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Welcome to the Global STEM Festival (GSF) 2021 - ‘creating real life solutions for real life problems’!

Parents and guardians - don’t forget to have a look at the handy guide on the resources page to help you support the participants on their STEM journey!

What Are Our World’s Challenges Today?

For thousands of years, human beings have been creating solutions to problems they have faced. Humans created wheels to make transport quicker and more effective, the lightbulb to see in the dark and the Internet to connect the global society together.

Today, human beings face a new set of problems. These relate to:

Climate and Energy

Economic Growth

Education

Equality

Health

How Can We Solve These Challenges?

To help solve these challenges, the United Nations have developed 17 goals known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to give us, as humans, a plan to fight these challenges. They are a universal call to action and have the goals of:

1. Ending poverty,
2. Protecting the planet, and
3. Ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity

Check out this video showing Frieda’s journey on exploring the United Nations SDG’s and how we can all make a difference!

So...What Can You Do?

With this in mind, the Global STEM Festival (GSF), challenges you to find solutions to the problems that we are currently facing in the word to help us achieve the SDGs. Over the coming months, the GSF Team will provide you with the tools you need to create and build real life solutions to real life problems.

In August 2021, you will receive a list of problem statements relating to the below SDG themes:

1. Climate and Energy
2. Health
3. Education
4. Economic growth
5. Equality

It’s up to you to choose which theme and problem statement you want to solve — there are no limits to what your solution could be, so unleash your creativity and imagination!

What Should I Keep in Mind When Solving These Challenges?

The past year has shown how vulnerable our planet is and how quickly change can happen, but it has also shown us that we can all make a difference, no matter how small.

Mawlana Hazar Imam has reminded us that the natural beauty and resources of the world are gifted to us during our lifetime and that we must leave the world improved. Our Imam makes us aware of an important principle in Islam; we are caretakers (Khalifa) of Allah’s creation. Each of us has a moral responsibility to look after our Creator’s world and leave it in a better place than we found it.

We have seen through our many institutions how we are upholding this responsibility:

FOCUS - Provides humanitarian assistance and emergency relief to save lives, reduce suffering and create resilience in communities prone to man-made or natural disasters.

Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) -  Enables people to live in safe, sustainable, and resilient habitats with the opportunity to thrive, whether in a remote mountain village, a town, or a densely populated urban centre. It works with communities to help them prepare for and respond to natural disasters and the effects of climate change.

Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) -  focusses on the physical, social, cultural and economic revitalisation of communities in the developing world.

How Do I Get Started?

In the upcoming newsletters, we will begin to explore some of the key themes of the SDGs and how they affect our everyday lives. We will highlight projects that are working towards addressing the SDGs, one step at a time. It is important to remember that while we will be exploring these themes in different newsletters, they are all interconnected.

Your Challenge:

When you sit down for your next meal, think about:

1. Which of the 17 SDGs matters most to you?
2. Why is this one important to you?
3. How does this SDG link to the other 16 SDGs listed above?

Want to learn more?

Look out for the next edition of the GSF Newsletter, where we will be focusing on one of the five SDG themes for this year!

Keep an eye out for GSF video content that we will be releasing. These videos will help you solve the challenges we see above.