What is 17 Rooms?
17 Rooms is an innovative approach to spurring community action for the world’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
You will gather into working groups (or “Rooms”) to come up with actions that are big enough to matter but sized-right to get done over 12-18 months.
This event occurring Friday morning October 4th is sponsored by Fairfax County Leaders and meant to assemble students and teachers around the Fairfax County Schools. It’s taking place at Willow Oaks Administrative Center. The leaders will ask and listen to what others have to say and all will collaborate to motivate action around all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in their community.
17 Rooms has three core design principles
1. All SDGs get a seat at the table.
https://sdgs.un.org/
2. Take a next step, not the perfect step
You are encouraged to focus on collaborative actions for an SDG issue that are big enough to matter and sized-right to get done within 12-18 months.
3. Engage in conversations, not presentations
17 Rooms celebrates informal discussions among peers.
You are encouraged to leave your institutional agendas at the door and focus on what could be best for an issue, not for an organization.
17 Rooms provides a neutral platform to explore all 17 environmental, social, and economic priorities on equal footing.
There are four phases to any 17 Rooms exercise
1. First, you will meet with your “Room” to surface shared priorities and brainstorm 1-3 actions that Room members can take to advance progress.
You will work with other Room Members to surface community challenges and identify potential next steps.
Your perspectives, priorities, and resources are crucial to informing and implementing Room actions.
2. Then, you will visit one other Room for a cross-Room exchange.
You will have an opportunity provide feedback on another Room’s actions and explore potential cross-Room synergies.
3.After the cross-Room exchange, all Rooms will share their proposed actions in a rapid report-out session with all participants.
This is a great opportunity for you to learn about all of the proposed Room actions and identify pathways for next steps after the summit!
4. Finally, it is over to you to work with your Room members to take action!
Student Global Leaders and GCP ambassadors gathered in a congress of approximately 150 delegates from all over FCPS of Friday October 4th. This LINK will take you to the notes and action plans of each of the 17 Rooms gathered. Participants were asked to name up to three specific challenges and up to three specific actions that could be taken to move forward in the next 18 months within our local community.
I would like to share my thoughts on this global goal project that many people are working hard to achieve, and offer some potential solutions we could implement. Let me begin by introducing myself.
I come from a middle class family and have lived in an environment close to slums, so I understand firsthand the struggles that people in such communities face. Every day, they fight for their survival, and this experience has shaped my perspective. I believe that, like a puzzle, when we bring together all the right pieces, we can create a better world for everyone. Whether the final picture is beautiful or flawed depends on how well we come together.
I’ve been living in the United States for almost two years now, and I’ve seen many opportunities available to the public. While the U.S. offers many advantages, it’s not perfect there are still flaws that need to be addressed to make it a truly better place. Similarly, these opportunities should be available everywhere, so that every person, regardless of where they live, has the chance to thrive.