Last week, the United Nations Foundation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Tribal Brands, Inc. and members of the entertainment industry united to celebrate the launch of mPowering Action, a first-of-its-kind worldwide movement and mobile platform designed to inspire, empower and motivate a generation of global citizens to take positive action in their communities, for their families and for themselves.
Co-hosted by actress / UN Youth and Girl Up champion, Monique Coleman, mPowering Action was launched at a star-studded event during Grammy Week in Los Angeles, and featured a special appearance by super-producer Timbaland, the platform’s first Producer-In-Residence, who alongside Agnes Monica made the U.S. debut of the first song in support of the initiative.
The event also featured a performance by two-time Grammy-nominated DJ / producer Avicii, whose House for Hunger initiative is currently supporting The FEED Foundation. More than 600 global youth leaders, from 15 nations, alongside representatives from organizations like Girl Up, Model UN, the Always Believing Foundation and the UN Global Youth Forum, shared their stories and highlighted key issues in their countries and how collective action can provide a stimulus for global, social and environmental change.
Today, people under 25 make up 43 percent of the world’s population – in some countries, that number is as high as 60 percent. This amounts to nearly 4 billion young people living on the brink of the greatest technological advances and human progress while also surrounded by intractable public health epidemics, record jobless rates, outdated education systems and historic pressures on the planet’s resources. This generation of millennials is social media savvy and eager to help create real-world change, and for the first time in history, technology has the ability to facilitate change in the palm of their hands.
mPowering Action incentivizes youth to learn and engage through two popular mediums: the universal language of music and the ubiquity of the mobile phone. Bringing together A-list artists from around the world, a mobile application was developed by Tribal Brands that will offer young people everywhere exclusive content from globally recognized artists, as well as athletes and other celebrities, in exchange for a story or personal commitment to take action in one of five issue areas:
• Education – especially as it relates to young women and girls;
• Health inclusive of maternal health, vaccinations, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria;
• Reproductive and Sexual Rights;
• Energy Scarcity, Climate Change and Resource Management; and
• Jobs, Apprenticeships and Workforce development.
By working with organizations like the UN Foundation and Shell, mPowering Action aims to invite people into this process, providing a cross-sector approach to mobilizing 100 million young people to address some of the most pertinent development and resource management issues of our time.
“At the UN Foundation, our goal is to connect people and ideas with resources to help the global community solve challenging problems now and in the future,” said Kathy Calvin , Chief Executive Officer of the United Nations Foundation. “Mobile technology is at the heart of finding solutions to these problems and creating opportunities for young people. With the ubiquity of mobile technology and innovative platforms like mPowering Action, we are beginning to see the power of mobile tools and the potential of incentives for action in all corners of the world. We welcome and celebrate the mPowering Action approach that matches groundbreaking technology with people who care about global issues and want to support UN causes.”
As part of the launch event, the UN Foundation and mPowering Action’s lead corporate partner, Shell, are calling on the global nonprofit, entertainment and corporate communities to learn more about the initiative and join efforts to help reach billions of youth around the world, encouraging them to take part in creating a better future for themselves and their communities. The launch of the platform serves as a call-to-action to help reinvent the way organizations, the entertainment industry and corporations implement and measure social good and corporate social responsibility programs.
“As global population continues to rapidly grow, societies will become healthier and more prosperous. This growth will increase stress and scarcity on water, food and energy, our most vital, global resources. All sectors must work now with the youth of today and the leaders of tomorrow to better prepare for these challenges, implement solutions, and encourage personal action,” said Dr. Herbert Heitmann , Executive Vice-President of External Communications for Shell. “We’re thrilled to be working with the UN Foundation and its partners to empower youth everywhere to address critical issues that affect the future of our world.”
Through the mPowering Action mobile application, young people will be able to explore and articulate the issues that are important to them, search a global database of nonprofit organizations to get involved with, find local meetings and/or events that focus on issues relevant to them and connect with like-minded peers throughout the world.
Some of the first digital content on the mobile application will include songs recorded at the event, as well as an exclusive track by Timbaland and Agnes Monica.
The mPowering Action platform was originally debuted to youth leaders as part of UN-sponsored meetings at the ICPD Global Youth Forum in Bali, Indonesia in December 2012. For more information about the platform, please visit www.facebook.com/mPoweringAction and follow @mPoweringAction on Twitter.
Source: PR Newswire
