Story & Photo: Wesa Aapro

Today I was setting up posters of The World Summit Youth Awards 2009 on the notice boards of our school, with a fourth year producer student. As we were removing the expired notices and finding usable pins, we chatted about the Millennium Development Goals.


My companion confessed that she was only vaguely aware of the goals, but managed to point out female rights and education. It is not at all unusual that in Finland people don't know what the MDGs are, "something to do with Bono?". I started thinking about the situation. A non-military service person with a female student of a free education facility, in the field of culture. What a long road our society has travelled to make this happen. Maybe the reason we don't know about the goals is that most of them are stating the obvious for us.

Even though Big Brother gets more attention than MDGs in western countries, it doesn't mean the issues behind the MDGs are not seen important. In fact, many projects in this university and universities around Finland deal with the issues, most probably unaware of the MDGs.

I try to promote The World Summit Youth Award and MDGs as part of my job here. But I keep asking, for a young pioneer, is it important to know the name of what you do? I call it saving the world. It takes the seriousness away.

UN Millenium Development Goals
World Summit Youth Award WSYA
TAMK University of Applied Sciences is one of the WSYA partners, putting the Millenium Goals in action.
Wesa Aapro is member of the WSYA International Team. He does his non-military service at TAMK