The 2017 HLPF Opening: On Healing Otherness
Last July 10-19, 2017, the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) took place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The HLPF is an annual event by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) where countries, relevant UN entities, and other stakeholders convene to focus on the status of specific Sustainable Development Goals […]
2017 International Youth Day: Youth Building Peace
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKJmKH6zFXA] The Division for Social Policy and Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, collaborating with the Inter-agency Network on Youth Development’s Working Group on Youth and Peacebuilding on Friday, 11 August 2017 hosted the International Youth Day 2017 event at the United Nations Headquarters in New York under the theme […]
Unfolding Chapters: WYA Chapter Leaders in Solidarity
Jozef Tischner, in “The Spirit of Solidarity”, once said that when solidarity is born, all our bonds become visible and that one person begins to shoulder the burden of another. True enough, the World Youth Alliance have constantly seen this in the efforts of our members around the world. They have chosen to stand with […]
HDC Volunteers: Changing the World, One Classroom at a Time
When met with the question, “How can we change the world?”, these young people see it happening in the classroom, one student at a time. “Application of values must be properly executed in school and the community and that is also where our advocacy in World Youth Alliance comes in – we put emphasis on […]
Human Dignity Curriculum: An experience in Mexico
On 2014, the Human Dignity Curriculum (HDC) made it down to Mexico for the testing of a pilot. This was the first HDC pilot to be conducted in Spanish and it was administered by the staff of World Youth Alliance Latin America. HDC was administered to a bilingual school, located in the south of Mexico […]
Meet our New HDC Partner: Holy Family Healthcare!
“One of our jobs is to love those we encounter.” This statement perfectly encapsulates the kind of work Holy Family Healthcare does for the communities they serve. As a Catholic organization whose medical practice is based on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, the organization actively reaches out to serve the most vulnerable populations […]
On Imagining & Working on the Human Dignity Curriculum (HDC)
As an undergraduate student at New York University (NYU), I had the opportunity to take a class on the philosophy of the human person. The syllabus for that course provided a series of consecutive readings to answer one specific question: Who is the human person?—this course changed my life. Nobody before had asked me the […]
What do Beirut, New York, and five other global locations have in common? The HDC, of course.
July 31, 2017 – My first trip to Lebanon took place weeks after a school bus full of children was bombed. When I arrived in Beirut following this tragedy I learned how much my visit meant to our collaborators, members, and friends. I was brave, they said. Their willingness to serve as witnesses to human […]
Philosophical Applications on the Road to True Freedom
The concept of human freedom, at least in today’s society, is often an abstract, theoretical concept whose definition is variant and may change depending upon different situations. This complicates any attempt for governments to create national laws and, furthermore, for any kind of international treaties or resolutions to be made. For laws, treaties, and policies […]
I Choose Joy
I woke up at 6 am – hardly slept a wink the night before due to the lack of air conditioning in my apartment. My commute from Jersey took two and a half hours as trains and subways suffered from construction delays. I trudged through the streets of New York, my stomach angry at me […]