actions to earn points on the Global Citizen
website to get a ticket. This is how Evans galvanized people who self-
identify as members of the human race before they identify with any particular
country or culture, to take action in ending extreme poverty, climate change,
gender inequality and more. Global Citizen partnered with The Global Fund in September of this year, putting on a concert in Montreal to coincide with the 5th Replenishment Conference for the Global Fund (see the blog just before this one).
The Global Citizen website tells
the stories of many global problems and projects. They are listed under
the headings of Girls and Women, Health, Education, Finance and Innovation,
Food and Hunger, Water and Sanitation, Environment, and Citizenship. Beside
each story are possible actions. Many actions are tweets, facebook shares
and petitions which are easy and normal for young people to take.
The Global
Citizen website says, “The effects of small actions are not always obvious, but
by working together specific and tangible outcomes are achieved. Global
citizens' voices influence world leaders and decision makers, and contribute to
shaping our world.”
So far 7,793,483 actions have been
taken. "Actions" are tweets, on-line petitions, emails and phone calls to
government leaders. Twenty-seven billion dollars in funding commitments as well as 158
commitments and policy announcements have been made by these leaders and 737
million lives are set to be affected. (Global Citizen website)
There are now millions of Global Citizens signed up
in 150 countries. Here are some of the changes that they have contributed
to:
- · 142,000 Global Citizens led the US government to double its investments into global partnerships for education.
- · 96,805 Global Citizens helped to persuade the World Bank to invest in water and sanitation.
- · 352,954 Global Citizens with Rotarians got the governments of Australia, Canada and the UK to boost investment for polio eradication and $665 million was pledged
Hugh Evans says in his personal and inspiring TED Talk “We live in a time that
favours the Global Citizen. We live in a time when every voice can be
heard.” This is because social media now exists and is being used by
millions of people worldwide. So Global Citizen partners with the world’s
leading NGO’s to increase the frequency, quality and impact of their actions.
Evans goes on to say, “This is the opportunity that
I see: the concept of Global Citizen , self-evident in its logic that
until now in practical and many ways has coincided with this particular moment
in which we are privileged to live. We as Global Citizens now have a unique
opportunity to accelerate large scale change around the world. “
“These are
ultimately global issues,” Evan says. “And
they can ultimately only be solved by global citizens demanding global
solutions from their leaders.” He invites everyone to “embrace the amazing
possibilities of the world we share.” Here
is a young man who is galvanizing other young people to tackle problems that
have older people paralyzed. And there
is space in this new story for older people to join in and be a part of the solution. Check out Global Citizen and be a part of it.
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