The Pivotal Generation: Emergence of The GYC
How do we ensure a better future when the world is facing so many existential challenges?
No one person or nation can answer this question on their own, but there is one population group that could: the youngest generations. Making up nearly 30% of the world’s population, we share a childhood of digital connectivity and threats of global climate change. Most recently, COVID-19 has shown us that our lives are deeply interdependent, whether or not we wish to be.
Our security, well-being, and the quality of our futures depends on whether or not the international order responds to challenges efficiently and cohesively; and our leaders haven’t given us much reason to be optimistic. But if we start organizing around interdependence now, we can and will shape global policy. 
The Global Youth Coalition for OneShared.World is a diverse movement of young leaders starting to do exactly this. Our mission is to build an active, global voice capable of solving our greatest common challenges for ourselves, for our children, and for all future generations.
Still in its first year, the GYC has taken its first major steps towards this goal through a collaboration with Model UN Impact. Starting on March 20th, the two organizations hosted a series of debates and discussions addressing the issue of water, sanitation, hygiene, and pandemic protection for all by 2030; convening hundreds of students from 60+ countries.
The resulting resolutions, which have been combined down to one, represent the solutions of the global youth to one of the most urgent challenges we face today. The #WASHPAP2030 campaign will continue with targeted advocacy that aims to place this unprecedented resolution before the General Assembly in September.
While the #WASHPAP2030 campaign continues, we are also working to build the foundations of long-term impact through the establishment of a global chapter system. As a young, experimental community, different regions are pioneering their own approaches to this mission.
In the Philippines, Dean Henry Tenedoro of Saint Clare College is working to embed the lessons of interdependence into the core curriculum of schools throughout the country.
In India, Arnav Jalan is establishing a regional administration to network and engage universities and organizations across the country.
As a Global Youth Coalition, we are connecting changemakers from Brazil, Tunisia, the United States, and many more countries; sharing best practices, ideas, and common goals. Our movement is looking to expand wherever there is passion for the vision and values of OneShared.World.
This decade has already been a period of immense change, and the world will look very different by the end of it. As a generation, we have the power to shape that outcome. Let curiosity and compassion guide your action, from the local level to to the global sphere. It’s time to build a true global community, and fight for what we hold dear.
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Interested in becoming a guest blogger with Carpe Global? Contact Sarah Hyser at sarah.hyser@student.shu.edu with your ideas, and we’ll be in touch!
Samuel Stone
Sam Stone is a third-year undergraduate at Wheaton College MA studying International Relations and is the Director of the Global Youth Coalition for OneShared.World. He is writing his first book, The Sunblessed Ascendent, and is expected to publish in December 2021.
