St. Gallen Students Visited UNITAR to Learn about the New Agenda for Sustainable Development

Following to the 1st Youth Climate Dialogues with the Lilongwe Girls Secondary School (Malawi) held in November 2015, the students from St. Gallen (Switzerland) visited UNITAR to learn more about climate change and sustainable development.

8 February, Geneva, Switzerland - The school visit of the St.Gallen Kantonsschule am Burggraben (Switzerland) to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) featured a presentation of UNITAR’s history and role in the field of development cooperation, climate change and green development. The visit offered the opportunity to showcase the main on-line and interactive training tools developed by UNITAR in the field of climate change and green development as well as introduce the learning methodology at the basis of these products.

Group photo with St.Gallen students“How do we learn?”: a brief introduction to UNITAR’s training methodology by Mr. Ryan Blyth

A representative from Malawi, one of the UN CC:Learn partner countries, discussed with the students about the challenges of reducing CO2 emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Malawi, and how education and training can drive human behavior change towards sustainable development goals and improve a better management of ecosystems. After each presentation, the students were given the opportunity to ask direct questions to UNITAR’s facilitators.

Ms. Stella Funsani GAMA from Department of Forestry, Malawi 

Towards the end of the visit, the students engaged in a group work activity focused on the youth’s role in the promotion of the new 2030 Development Agenda. In the group work, each student developed a tweet on how they would address the issue linked to Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Here are some examples:

  • Remember your food – don’t let it go to waste #climateaction #responsibleconsumption #SDG12
  • I will accept who I am and who others are, because I want to see a more gender equal society #SDG5 #genderequality
  • I will #recycle more because I want to see less waste in the world #SDG12 #responsibleconsumption
  • There are different nations but we should treat everyone the same #SDG10 #reducedinequalities #noracism

You can see more students’ Tweets on #YouthClimateDialogues

Group work “Reaching the real challenge”

A short movie about the Youth Climate Dialogue is also available here: 

Youth Climate Dialogues


About the YCD Programme

The Youth Climate Dialogues is an initiative of the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and The One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership (UN CC:Learn) that aims to provide a forum for youth both in Switzerland and UN CC:Learn partner countries to share their views about climate change. Young people between the ages of 14 and 18 are not only highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but they are also tomorrow’s business leaders, decision makers and consumers. 

About UN CC:Learn

UN CC:Learn is a partnership of more than 30 multilateral organizations supporting countries to  design and implement systematic, recurrent and results-oriented climate change learning. At the global level, the partnership supports knowledge-sharing, promotes the development of common climate change learning materials, and coordinates learning interventions through a collaboration of UN agencies and other partners. At the national level, UN CC:Learn supports countries in developing and implementing national climate change learning strategies. Through its engagement at the national and global levels, UN CC:Learn contributes to the implementation of Article 6 of the UNFCCC on training, education and public awareness-raising, and the 2012-2020 Doha Work Programme. Funding for UN CC:Learn is provided by the Swiss Government and UN partners. The Secretariat for UN CC:Learn is hosted by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).


Photo 1: Group photo with St.Gallen students

Photo 2: “How do we learn?”: a brief introduction to UNITAR’s training methodology by Mr. Ryan Blyth

Photo 3: Ms. Stella Funsani GAMA from Department of Forestry, Malawi

Photo 4: Group work “Reaching the real challenge”

Photo 5: Flyer of Youth Climate Dialogues

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