海外ボランティア募集！大学生・高校生・社会人にオススメ。春休み夏休みも通年開催。

The term “SDGs” is plastered all over our lives: in the news, school posters, school classes, and a myriad of SDGs programs that we see online. In fact, we encounter it so many times to the point where I have noticed that a lot of us have become numb to the feeling of urgency and value in the word, including myself. However, after taking part in this volunteer platform, I have become motivated to be actively involved in the contribution to the SDGs, to think ways to lend a helping hand to countries like developing countries like Cambodia, how Japan has done that so far.

Interacting with the kids from Cambodia through ZOOM and seeing their eager attitude towards learning, was a huge turning point in my motivation towards contributing to the SDGs. At the end of one of my classes with them, I remember a little girl grinning at me and saying that she was excited to see me again soon. Other kids would even make an effort to memorize my name, or enthusiastically raise their hands up with eager eyes, waiting for their turn to answer a question. Needless to say, Cambodia is a country that is in need of help to eliminate poverty. According to UNICEF, although progress is being made to increase children that have access to proper education, some of them are still unable to reach learning standards that are appropriate for their age. For instance, 25% of learners in Grade 3 are incapable of writing down a single word in a dictation test, and by the time they turn 17, 55% of teenagers drop out of school completely. Additionally, 8% out of 787 million primary school kids around the world are not able to attend school due to their deplorable living conditions. We have to keep in mind that that is 58.4 million children. Especially in world where receiving education is the biggest stepping stone to success, it is hard to assimilate that there are people all across the world with the same potential, dreams, and competence as me or anybody that’s lucky enough to receive an education, are not being able to live life to their fullest because of their living conditions.
I realized the importance of understanding our country's strengths and weaknesses when helping developing countries. What does Japan bring to the table? According to The Asahi Shinbun SDGs Action, one of the highest accomplished goals in Japan is the fourth goal (quality education). This is understandable, since Japan provides a large variety of education related volunteers/programs to developing countries, indicating that our nation is confident in the education fields. ぼらぷらis a prime example of this. However, by effectively exploiting our strength, not only does this benefit the country that we are helping, it also connects to the enhancement of our own security and abundance. For example, resources such as food and petroleum that are crucial to our lives are being transported from developing countries. It is necessary to acknowledge that preserving peace and prosperity in our country is only possible if the worlds peace is met first. Therefore, in order to reach the goals of the SDGs, we must maintain a reciprocal relationship with other countries.

Another thing that I noticed through my experience of this course, is that although there are seventeen goals in SDGs, a lot of them are correlated with each other. For example, accomplishing the fourth goal; quality education in a particular country will not only solve provide education for all citizens, it will also contribute in achieving the fifth goal; gender equality since each and every person in the nation have access to equal education regardless of their gender. Just like the butterfly effect, our small efforts as an individual such as taking part in SDGs related volunteers, turning off the lights when we are not using them, or recycling resources and creating a DIY project, can lead to several goals in the SDGs being achieved simultaneously. Each one of us must start from what we can do from what we have, since it will lead to goals being achieved quicker.

It is easy to turn a blind eye to situations that seem like they don’t affect us in any way. However, by educating yourself first about the and avidly participating in volunteers such as ぼらぷら, I believe that people will progressively start to realize that the SDGs is not someone else's business, and we as an individual are not helpless in contributing to it.