The Global Goals for Sustainable Development

 Why the Global Goals Matter?

For the first time in human history, we have the ability to solve the biggest challenges we face. By working together to achieve the Global Goals for Sustainable Development we will end extreme poverty and mal-nutrition, improve equality for girls and women, ensure basic access to education and medicine for all, and counter the effects of climate change on the air we breathe and the land and sea on which we rely for food.

September 25, 2015 – The United Nations General Assembly

Pope Francis spoke first:

The poor are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the consequences of abuse of the environment.

The Pope and other important leaders from around the world were gathered at the United Nations to ratify the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This pact, agreed to by every nation on earth, is meant to unify humanity and guide us to solutions for the biggest problems we face.

Comics Uniting Nations

Months prior to the launch of the Global Goals, Translation By Design’s founder Sandra DeLay, learned of the Comics Uniting Nations project and the plan to use comics to introduce the Global Goals to young readers around the world. She reached out with an offer of pro-bono translation support. It was gratefully accepted.

After bringing our team up to speed, the project partners, Reading With Pictures, The World’s Largest Lesson, and UNICEF, listened to our recommendations regarding multilingual translation and desktop publishing for comics. Soon, it would be up to our team of linguists, multi-lingual typesetters, and project managers to take the English version and make the comic ready for readers around the world!

The comic was available on the day the Global Goals were ratified made the goals accessible to more than half of the world’s population!!! Most importantly, it presents the Global Goals message in a way that is interesting and empowering to children.

Our hope is that millions of children around the world will learn about the Global Goals and feel empowered to take small steps in their own communities.

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
  — Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa

Would you help too?

Click here for a list of resources that are easy to share with the children (and adults) in your life. At least they’ll know about the goals. At most, they’ll do something...will you?